Biographies of Founding Board Members of
Women Ventures International

Janet T Adetu is a seasoned Chartered Accountant, with strong interpersonal and leadership skills. She is an enthusiastic, self motivated individual with the ability to motivate others.

As a child Janet was educated in the United Kingdom. She holds a Bsc in Economics, and a Masters in Business Administration, Edinburgh, Scotland. She qualified as a chartered accountant with the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) UK. She is equally a member of the Chartered Management Institute, UK and the Institute of Management Consultants, UK.

Janet has vast accounting and auditing experience having worked extensively with both KPMG and Ernst & Young Chartered Accountants. Prior to this she worked as Finance Manager for Small and Medium Operators Finance and Trust Company as well as with the African International Bank, Lagos.

Having cultivated an insatiable passion for humanity over the years Janet has played active roles in various philanthropic organisations including, International Women’s Club, Nairobi, Kenya, American Women’s Club, Lagos and the Ghana International Women’s Club, Accra, all encompassing the same objective of promoting health, youth and women empowerment plus environmental development. She is currently the President of Golden Hearts Trust an NGO for children with Congenital Heart Disorders.

Janet has a portfolio of hobbies; her positive energy is geared towards the use of her hands. She enjoys baking, cooking, jewellery making and collecting orchids. She also loves listening to contemporary gospel music. Janet resides in Accra with her husband and is blessed with three children.

Janet’s vision is to be a role model for self-less service and excellence. In that regard she stands for adding value and creating amazing relationships.

Rose Karikari Anang is the executive director of the Ghana Employers Association (GEA). She provides direction and administers the organization which is the mouthpiece of employers. She specializes in industrial relations, human resource management and development, employment and labour issues. Until she joined the GEA she was the director of Human Resources and Administration of Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) where she managed the human resource management and development needs of the organization and was also involved in the restructuring of GPHA to involve private sector participation in cargo handling. Ms. Karikari Anang is the project director responsible for providing technical assistance to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust in the areas of organizational and operational realignment involving the development of organizational restructuring options for analysis and evaluation by the Board and Management of the Trust.

She has several years of experience in handling socially sensitive enterprise restructuring and currently serves on the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Employment and Social Policy Committee of the Governing Body.

Ms. Karikari Anang holds a degree from the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, a MSc. in Port and Shipping from the World Maritime University in Sweden and an MBA from the University of Ghana Legon.

Cleta Brown is a lawyer residing in Vancouver, Canada. She received her legal education at the University of Victoria and at the University of London (UK). Her legal career includes work as general counsel to the Ombudsman of British Columbia (BC), as a crown prosecutor and as vice chair of the BC Review Board (a forensic psychiatric adjudicating body). Currently Ms. Brown enjoys a part-time solo practice in the areas of criminal defense and family law. Ms. Brown has demonstrated a commitment to public service throughout her adult life. At this time Ms. Brown sits on the boards of the YWCA – Vancouver (an $11mil.budget and 100+ staff) and the Legal Education & Action Fund (LEAF - an equality seeking litigation and law reform national organization). She is also chairperson of the Status of Women & Human Rights Committee of the University Women's Club, Vancouver (450+ members). Prior to these positions, Ms. Brown was president of MOSAIC (BC's largest immigrant/refugee settlement services organization) and a longtime board director of the Canadian Women's Foundation ( Canada 's first and largest women's grant-giving foundation). As well as her busy volunteer and career work, Ms. Brown is married and cares for two young energetic boys.

Dorothy K. Gordon is the founding director-general of Ghana 's first Advanced Information Technology Institute (AITI), the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT.  She leads a team responsible for delivering on the AITI mandate: stimulating growth of the ICT sector and the use of ICT to accelerate development in the ECOWAS sub-region.   AITI provides globally benchmarked IT training; works to create the right environment to stimulate high-level context-responsive ICT research and development and provides consulting services to support clients in achieving global quality standards.

Her work as a specialist in international development spans over 20 years with increasing leadership and management responsibilities within and outside the UN; including a period as UNDP deputy resident representative in Delhi, India. Her experience spans public, private as well as civil society organizations. She has worked as a management consultant advising on business strategy; public sector reform; aid management; as well as the design and delivery of development-oriented training and other capacity-building programmes in Africa and Asia.  She is co-chair of the Commission on Economic Opportunity for the World IT Forum (WITFOR) as well as a member of the Champions Network of the UNGAID - UN Global Alliance on ICT for Development.

Ms. Gordon holds degrees from the University of Ghana and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Sussex, UK.

Joana S. Foster was educated in Ghana and the United Kingdom and is qualified to practice as a lawyer in both countries. A social activist for over 30 years, Joana Foster has worked most of her adult life in the United Kingdom as a law lecturer in various colleges and a practicing lawyer specializing in immigration law, divorce, welfare rights (housing and labour rights). As a lecturer, she was significantly involved in writing curricula for Black and Women studies. In her spare time, Ms. Foster gave free legal advice to clients in various women's and ethnic centres. Over the last 15 years, she has been working in Africa first as a country director for CUSO in Ghana, then as a regional coordinator for Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) based in the headquarters in Zimbabwe. She is one of the co-founders of the Gender and Human Rights Documentation Centre in Accra, Ghana and also the Initiator and first board president of the African Women's development Fund (AWDF) - the first Africa-wide Fund for women in Africa. She was also a member of the first expert panel to draft the Protocol on Women's Rights to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. She was a board member for the African Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Studies; the African Development Education Network, vice-president and a board member for MATCH International Centre based in Canada. She continues to serve on the board of the African Women's Development Fund. She is currently the gender advisor to the UN Mission in Liberia. Ms. Foster has published various articles on women's human rights with specific emphasis on women's economic rights.

Madonna O. Larbi has extensive experience working on women's issues and with organizations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. She has excellent knowledge of issues, public policies and policy-making processes and policy analysis related to international development. Ms. Larbi has demonstrated leadership qualities with the ability to recognize potential in fledging groups and individuals and the capacity to mentor them to their full potential. She has significant project planning, management and evaluation skills and has proven interpersonal skills, ability to motivate staff and to work effectively and cooperatively with a board of directors.

Ms. Larbi was for 12 years executive director of MATCH International Centre based in Canada, worked with both governments in Canada and the southern hemisphere and with women's organization on issues of concern to women. Before then, she was executive director of the National Organization of Immigrant Women of Canada representing over 45% of the women population at that time in Canada. She has undertaken a number of international assignments including as an advisor to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Sri Lanka and Jamaica; identifying and working with women's organizations of African descent in Peru and Honduras; and as a mediator mediating conflicts within women's organization in Jamaica.

Ms. Larbi has served on a variety of boards including the YWCA of Canada, the North-South Institute - a think-tank based in Canada; MediaWatch ( Canada ) which monitors the negative portrayal of women in the media in Canada; SOS Children's Villages of Canada; Status of Women Committee of UNESCO ( Canada ) and the African Women's Development Fund. Ms. Larbi was educated in Ghana and Canada in Journalism and Law and is currently a consultant in international and social development with specific emphasis on women.