Jane is a Senior Director on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality at The Asia Foundation. She provides intellectual and programmatic leadership for The Asia Foundation’s programmes to empower women and advance gender equality in Asia. Jane oversees a team in Washington and San Francisco and works with the foundation’s 19 country offices to influence governments and institutions in policy and legal change while supporting local partners to advocate for and realize those changes on the ground including transforming social norms.
Jane was previously Vice President of Programs at Global Fund for Women, an organisation that uses its powerful networks to find, fund and amplify the work of women who are building social movements that are challenging the status quo and working to transform systems and economies. Jane has also worked as Vice President of Development with Women’s World Banking in New York. Prior to this, she was Executive Director of International Women’s Development Agency in Australia, supporting women’s rights organisations and movements across Asia and the Pacific. In this role, she led an Asia Pacific Breakthrough women, faith and development initiative that generated $1.2 billion in new funds for women and girls in the region.
Jane’s human rights and public policy work has been recognised by a number of awards and fellowships, including a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide; an Advance Foundation Global Ambassadors Award; an Asia Pacific Business Women’s Council Woman of Distinction Award; a Churchill Fellowship to improve Humanitarian Emergency Response Models for Australia and the region; an Endeavour Fellowship focused on increasing Pacific women’s political participation; a Vietnam Women’s Union Humanitarian Medal; and a Vincent Fairfax Ethics in Leadership Fellowship. Jane is also one of the original 75 Australian climate change presenters trained by Al Gore, and she has written a book called “Citizen Jane: Transformative Citizenship in a Globalized World”, which was published in 2013.
She is an advisory board member of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics and is a Patron of Marie Stopes International. She is on the Program Board of Episcopal Relief and Development (USA), is an Advisor to the Blue Ribbon Movement in India, and is a member of the Global Atlantic Senior Fellow Advisory Forum.
Jane holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney and a BA (Hons) from the University of Adelaide.
In my life, I finally have a sense of my own power. I want to use that power fully, and to mentor and support others to do the same. I want to say ‘yes’ to risk-taking and change, and to influence the design and delivery of policies and programs that affect populations in countries and communities across the globe.Jane Sloane