Kenyan lawyer Binaifer Nowrojee appointed president of Open Society Foundations

Kenyan lawyer Binaifer Nowrojee has been appointed as the new president of Open Society Foundations (OSF), a leading U.S.-based private funder of independent human rights groups.

OSF, founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, announced Nowrojee’s appointment through a statement on Monday, saying she will take over from Mark Malloch-Brown who is stepping down in June.

Nowrojee will be the first woman from the global south to lead OSF.

“When I established the Open Society Foundations, I wanted them to be truly global,” Soros said of the grantmaking network he founded in 1993, “At the outset, that was merely an aspiration. But now I feel that this ambition has been fulfilled with Binaifer Nowrojee as president of the Foundations, supported by an international team. I am grateful to Mark Malloch-Brown for all he has done, and for laying the groundwork for us to reach this goal.” 

Nowrojee was most recently OSF’s vice president of programs and part of a senior leadership team overseeing a large transition that started in 2021.

She has over three decades of experience, having previously held a range of senior positions at the network, including East Africa Foundation director, regional director for Asia Pacific, and vice president for Organizational Transformation.

Before joining Open Society, Nowrojee also served as legal counsel at Human Rights Watch and as a staff attorney at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

She has worked extensively on prosecuting sexual violence under international law and testified as an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Nowrojee holds a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School and a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School.

She is the daughter of veteran Kenyan lawyer and writer Pheroze Nowrojee.