Elena holds a Global Executive MBA from Georgetown University/ESADE  Business School, a Master's degree in International Relations from Sciences Po in Paris and a  Bachelor's degree in Political Science and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of  Trieste, in Italy. She is fluent in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Elena is the  Executive Director of TOSTAN, an organisation based in Africa that empowers communities to  develop and realise their vision for the future and inspires large-scale movements leading to  dignity for all. She is Italian and has 20 years of professional experience in Africa. She is  specialised in the management of development programmes in the field, with a focus on  community development, particularly in the area of community health and economic  empowerment. Since her appointment as head of Tostan in 2017, Elena has led the  organisation's new scaling up strategy which aims to scale up community wellbeing through  three routes: Direct programme implementation, Training and sharing, Global influence.  Today, Tostan implements its education programmes directly in hundreds of rural  communities in five West African countries. It has also hosted more than 600 trainees from 49  countries at its training centre in Senegal and is increasingly playing an important role in the  global community. Elena is a co-founder of Catalyst2030, a collaborative movement for joint  action on systems change to achieve the SDGs. She is Chair of the Neurotech’s Board of Sustainability and Impact Committee.