Serena Sasingian

Serena Sasingian is a lawyer by profession and co-founder of The Voice Inc., a leading youth development organization she co-founded whilst attending the University of Papua New Guinea. The Voice Inc. is a citizens led movement promoting youth leadership and focuses on increasing citizens led development to solve problems in their communities.

With centres for leadership in major Universities in the country, the organization is focused on raising voices to power through ensuring people have a say on public policy issues that affect their lives.

She is currently the Head of Gender and Leadership Programs with the Oil Search Foundation where she oversees a program portfolio of over US$2 million. Before joining the Foundation, she worked as a senior Policy Lawyer with the Department of Justice and Attorney General where she was in charge of the implementation of domestic violence legislation and the Governments Action Plan to address Sorcery and Witchcraft related violence.

Sasingian has been very active in the nonprofit sector where she sits on the Board for several organizations including The Voice Inc., Femili PNG, which is a non-governmental organization that runs a Case Management Centre in Lae to assist survivors of family sexual violence access essential services and the Lowy Institute’s, PNG-Australia Network that holds various events to increase people to people links between both countries. Her work in the non-profit sector was recently recognized with her appointment as the youngest member of Oil Search Ltd’s Board Training Program as an Independent Committee Member of the Health, Safety and Sustainability Board Sub-Committee.

She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Papua New Guinea and a Master of Business specializing in philanthropy and non-profit studies from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

Sasingian was an International IDEA Board of Advisers Member from 2019-2021.