I am delighted to share that Melissa Huerta has today joined Connect Humanity as our Chief Program Officer. Melissa has been a key advisor to the organization since the beginning, serving as an inaugural member of our Steering Community. We’re thrilled to welcome her on board full-time to help power our mission to advance digital equity.

Melissa will lead our philanthropic program strategy and manage our grants portfolio, including serving as the primary point of contact supporting our grantees. She brings an impressive 15-year track record working at the intersection of tech and human rights where she has designed global grantmaking programs and helped organizations build effective strategies. She also has a wealth of global experience, having worked across the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and is fluent in Japanese and Spanish.

Melissa joins us from Simply Secure, where she was the Managing Director. Before this, she worked at the Mozilla Foundation where she played a key strategic role managing $25 million in philanthropic programs, and led the development of many of Mozilla’s grants and awards programs.

With Melissa joining, Jane Coffin’s role as our Chief Community Officer will evolve to focus on further strengthening the communities we work with, driving our research and policy agenda, and growing our impact internationally. Jane will spend even more time providing high-touch, high-impact technical assistance and support to help communities make informed choices on their path to digital equity.

Jane and Melissa both sit on Connect Humanity’s Executive Team and will be key voices shaping the future of the organization.

To make the change we want to see in the world, we depend on bringing on great people and I am incredibly proud of the team we’re building at Connect Humanity. Having more than doubled in size in four months, we have brought in the deep technical, financial, and policy expertise we need to achieve our mission, and strengthened our community-building capacity and core operations, including finance, communications, and fundraising.

I’m grateful to our team for all they do — and look forward to welcoming new team members in the coming year as we grow our capacity to work with more communities to build a digital future on their terms.