The Ms. Foundation for Women has announced that Dorothy Q. Thomas will assume the role of Interim President and CEO, effective September 3, 2013, while a search for the Foundation’s permanent President and CEO is under way. Thomas will succeed Anika Rahman, who will be leaving the Foundation to pursue other professional interests.
Thomas has served on the Ms. Foundation’s board, is a member of the board of the British Institute for Human Rights and sits on the advisory boards of the ACLU Human Rights Project, the Lambent Foundation and Strategic Philanthropy.
An independent scholar and human rights consultant, Thomas has played an important role in advancing human rights initiatives within the U.S. and beyond. Most recently, she served as Senior Strategy Consultant to the Sunrise Initiative on Human Rights in the United States. From 2009 to 2011, she was a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. In 2008, she held a visiting fellowship at the London School of Economics' Centre for the Study of Human Rights.
In 2005, Thomas co-founded the U.S. Human Rights Fund, a collaborative grantmaking initiative to support domestic human rights work in the United States. She was the founding Director of the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Division, serving in that position from 1990 to 1998.
A 1998 MacArthur fellow and a 1995 Bunting Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Thomas received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in 1998 from President and Mrs. Clinton.
Thomas earned a Master’s degree from Georgetown University, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1995.
"We are delighted to have Dorothy Thomas serve in this interim role, as she brings years of experience in the field and a deep understanding of the Foundation's mission and operations. The Board and I look forward to working with Dorothy in this new role," said Ms. Foundation for Women Chair of the Board of Directors Catherine Raphael.