Yasmeen Hassan is the global executive director of Equality Now. 

Before becoming the global executive director in 2011, she served as deputy executive director and director of Programs and edited Equality Now’s first report on discriminatory laws.

Yasmeen brings her long experience and passion for human rights to her role, after working for the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Secretary-General’s study on violence against women. Yasmeen also clerked on the D.C. Court of Appeals and practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and California.

She has served on the Council on Foreign Relations’ advisory board on Child Marriage, provided guidance to the U.N. Trust to End Violence Against Women, and advocates for women’s rights through appearances in numerous media outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Yasmeen holds a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School where, among other subjects, she studied Islamic law and women’s rights. She also holds a B.A., magna cum laude, in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, USA.