After almost four years, Marta will soon be leaving GSF to pursue new endeavors.
I want to thank Marta for her outstanding leadership, creativity, and enthusiasm.
Marta has been a talented and inspiring leader for GSF and its partners, playing an instrumental role as a co-creator in its first conceptualization, and then leading the organization as Executive Director since April 2019. From its inception, she has brought an unusual blend of private and public sector experience to GSF.
Under Marta’s skilled leadership, in just a few years GSF has become an established, respected, and innovative – at times, even transformative – alliance in international development, making a concrete impact on the lives of the poorest.
Partnership has been at the center of Marta’s vision for GSF. She has led with her conviction that close collaboration with extraordinary partners, based on mutual respect and learning, is a key aspect of GSF’s added value. In advancing these partnerships she has valued integrity, transformative and scalable innovation, and a solution-oriented focus on impact, always combined with closeness to the poorest and the most marginalized.
In this spirit, she has leveraged her deep understanding to build a multiplicity of trustworthy relationships within two of the largest networks in the world – the corporate ecosystem and the Catholic Church. She envisaged, and has succeeded in pioneering, a fresh model based on innovative collaborative approaches, constructing bridges and establishing scalable and impactful solutions for the most vulnerable.
As a legacy, she leaves a ground-breaking collaborative approach to job creation for migrants and refugees, built in partnership with corporations and Catholic congregations. Rooted in and inspired by decades of experience of Catholic congregations and the innovation of corporations, this solution has the potential to be scaled up and implemented in dozens of countries, reaching thousands of migrants and refugees. Marta was also instrumental in defining a partnership with Unilever to scale a successful program in a new geography through TRANSFORM in Latin America, an initiative announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May 2022.
Under Marta’s leadership, GSF supported UISG (International Union of Superiors General) and the Talitha Kum network to initiate a first-ever program of global advocacy for Catholic Sisters as outspoken leaders for development. Through this partnership, more than 800 Sisters have been trained as advocates, the voices of Sisters have been raised at impactful moments such as the 2022 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, as well as the Global Citizen concerts in 2021, and soon the COP27 environmental summit, reaching an estimated audience of one billion people.
Marta has been instrumental in further enhancing partnerships for women and men religious, and in building strong and trustworthy relationships with the Holy See, following the guidance of our Chair of the Advisory Board, His Eminence Cardinal Silvano Tomasi.
Finally, under Marta’s leadership, multiple Covid-19 campaigns to counteract vaccine hesitancy reached more than 30 million people in Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, and the Central African Republic. To reach this remarkable result, partnerships with foundations, NGOs and the Catholic community were once again the key to success. In particular, Marta took the initiative to partner with the Vatican Dicastery of Communications creating a powerful model for future campaigns.
These are just few examples of what GSF and our outstanding partners have achieved together under Marta’s leadership in four short years, building a strong foundation on which to construct the next stage of GSF.
During Marta’s tenure, GSF has focused not only on achieving specific results, but also on creating a culture of innovation and collaboration, embracing responsibility and respecting partners on the path to scalable and effective solutions, co-designed with partners and the people we seek to serve.
As a true leader and co-creator, Marta now leaves space for the next generation of leaders to build on her accomplishments.
We will miss Marta’s courageous and collaborative leadership, but we are certain she will continue to create a more inclusive economy and society in her future career path.
I would like to end with the words of one of our key partners to describe Marta’s leadership: “Marta’s own style of leadership is based on encouragement, insightful suggestions and the ability to push partners beyond what they might think they can accomplish!”.
Anthony R. Tersigni
Chair of the Board of Directors
