Sonya Funna Evelyn serves as president and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, a global humanitarian organization committed to healing the wounds of torture on individuals, their families and their communities, and ending its use around the world. Ms. Funna Evelyn has decades of senior leadership experience in global development and humanitarian response. Prior to joining CVT, she served as vice president for sustainable development at ADRA International, where she helped shape organizational strategy across a global network of over 120 country offices serving 26 million people annually. During her tenure, she was a key driver of strategic growth, setting vision and direction across the organization’s global platform and leading over $160 million in annual U.S.-based growth through high impact partnerships.
With a deep commitment to health and wellbeing, Ms. Funna Evelyn specializes in building and sustaining partnerships that span bilateral and multilateral agencies, corporations, academic institutions and philanthropic foundations. Her career also includes co-founding a Lagos-based nonprofit focused on HIV/AIDS education in schools; leading board level strategy and governance; and strengthening senior leadership pipelines across global organizations. Prior to her career in international development, Ms. Funna Evelyn worked as a home-based therapist, providing care and treatment to newly migrated populations and adolescents who had faced significant trauma and abuse.
Born in Sierra Leone, West Africa and raised in the United States, Ms. Funna Evelyn’s leadership is grounded by lived experience and a lifelong commitment to dignity, healing and justice. She holds a Master’s degree in International Development Studies from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from George Mason University. Ms. Funna Evelyn serves on the board of directors of Church World Service and CORUS International. She is based in Maryland with her husband and their two daughters.
