Dhananjayan Sivaguru ("Danny") Sriskandarajah (born December 1975) is th
Chief Executive
of

Oxfam GB Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. History Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...

. Until December 2018, he was the Secretary General of

CIVICUS CIVICUS is an international non-profit organisation, which describes itself as “a global alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world." Founded in 1993, the organisation today counts more than 8500 memb ...

, a global alliance of civil society organisations. Prior to that, Danny was Director General of the

Royal Commonwealth Society The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) is a non-governmental organisation with a mission to promote the value of the Commonwealth and the values upon which it is based. The Society upholds the values of the Commonwealth Charter, promoting conf ...

, a large NGO devoted to Commonwealth affairs based in London, and was the first non-British and youngest person to head this 140-year-old organisation.

Early life and education

Sriskandarajah was born in Sri Lanka, the son of Sri Lankan Tamils. He migrated to Australia at a young age.(28 October 1997.) "Migrants' son is Australia's first Asian Rhodes Scholar", ''The Straits Times''. Sriskandarajah was educated at

James Ruse Agricultural High School , motto_translation = Deeds not words , established = , type = Government-funded co-educational academically selective and specialist secondary day school , educational_authority = NSW Departm ...

in Carlingford,

New South Wales, Australia ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, graduating in 1993. He was the school captain and well mentored by Art Herger. Sriskandarajah then attended the University of Sydney, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Economics and Social Science in 1998. During 1995 and 1996, he resided at Wesley College, a residential college within, but separate from, the university. After becoming the first Asian Australian to win a Rhodes scholarship in 1998, Sriskandarajah then matriculated to

Magdalen College Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

, a constituent college of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, to read for an M.Phil. and then a D.Phil. in international development. His research focused on inequalities and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

Career

Sriskandarajah held various posts from 2004 to 2009 including Deputy Director of the left-leaning think tank, the

Institute for Public Policy Research The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is a progressive think tank based in London. It was founded in 1988 and is an independent registered charity. IPPR has offices in Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester, and Edinburgh. Funding comes from ...

. He was Director General of the Royal Commonwealth Society, from 2009 to 2012, the youngest ever person and the first non-Briton to head this organisation. He was the Secretary General of

a global alliance of civil society organisations, headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, from January 2013 to December 2018. He was the fourth person to hold this position, following Miklos Marschall (Hungary),

Kumi Naidoo Kumi Naidoo (b 1965 in Durban, South Africa) is a human rights and climate justice activist. He was International Executive Director of Greenpeace International (from 2009 through 2015) and Secretary General of Amnesty International (from 201 ...

(South Africa) and Ingrid Srinath (India). In this role Sriskandarajah regularly represented civil society at international fora including the UN General Assembly in New York and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Danny was appointed the Chief Executive of

in January 2019. He is a Trustee of

Comic Relief Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...

. In July 2018 Sriskandarajah was announced as a member of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, co-chaired by

Jack Ma Jack Ma Yun (; born 10 September 1964) is a Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate. In addition, he co-founded Yunfen ...

and

Melinda Gates Melinda French Gates (born Melinda Ann French; August 15, 1964) is an American philanthropist and former multimedia product developer and manager at Microsoft. French Gates has consistently been ranked as one of the world's most powerful women ...

. He was previously a member of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Finance from 2015 to 2016. In 2012, he was named a

Young Global Leader Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL), was created by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. The YGL, a non-profit organization managed from Geneva, Switzerland, is under the supervision of the Swiss government ...

by the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

. He is known as both a researcher and commentator on foreign policy and democracy, including as a guest on the BBC World Service and contributor to

the Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

and

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

. He has written books and reports on several migration-related topics, including on British emigration. Sriskandarajah is an outspoken supporter of the

Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme *Bl ...

, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations.

Personal life

On 16 August 2003, Sriskandarajah married

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

ian Barrister Suzanne Julia Lambert in

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

References

External links

Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

*
Interview with Danny Skiskandarajah
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sriskandarajah, Dhananjayan 1975 births Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Australian people of Sri Lankan Tamil descent Australian Rhodes Scholars Living people People educated at James Ruse Agricultural High School Sri Lankan Hindus Sri Lankan Tamil activists University of Sydney alumni