Beatrice Karanja

Associate Director

  • Beatrice is responsible for the strategic direction and management of Portland’s Nairobi office, which coordinates our Africa-focused work
  • She joins Portland in October 2009 with 15 years’ experience of designing and running communications campaigns in Africa, including work for UNICEF, Oxfam GB and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation on key issues affecting communities on the continent. Her work involved developing and implementing communication and media strategies for UNICEF’s Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS Campaign, Oxfam’s Economic Justice and Control Arms campaigns.
  • Since joining Portland, Beatrice has worked on managing media for two high-profile visits to Kenya by Kofi Annan, as well as working with regional and local media contacts on placement of key op-eds around the Darfur Crisis and the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.
  • Beatrice spent five years covering East, Central and Horn of Africa for the BBC and Reuters as a TV and radio producer, covering issues including drought in South Sudan, land relocation in Zimbabwe, and the war in Democratic Republic of Congo.
  • Beatrice has travelled extensively throughout the continent building up a strong network of contacts within the media, international non-governmental organizations and civil society.
  • Beatrice read Communications at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh