Repeatedly recognized as one of the most influential women in the field of development cooperation in Sweden, Kristina Henschen is the Secretary General of the Swedish Public Service Broadcasting Foundation for Development Cooperation; Radio Aid.

Before this, she was the Executive Director & Secretary General of the Swedish trade union solidarity support organization, Union to Union, and the Chair of the civil society platform organisation, CONCORD.

Henschen also has seven years’ prior experience with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

While working for Sida, Henschen was based in Eastern Europe, Russia, and at its headquarters in Stockholm where she coordinated the Human Rights Programme to Belarus. Kristina also worked with human rights and gender equality for several years for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Yerevan, Armenia.

Henschen’s early career was as a journalist. Her award-winning radio documentary on HIV infection among young women and children in South Africa as a result of sexual abuse was broadcast in 2002 by Swedish Public Radio. She started her journalism career at only 17 years old, working on a film about Nelson Mandela and his release from prison.