Our Board

Board Member Juliane Kronen visiting 2010 Laureate SAPPROS, credit: Right Livelihood.

Meet our Board

Members of our Board of Trustees contribute their expertise to improve our governance and strategic development.

Our course is decided by our Board of Trustees, which convenes several times each year. Trustees also make up part of the Jury deciding over the recipients of the Award.

CHAIR OF THE BOARD

Gunilla Hallonsten

about Gunilla

Gunilla Hallonsten holds a Ph D in Theology and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from University of Lund in Sweden.

Gunilla has previously been Acting Executive Director, Acting International Director, Policy Director, Policy Advisor on HIV, Gender and Theology within Church of Sweden. She has also been a Senior Advisor on Gender Justice at ACT Alliance, based in South Africa, and earlier on Coordinator on HIV and Gender Equality in Southern Africa for Church of Sweden, based in Eswatini.

Gunilla has a longstanding commitment to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) especially working on global policy and advocacy related to SRHR, HIV and gender equality, and she has also been a board member of the Swedish RFSU.

Her knowledge on the areas gender, SRHR and theology was deepened through working for many years in Southern Africa with FBOs and CSOs on HIV and gender equality. She gained experience within humanitarian work through the humanitarian specialization on Community-based psycho-social support, as well as from being Senior Advisor on Gender at ACT Alliance in relation to their advocacy and policy work.

Gunilla is currently the Dean of Malmö where she among other things works with interreligious work for social cohesion and peace. She is also a member of the World Council of Churches Commission of Churches for International Affairs.

BOARD member

Joshua Castellino

about joshua

Joshua Castellino is Executive Dean of the College of Arts, Law & Social Sciences at Brunel University of London. He previously served as Co-Executive Director of Minority Rights Group, where he brought extensive legal expertise in minority rights, access to justice and the interplay between security, development and human rights. He also served as Dean of the School of Law at Middlesex University, which he founded in 2012, demonstrating a longstanding commitment to building institutions that advance human rights education and practice.

Board Member

Nnimmo Bassey

about Nnimmo

Nnimmo Bassey is the Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an environmental and ecological think tank and advocacy organisation. He co-founded Environmental Rights Action (ERA) to address environmental human rights issues in Nigeria, serving as its Executive Director for two decades. Bassey is a poet and author using his work as tools for environmental justice campaigns. He serves on boards of national and international environmental networks.

Bassey received the Right Livelihood Award in 2010.

Board Member

Kajsa Övergaard

about Kajsa

Kajsa Övergaard was a Right Livelihood staff member from 2008-2024 and has deep knowledge about Laureates and the history of the Award. Throughout her working life, within both academia and civil society, she has aimed for systemic and interdisciplinary approaches to peace, justice and sustainability. Today, she is also active on the local level with support to small cooperatives with a focus on sustainable, local food production.

BOARD MEMBER

Reinhard Loske

about Reinhard

Reinhard Loske brings decades of experience as a scholar, researcher and author on climate policy and social transformation. Previously, he has served as a member of the German Bundestag, including as environmental policy spokesman for the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party. Between 2007 and 2011, he was Senator for the Environment, Construction, Transport and Europe in the city of Bremen.

Among other positions, Reinhard is a Senior Associate Fellow of the German Foreign Policy Council (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik) and a member of ECOROPA, the European Network for Ecological Reflection and Action.

CO-OPTED TO THE BOARD

Ole von Uexkull

about Ole

Ole von Uexkull holds Master’s degrees in Environmental Science (Lund University) and European Studies (Freie Universität, Humboldt Universität, and Technische Universität Berlin). After his studies, he won a fellowship for the Postgraduate Programme in International Affairs of the Robert Bosch Foundation, the German National Academic Foundation, and the German Foreign Office.

Ole has worked at the German Parliament in Berlin, the United Nations Environment Programme in Paris, and the European Parliament in Brussels. He is the nephew of the Right Livelihood founder Jakob von Uexkull.