Ketayoun Darvich-Kodjouri, Vice President

Ketayoun Darvich-Kodjouri is a senior communications strategist who has orchestrated communications campaigns on a range of women's human rights, reproductive health and foreign affairs issues in collaboration with leading advocacy organizations, congressional offices, U.S. government agencies, and the United Nations.

At Spitfire, she provides ongoing counsel for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation on their Population and Reproductive Health Program, supporting consistent and compelling communications around their theory of change. She works with the Aspen Institute to promote communications strategies for a new leadership council on reproductive health, comprised of current and former world leaders making the case for renewed political commitment in this area. Working with the Ford Foundation, she leads an effort to help housing advocates better communicate about the need to support affordable home ownership in the wake of the financial crisis. And, she serves on the faculty of the NOVO Foundation’s Move the End Violence Initiative, helping to develop communications training for leaders in the field of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Prior to joining Spitfire, she served as the Director of Communications and Advocacy at the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), where she led the institution’s multi-country communications efforts in areas including girls’ education, reproductive health, women’s economic empowerment and good governance. Ketayoun relaunched CEDPA’s advocacy program with a special focus on bringing the priorities of women living in the Global South to U.S. decision makers during critical policy discussions. Previously, at the Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC), Ketayoun managed high-impact media campaigns on a range of domestic and global topics. Her successes included stopping the rollback of U.S. commitments to the 1995 UN Beijing Platform for Action through a media watchdog campaign with partners including Amnesty International. Her work to commemorate the 1999 Day of 6 Billion resulted in more than 100 print and broadcast stories nationwide that helped frame population issues as more than just numbers, but something impacting every area of life. Before that, Ketayoun worked at Population Reference Bureau, coordinating a collection of research to inform U.S. government’s deliberations during the five-year review of the Cairo population conference.

Throughout her career, she has collaborated with top organizations in the global health and development field, bringing together disparate voices to maximize the impact of national communications efforts. Her campaign partners have included CARE, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Feminist Majority, General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Global Health Council, InterAction, National Wildlife Federation, Population Action International, Save the Children, YWCA and many other leading institutions.

Ketayoun is personally committed to improving the communities in which she lives, and has worked and volunteered for domestic violence and sexual assault agencies in New Mexico, Indiana and Washington, D.C.

Ketayoun has a B.A. in political science from Indiana University, Bloomington.