Maria Sjödin is the Deputy Executive Director of OutRight Action International, based in New York. Maria has over 20 years of experience advocating for LGBTIQ equality. Between 2005-2014 she was Executive Director of RSFL, Sweden’s largest LGBTIQ organization. While in this position Maria established RFSL's international program, played a key role in ensuring that the human rights of LGBTIQ people become ingrained in the Swedish government's agenda for development and foreign affairs, advocated for marriage equality (won in 2009) and the abolishment of forced sterilization of trans people as a requirement for legal gender recognition (outlawed in 2013). Maria has led leadership trainings for over 200 LGBTIQ activists from around the world on topics including strength-based coaching and appreciative inquiry. At OutRight, she leads the development and communications team, where she has diversified and increased the organization's funding, pioneered engagement with international businesses, and provided expert opinions to governments, UN agencies, and corporations.

Leo is a trans activist and psychologist. He works to advance trans rights in politics at Transgender Europe. Leo has experience in local and national activism in Spain, as well as teaching, training, and supporting young trans people and their families.

In late 2017 the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed Mr. Madrigal-Borloz as UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for a three years period starting on 1 January 2018. In this capacity, he assesses the implementation of international human rights law, raises awareness, engages in dialogue with all relevant stakeholders, and provides advisory services, technical assistance, capacity-building to help address violence and discrimination against persons on the basis of the sexual orientation or gender identity.

Victor Madrigal-Borloz, a Costa Rican jurist, is a senior visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program. He will be in residence at Harvard Law School from July 2019 to December 2020. Until June 2019 he served as the Secretary-General of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), a global network of over 150 rehabilitation centres with the vision of full enjoyment of the right to rehabilitation for all victims of torture and ill treatment until 30 June 2019.

A member of the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture from 2013 to 2016, Mr Madrigal-Borloz was Rapporteur on Reprisals and oversaw a draft policy on the torture and ill-treatment of LGBTI persons. Prior to this he led technical work on numerous cases, reports and testimonies as Head of Litigation and Head of the Registry at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and has also worked at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (Copenhagen, Denmark) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (San José, Costa Rica).

Mr Madrigal-Borloz is a founding member of the Costa Rican Association of International Law (ACODI), a founding Board member of the International Justice Resource Centre (IJRC), and a founding Board member of Synergia-IDH.

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, widely known as Lady Phyll – partly due to her decision to reject an MBE in the New Year’s Honours' list to protest Britain’s role in formulating anti-LGBT+ penal codes across its empire – is the executive director of Kaleidoscope Trust, an organisation working towards the liberation of LGBT+ people around the world. Phyll is also the nucleus of the award-winning celebration and protest that is UK Black Pride; a community builder and organiser; an Albert Kennedy Trust patron, and a public speaker focusing on race, gender, sexuality and class. She's regularly called upon to advise nascent LGBT+ organisations around the world to help leaders create cogent organising strategies, establish robust partnership networks and work effectively in service of the LGBT+ community.

Helena Dalli is the first EU Commissioner for Equality since December 2019. Her role is to deliver on the Union of Equality chapter within the Political Guidelines of President von der Leyen, by strengthening Europe’s commitment to equality and inclusion in all of its senses.

Prior to taking her role as Commissioner, Dalli held various political roles in Malta including Member of Parliament (1996 to 2019), Minister for European Affairs and Equality (2017 to 2019), and Minister for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties (2013-2017). She was also opposition Shadow Minister for public administration, equality, public broadcasting and national investments (1998-2013) and Junior Minister for Women's Rights in the Office of Prime Minister (1996-1998). Dalli holds a PhD in Political Sociology from the University of Nottingham, and lectured in Economic and Political Sociology, Public Policy, and Sociology of Law at the University of Malta.

Terry Reintke is vice-president of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament and the group's coordinator for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. She is co-president of the LGBTI Intergroup and founder of the EU-UK Friendship Group.

Terry Reintke studied political science in Berlin and Edinburgh. She was spokesperson of the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) before entering the European Parliament in 2014. Terry Reintke was featured in TIME magazines coverage for Person of the Year 2017 as part of the “Silence Breakers” speaking out against sexual abuse and harassment.

André du Plessis (he/him) is ILGA’s Executive Director.
Born in Zambia, André is from South Africa and grew up in the UK and India.
Prior to being appointed as Executive Director, André headed-up ILGA’s advocacy work at the UN, assisting LGBTI organisations from around the world use the UN system to help bring change in-country, and led a challenging but successful civil society campaign to create the position of UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
He is a human rights lawyer, also with experience in the Corporate, Financial Services and Litigation fields in both London and China.
Prior to ILGA, he worked on business and human rights in conflict zones, environmental and trade justice issues, and also supported UN Special Procedures at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Bianka Rodríguez is a transfeminist human rights defender in El Salvador. Since 2017, she has overseen the NGO COMCAVIS TRANS, an organization that works to promote, defend and demand compliance with the human rights of LGBTI people in El Salvador. Her vision for the future is to continue empowering new trans leaders, for the construction of key agendas for the trans movement and the demand for their rights in strategic spaces. She is currently part of the ILGALAC 2019-2021 Regional Council. In 2019 she was elected as General Secretary of the Salvadoran LGBTI Federation. She is also a member of the ONUMUJERES Civil Society Advisory Group in El Salvador, the Executive Secretariat of the Civil Society Committee against Forced Displacement, and a member of the Salvadoran Network of Women Human Rights Defenders.

Her career as an advocate has been recognized as a regional winner for the Americas of the Nansen Refugee award in 2019 for her work with the LGBTI population forcibly displaced by violence and refugees in El Salvador and the region.