Yawa Hansen-Quao, Founding Director

Yawa Hansen-Quao is passionately dedicated to helping people improve their lives through leadership and personal development training. As Founding Director at Leading Ladies' Network, Yawa works to prepare women to occupy seats at every leadership table including businesses, government, and civil society. As a certified Competent Communicator of Toastmasters International, Yawa shares her passion for public speaking by hosting speech and communication training workshops that help people build the confidence and skills necessary to become effective communicators.  In 2007, Yawa was inducted into the British Council's Pan-African Network of Emerging Leaders. Yawa holds a degree in Business Administration from Ashesi University College,Honors in Entrepreneurship and New Product Development from American University of Rome, Italy; and a Certificate in Radio and Television Presentation from the Ghana Institute of Journalism. In addition to being a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Community, Yawa serves on the Advisory Board of the Women's Institute for Global Leadership at Benedictine University, USA. Yawa is an avid reader who enjoys wordgames and mystery novels.

Sharon Beecham
Administrative & Public Relations Coordinator

Sharon is an experienced and well networked Media Planner. Starting out as the first Public Relations Officer of the Ashesi University in 2005, she has continued to develop media strategies that have maximized the impact of advertising campaigns for various clients such as DStv Ghana and Sierra Leone, Nestle Ghana, DStv Mobile, Vodafone, Leading Ladies’ Network etc. Sharon is an affiliate member of the Advertising Association of Ghana.

Sharon is keen on making life-enhancing impact on other people. She joined Leading Ladies’ Network because she believes that when women are rightly equipped, trained and motivated a larger impact can be made across the world. Sharon holds a degree in Business Administration and appreciates good music and poetry.

Johanna Glaser
Development Associate

Having traveled extensively from a young age, Johanna has long had a passion for international service. She has worked with Relief International in the U.S. as well as women’s and health organizations in Latin America. While living in the Peruvian Altiplano, she helped initiate and oversee a project to restore the production of traditional embroidered tapestries to supplement the income of participants and empower women in the community. Johanna holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Pomona College. Her diverse interests range from backpacking to cooking and jazz piano. She loves to paint and draw, and has a budding interest in photography and graphic design. She firmly believes in the power of women and social entrepreneurs to effect positive and much needed social change.

Dr. Esi Ansah
Lead Developer of F.L.A.M.E.S. Curriculum

Dr. Ansah is the lead developer of LLN's flagship leadership curriculum; FLAMES. Esi describes herself as a simple, high-energy person who never runs out of ideas (she maintains a detailed Idea Bank), and also as a “grounded idealist” with a sense of urgency and an aim to bring positive transformation wherever she finds herself.

Esi’s interests include social and public entrepreneurship, service delivery reform in the public sector and human resource management. Esi earned Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology, International Affairs and French from the Florida State University in 1999, graduating with honors in just three years. She holds master’s degrees in Social Sciences and Public Service Management from the University of Chicago and DePaul University, respectively. She also holds a PhD in Public Administration from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Esi is a fellow in the Aspen Institute’s Africa Leadership Initiative.

Charles Hansen-Quao
Director of Technology

Before joining the LLN team, Charles Hansen-Quao co-founded DreamOval, a software development company based in Accra, Ghana. He currently oversees User Experience and Support Services. With his natural flair for design, project management skills, and almost a decade of experience in web technologies, Charles brings great value to LLN's strategic impact plan with the use of technology as an enabler.

Charles holds a BSc in Management Information Systems and has great passion for software that speaks to the heart. Charles volunteers most weekends teaching free computing classes to those with no or very limited opportunities to learn how to use a computer. He has equal passion for traveling, reading, storytelling and jokes.