Meet the Team

L. Diane Mull
Executive Director
President, Board of Director

Meet the Team: Lynda Diane Mull founded IIECL in 1998 and currently serves as it’s first executive director and president of the board of directors. Diane, as she is known to friends and colleagues, has twenty-nine years of organizational management and administration experience. This includes 12 years in her current position with IIECL, 3 years as a senior advisor/program manager on a USAID worldwide task order, and 20 years as the director of a national association of youth and adult education and workforce development organizations operating in 48 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Prior to this, Diane successfully held six years of senior-level management positions at regional NGOs in their operations at the state level in Georgia and West Virginia, and at a regional office level in state government in North Carolina.

Diane’s true skills and interests involve the work she does in the field, working with children, teachers, community leaders, employers, government officials, and NGO/CBO partners and their staff. Her combined experience includes: conducting child labor assessments and risk reviews of a wide range of commodities and products; providing direct technical assistance and training to build workforce development, education, environmental health, immigration, and children services capacity using proven effective practices; planning and leading teams for research, including rapid assessments, evaluations and impact assessments; designing and delivering task mapping and job risk/ergonomics analysis and risk assessment activities for monitoring labor conditions and employment, particularly child and youth labor, forced labor and trafficking; and conducting strategic planning and board development.Diane brings 24 years working on child labor issues (predominantly in hazardous child labor, such as in agriculture, but also addressing child soldiers, child trafficking and child slavery).

Diane is noted for her development of a variety of systems and methodologies for delivering  services in the field that have been evaluated and noted as “best practices.” These include a methodology for effective program start-up, especially designed for children / youth and programs targeted to address their education and prevent their entry into or return to child labor. The approach is called PAVE: Pathways Advancing Viable Education and has been implemented by numerous international NGOs operating child labor programs in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Latin America.

Serving in her various capacities throughout her career, she has policy and program development experience at the national and international levels related to workforce development, child labor, migration, environmental health and immigration. Her international work includes activities conducted in Africa, Latin and South America, Asia / Near East, Middle East, Europe and North America.

Diane has degrees in Education and English, experience in teaching at junior and senior high school levels, development of basic education, bilingual education, environmental health, accident and injury prevention, and job skills instruction materials/curricula, and design and delivery of radio social messaging campaigns. She has authored numerous publications and received numerous awards and recognitions for her work.

Martine Combemale
Director of Auditing
Chief of European Operations
Executive Director of Human Resources Without Borders
Certified Auditor (ISO 26000, SA8000 and others)

Meet the Team: Martine Combemale serves as IIECL’s Chief of European Operations and Executive Director of Human Resources without Borders, IIECL’s sister agency in Europe. She has over 22 years experience in human resource management and social accountability auditing for civil and labor law compliance, including human rights and child labor. She has extensive experience in the development, design and evaluation of monitoring systems and methodologies. She holds bachelors degree in civil and labor law, masters degree in social accountability audits (University of Toulouse, France); certificates in European Human Rights Law, Advanced Human Rights: Children’s Rights and International Humanitarian Law (American University), and is a certified SA8000 auditor. She has conducted social accountability audits and related activities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.

She is a member of the board of IAS (Institut des Auditeurs Sociaux) and lecturer at the University of Toulouse, France, in the social accountability masters program. She has experience as a journalist and as a fund raiser. She has proven experience in human rights and child labor issues. For more information about Human Resources without Borders, click here.

Maia Chankseliani
Research Specialist
PhD (2012), Cambridge University
Ed.M. (2007), Harvard University

Meet the Team: Maia Chankseliani currently serves as IIECL’s Research Specialist. Maia combines her consultancy work at IIECL with her PhD research at the University of Cambridge. Most recently, Maia assisted IIECL with data analysis for the production of a baseline study report regarding 16 communities in Ghana in support of the ECHOES II program. Previously, Maia worked at the Georgian government where she was in charge of technical and vocational education. Striving towards excellence, Maia’s perspective on education has developed from the micro view of a teacher to the macro view of a policy-maker. During the last seven years, she has gained invaluable experience in the field of education, ranging from classroom teaching and course syllabus elaboration to national policy-making and policy research. Each experience has advanced her ability to analyze the complex dynamics among educational policy, practice, and research.

Maia has been involved with a number of international research projects. Most recently, she has worked on the World Bank Institute project on building effective public-private partnerships in education and the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education project on the impact of creative partnerships and similar initiatives on student wellbeing in England.

The areas of her professional interest include but are not limited to: mixed-methods policy research, equal access to quality education, economics of education, and education and training financing.

Julianne Foster
Program Development Manager
MSW NC State University
BSW Ohio State University

Meet the Team: Julianne Foster serves as IIECL’s Program Development Manager. She has over 10 years experience working with at-risk, high-risk, and oppressed populations within the United States and abroad. Julianne has advocated on behalf of children through her work as a Child Protection Services Social Worker and has provided direct care services for children with disabilities and juveniles involved with the criminal justice system. In recent years, Julianne’s skills extend to the research field where she has been assisting in the development of HIV prevention, substance abuse and behavioral interventions, and intervention materials for high-risk women in South Africa and the Republic of Georgia. Through her work in direct practice and research, Julianne has worked, collaborated with, and forged strong relationships with various non-governmental organizations, schools and governmental agencies.

Julianne has her Master’s in Social Work from North Carolina State University and a Bachelor’s in Social Work through The Ohio State University.

Gloria Ward
Director of Finance
Certified Public Accountant
PhD Pastoral Clinical Counseling

Meet the Team: Gloria Ward serves as IIECL’s Director of Finance. She oversees IIECL’s accounting and budget management activities. Ms. Ward has conducted audits of major Department of Defense contracts and other US Government grants and contracts. Ms. Ward has served as IIECL’s Director of Finance since its inception in 1998. Ms. Ward is a CPA with over 30 years experience. She also has a PhD in Pastoral Clinical Counseling.