Global Citizen, the leading international advocacy organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty, has announced that industry leader Liza Henshaw has been elevated to the role of President after six years as Chief Operating Officer; Caralene Robinson has assumed a permanent position as Chief Growth Officer; and Lee Rolontz‘ global role will expand as she takes on the position of Global Head of Broadcast and Original Content. The announcement comes as the organization closes out an unprecedented year of global programming in support of a bold policy agenda, while addressing the most urgent global issues of the past two years.
“Every year, Global Citizen sets impossible goals to further our mission to end extreme poverty. We are only able to accomplish this work through the tireless effort of our leaders and our incredible teams,” says Hugh Evans, Founder and CEO of Global Citizen. “Liza is the perfect choice to preside over critical business functions as we expand Global Citizen’s international presence and set forth an ambitious policy agenda for 2022. We are also delighted that Caralene will bring her business acumen, creativity and passion for storytelling to Global Citizen. And we are fortunate to have Lee overseeing broadcast and original content programming, further expanding our reach to new audiences around the world.”
“I look forward to continuing to work with global citizens, corporate partners, world leaders and philanthropists to end extreme poverty,” says Liza Henshaw. “More than ever we all need to come together to protect our planet, defeat poverty and demand equity.”
In her new role as the organization’s first President, Henshaw will be responsible for leading the mission, vision, values, and strategy of the organization across four continents, along with overseeing expansion plans in key global markets, and leading revenue-generation programs, including corporate partnerships, foundations and individual giving. She joined Global Citizen in 2016 as the organization’s first Chief Operating Officer, where she has been instrumental to building a world-class executive leadership team, identifying areas of expansion and diversifying funding opportunities to achieve record growth. Henshaw previously served for over 13 years in leadership positions at the Environmental Defense Fund, including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Development Officer and Chief Information Officer.
“I’m excited to collaborate with Hugh, Liza and the entire team at Global Citizen,” says Caralene Robinson. “This is an important moment in history and the actions we take now are vital to protecting the planet for future generations. I’m also honored to be working with a first-class team of creatives to grow our audience of global activists and put the spotlight on the most urgent issues of our time – utilizing my experience in service of this critical mission to defeat poverty and protect the planet.”
As Chief Growth Officer, Robinson oversees the creative, content, marketing and owned media team. She also serves as Executive Producer on complex projects. Robinson’s vast body of work as a marketer and content creator demonstrates her passion for shedding light on underserved and marginalized communities. Her prior career experience includes Coca-Cola, Sprint and Viacom, where she was most recently EVP and CMO of VH1 and Logo. As a content creator, she has amassed an award-winning body of work highlighting a range of subjects including mental health, gender equity, domestic violence and the LGBTQ+ experience. Robinson has a BBA in Marketing from Howard University, and an MBA in Marketing/Finance from NYU.
“Global Citizen produced incredibly successful campaign-driven global broadcasts during the pandemic; there is no end to what we can achieve now that the world is opening up once again. I am so excited to create new streams of content and amplify our broadcasts and reach across the globe to achieve our mission,” said Lee Rolontz.
In the newly created position of Global Head of Broadcast and Original Content, Rolontz will be responsible for overseeing development, production and broadcast of live events, specials and serialized content across all platforms worldwide. She previously served as Global Citizen’s SVP of Event and Broadcast leading on the creation and production of all tentpole events. She brings over two decades of content creation and production to the new position. Before joining Global Citizen, Rolonz was EVP of TV Development and Production at iHeartMedia, where she oversaw all long-form content development and production. Prior to iHeartMedia, she held senior management positions at Viacom’s Vh1 and Vh1 Classic, most recently as EVP of Original Music Production and Development where she revived legacy brands like VH1 Divas, Storytellers, Unplugged, and created new original tentpoles and series. Before VH1, Rolonz created and was president of Automatic Productions, a wholly owned film and video production subsidiary of Sony Music. Rolonz began her career as a freelance music-video and commercial producer and is a graduate of Brown University.
ABOUT GLOBAL CITIZEN
Global Citizen is the world’s largest movement of action takers and impact makers dedicated to ending extreme poverty now. With over 10 million monthly advocates, our voices have the power to drive lasting change around sustainability, equality, and humanity. We post, tweet, message, vote, sign, and call to inspire those who can make things happen to act — government leaders, businesses, philanthropists, artists, and citizens — together improving lives. By downloading our app, Global Citizens learn about the systemic causes of extreme poverty, take action on those issues, and earn rewards with tickets to concerts, events, and experiences all over the world. Global Citizens have taken over 28.4 million actions since 2009. Today, these actions, in combination with high-level advocacy work, have led to over $35.4 billion being distributed to our partners around the world, impacting 1.09 billion lives in the fight to end extreme poverty. For more information, visit GlobalCitizen.org and follow @glblctzn.
