Asenath Mwithigah is a Kenyan gender equality and women’s rights leader with over a decade of experience in designing, implementing, and leading programmes to end harmful practices—most notably female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage—across Africa and globally.

She currently serves as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Orchid Project, a UK-based international NGO dedicated to ending FGM/C worldwide. In this role, she focuses on strengthening the organisation’s advocacy, partnerships, research, and movement-building efforts, particularly in the Global South.

Before joining the Orchid Project (effective June 2022), Asenath held the position of Global Lead – End Harmful Practices (FGM/C & Child Marriage) at Equality Now, where she provided strategic leadership for global efforts to eliminate these practices and to strengthen legal and social systems in support of women’s and girls’ rights.

Her earlier work includes serving as a Programme Analyst at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Kenya Country Office, where she implemented the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on FGM abandonment and was seconded as Technical Advisor to the Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board of Kenya. This involved strategic guidance on national and community-level prevention and response to gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices.

Asenath’s career also spans roles with Maendeleo ya Wanawake in Kenya and as Social Change Communications Manager for The Girl Generation, supporting multi-country advocacy and communications strategies aimed at ending FGM/C across Africa.

She is recognized for her thought leadership, having delivered high-profile talks internationally—including at Buckingham Palace and the UK Parliament—and for her contributions to policy advocacy, law enactment campaigns, and coalition-building with governments and civil society in countries such as Sierra Leone