Anglicans in World Mission appoints a new General Secretary/Chief Executive
USPG has announced that Janette O'Neill will take over as General Secretary/Chief Executive from 1st May of this year, when the current General Secretary, Bishop Michael Doe retires.
Janette has worked extensively in the Anglican Church in many parts of Africa, and is currently Senior Programme Officer with Episcopal Relief & Development in New York.
"I am really excited about taking on the leadership of USPG: Anglicans in World Mission," she said. "I look forward to making and renewing relationships with USPG's partners around the Anglican Communion, and to meeting its many faithful supporters in the dioceses and parishes here."
Canon Linda Ali, Chair of Trustees welcomed the new appointment saying:
"I welcome Mrs Janette O’Neill as the new of USPG: Anglicans in World Mission. Following a highly competitive recruitment process, Janette emerged as an outstanding individual to lead the restructured USPG into a new phase of its life as an Anglican Mission Society. Janette has an excellent academic background with an extensive track record of church mission programmes, supporting the life and work of Anglican churches around the world. She is already well-known and highly respected throughout the Anglican Communion. Janette will be a great asset to USPG during these challenging times and the Trustees and Staff join me in welcoming her in an exciting phase of USPG’s work of Leadership Development and Working for Health."
Bishop Michael Doe expressed his delight at the appointment which completes the restructuring set in hand last year. "All the staff are looking forward to working with Janette as USPG faces the future with renewed purpose and confidence."
Biography
A history graduate from the University of Wales, Janette has lived mostly overseas. Living in Lesotho in Southern Africa from 1987 through to 1996, she worked first for Save the Children Fund (UK) and then joined the Anglican Church in Lesotho. Leading the Development office she was responsible for implementing a variety of community projects in health, agriculture, education and social forestry. In 1998, after completing a major research project into the sustainability of health institutions owned by the Anglican Church in Lesotho, Janette gained an MBA from Warwick University (UK).
In 2000, Janette joined Episcopal Relief & Development in New York, where as Senior Program Advisor she helped advise the organization as it shifted from traditional grant making to a focused partnership model of supporting Anglican churches in their development work. This included helping set policy and devise strategy for HIV and AIDs programming in Africa, and spearheading a policy for capacity building and transformational development at provincial and national level.
The creation of Hope Africa in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the consolidation of the work of the Zambian Anglican Council were two of the most successful outcomes of this work. As Senior Director of Africa, Janette also worked with local partners to conceive and develop the global gathering of Anglican development partners in 2007: TEAM reviewed gains in HIV programming and policy in the Anglican Church in Africa and projected a global position on the work of the Anglican Communion around the world in addressing the Millennium Development Goals. As Senior Director for Africa Janette also designed the first phase of the NetsforLife malaria control program, educating church communities across seventeen national churches in Africa on the causes and preventive treatments for malaria, in the first phase reaching over three million people.
Most recently, Janette has been responsible for the development of an integrated strategy for Episcopal Relief & Development in post conflict and fragile states, including DR Congo, Sudan, and Liberia. In all these efforts, Janette has worked collaboratively with national and provincial Anglican Church bodies, mission sending agencies, and NGO stakeholders to promote strategies that empower the church at the grass roots.
Janette is married to Derek, a tunnelling engineer and has two sons - Owen who works in New York’s music and advertising industry and Morgan who is an electronic engineering student at the University of Wales in Bangor.