Our People

The Man Up leadership team is made up of talented, driven, and committed individuals that come from a wide range of personal and professional experiences. As a team we are dedicated to promoting sound strategies that promote our mission and strengthen relationships among those working around the issue of violence against women and girls.

Jimmie Briggs

Co-Founder
Executive Director

Man Up Campaign is the brainchild of Jimmie Briggs, award-winning journalist, author and lecturer. A National Magazine Award finalist and recipient of honors from the Open Society Institute, National Association of Black Journalists, Alicia Patterson Foundation and Carter Center, among others. His book on child soldiers and war-affected children, Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War won him accolades in 2005.

Briggs has served as an adjunct professor of investigative journalism at the New School for Social Research and was a George A. Miller Visiting Professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois: Champaign-Urbana. His next book is The Wars Women Fight: Dispatches from A Father to His Daughter.

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Karen Robinson Cloete

Co-Founder
Managing Director

Karen is a respected leader in human rights education with over twenty years experience mobilizing teachers around the world. As the former Education Director at Amnesty USA, she spent most of her career at the helm of human rights education strategy work where she fostered a global community of young activists and gave them tools to create long-term, sustainable change.

Her cutting-edge use of pop culture and media has been the key to her international success . Karen has transformed feature films like Blood Diamond and The Kite Runner into living, breathing education programs to motivate students to carry human rights knowledge outside of the classroom. Her renowned publications and teaching guides have been translated into numerous languages and have paved the way for deep-rooted, far-reaching social justice activism.

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Aimee Oberndorfer Le

Programs Director

Aimee is an international education consultant who specializes in conflict/post conflict educational development and peace building. Most recently this work has focused on displaced communities in northern Uganda. As the Senior Associate for Planning and Development with Voices for Global Change's Paper to Pearls project, Aimee conducted comprehensive needs assessments, listening to over 200 women in IDP camps, and working together to best meet their needs through trainings, education, and economic development.

Over the past 15 years she has taught art, early education, peace-building, leadership, and life-skills courses with numerous programs throughout the U.S. and abroad. Aimee earned her M.A. in International Training and Education at American University, and holds a certificate from the International Trauma Studies Program at Columbia University.

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Jessica Greer Morris

Communications Director

Man Up’s communications director, Jessica Morris, brings expertise in the area of public health, strategic management and communications. She is also a published playwright and founder of a New York theater company that donates proceeds to AIDS-related causes, Playwrights Unite. Jessica was also a community organizer for many years in New York City’s poorest neighborhoods and eventually became the Community Affairs Director at the NYC Health Department.

After graduating from Columbia University with a graduate degree in public health, she was asked to serve as the Acting Director of the Executive MPH Program and subsequently as a consultant for the International Center for AIDS Care and Prevention. She also served as the Communications and Development Director at Family Care International promoting reproductive health strategies for hard-to-reach, poor populations in Africa and South America.

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Patrick Phelan

Creative Director

Patrick Phelan is a top-ranking chef, professional musician and human rights activist whose various talents have come together to launch Man Up’s creative campaign and website. Over the last decade, Phelan has released four CDs internationally on the record label of Jagjaguwar. His music has appeared in independent film, commercials, and television, and has been reviewed and featured in publications such as Mojo, Magnet, and The Big Takeover.

Phelan is also a professional chef with over fifteen years experience including serving as the Executive Sous Chef at the esteemed Grinzane Cavour Castle in Alba, Italy. Phelan currently serves as the Executive Chef at Sonnier & Castle in NYC where he manages events for elite movie premiers, international art exhibitions and New York Fashion Week and makes private dinners for a variety of clients. He has a degree in Public Policy and Law with a concentration in human rights from Trinity College.

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Fred Sullivan

Technical Director

Fred Sullivan is a multimedia entrepreneur. The lead web designer for The Coalition for the International Criminal Court, Fred founded LiQ, a shopping search engine. His agency NetReaction, created Pihana Pacific's online marketing and branding strategy, a plan that resulted in Pihana's successful merger with Equinix (EQIX on the NASDAQ). He has also consulted on many other technology start-ups, as well as for Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies such as Trammell Crow and Sumitomo Corporation. Fred’s talent at systems development is balanced with an extensive background in painting, ballet, the Argentine tango, and classical piano.

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Lee Brenner

Social Media Consultant

Brenner is a founding principal at FastFWD Group, a strategic communications firm dedicated to promoting online web 2.0 social media strategies and marketing to often hard-to-reach demographics. Lee was previously the Political Director & Executive Producer of Political & Non-Profit Engagement Programming at MySpace. As such, he directed all political, civic and social engagement marketing activities for the social portal. As a social media expert, he has appeared regularly on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and has been featured in a plethora of print publications, radio and blogs, commenting on the state of youth culture and the “new world” of online social/civic engagement and activism.

Brenner also forged the landmark 2008 partnership between MySpace and the Commission on Presidential Debates and is currently the Internet Adviser to the Commission. Prior to joining MySpace, Brenner was Senior Editorial Producer of CNN’s “Late Edition w/ Wolf Blitzer.” Brenner also produced “American Morning” and “NewsNight w/ Aaron Brown” during his time at CNN. He is a graduate of Tufts University and received a Masters of International Affairs at the University of Hong Kong, having won a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship.

Kristin Haffert

Funding and Development Consultant

Kristin Haffert is the founder and president of a firm that advises government, business, non-profits and foundations on how to develop, fund and implement initiatives that work to achieve gender equality. Prior to opening Haffert Global, Kristin successfully lobbied for, launched and directed the first department for women’s programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). Kristin was an associate at The Lew Edwards Group, a political consulting firm specializing in grassroots organizing based in California, where she managed field campaigns for several successful candidate and issue campaigns. She has lead get-out-the-vote initiatives for the Kerry and Obama Presidential campaigns and played leadership roles on campaigns at the state and local level including as a fundraiser for the successful statewide re-election campaign of California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. She serves on the Board of Two Steps Forward which promotes education for African refugee children.

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