Uma Mishra-Newbery is a feminist strategist, movement infrastructure architect, and organisational transformation leader working at the intersection of movement building, philanthropy, governance, racial justice, and systems change. With over two decades of experience spanning grassroots organising, global advocacy, and institutional leadership, her work focuses on building durable, justice-centered structures that enable youth-led and feminist movements to survive pressure, navigate transition, and sustain long-term impact.

She is the Founder and Lead Strategist of The Substratum Initiative, an emerging movement-rooted infrastructure initiative exploring shared systems, governance, and resilience models for youth-led movements operating in contexts of shrinking civic space and increasing political volatility. Her work is grounded in the belief that movements require not only vision and organising power, but also the operational, financial, and relational scaffolding necessary for endurance.

Uma previously served as Interim Executive Director of FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund and as Executive Director of Women’s March Global, where she led organisations through periods of strategic transformation, governance complexity, financial restructuring, and organisational realignment. Across her leadership roles, she has supported movements and institutions in navigating growth, crisis, leadership transition, and culture change while advancing decolonial, trust-based, and movement-accountable approaches to philanthropy and organisational design.

Her work spans movement strategy, organisational development, governance, facilitation, and ecosystem coordination, with particular expertise in youth-led movements, feminist philanthropy, racial justice, and participatory systems-building. She is also the founder of The Racial Equity Index, an initiative focused on embedding racial equity into organisational culture, systems, and leadership practice. Across her work, Uma explores how care, anti-racism, embodiment, and institutional design intersect, particularly in relation to organisational harm, burnout, power, and the conditions required for collective flourishing.

A somatic abolitionist and embodied social justice practitioner, Uma integrates relational and embodied approaches into leadership, governance, and organisational transformation work, supporting individuals and institutions to move through complexity with greater integrity, clarity, and care. Her current academic work explores care not as a peripheral value, but as a critical component of organisational infrastructure, particularly within feminist, anti-racist, and movement ecosystems navigating crisis and transition.

Across military service, academia, grassroots movements, and global philanthropy, Uma has built coalitions advancing women’s human rights, racial justice, bodily autonomy, LGBTQIA+ liberation, and the freedom of assembly. Her advocacy has reached global platforms, including the United Nations, and she played a key role in the international campaign advocating for the release of Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain alHathloul. She is also the co-author of the award-winning children’s book Loujain Dreams of Sunflowers, written with Lina alHathloul.

Her work and commentary have been featured in TIME, Ms. Magazine, CNN, Al Jazeera, Devex, and Newsweek, among others. Uma speaks English and Hindi fluently, conversational French, and is currently pursuing postgraduate work focused on social justice, participation, and community action. She remains committed to building movement ecosystems rooted in resilience, interdependence, and collective liberation, while staying anchored in a leadership practice devoted to naming what is difficult with clarity, holding discomfort with care, and centering the humanity of those in the room.