Leadership Team
Board of Directors

Our Leadership Team

  • Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana President of OMNIA Institute

    Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana

    President
    Shanta Premawardhana is president of OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership. Prior to OMNIA, he served as the Director for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. He was also the Associate General Secretary for Interfaith Relations at the National Council of Churches, USA. While serving as pastor of Ellis Avenue Church in Chicago, he engaged in community organizing in the Southside of Chicago. He is an emeritus trustee of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, National Council of Churches, USA, and Common Cause Illinois. He earned his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

  • Emma Van Drie-Heitritter

    Coordinator of Program Operations

    Emma is the Coordinator of Program Operations at OMNIA, supporting the administration of OMNIA’s global office and growth of Interfaith Peacemaker Teams. She is an MDiv candidate at the University of Chicago. She previously organized against anti-Muslim discrimination in Northwest Iowa with Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign and brings a background in interreligious dialogue and fundraising. Emma holds a BA in Political Science from Northwestern College. Her self-interest is to expand the agency of people of faith to do whatever it takes to rally for good living!

  • Rev. Abare Kallah National Coordinator, Nigeria

    Rev. Abare Kallah

    National Coordinator, Nigeria
    Rev. Abare Kallah is OMNIA's Leadership Team Leader in Nigeria and one of OMNIA’s longest-serving trainers and leaders. An ordained minister in the ECWA tradition, Kallah is the current Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Northeast Region. He is one of Nigeria's leading peace activists. In 2018 Kallah was chosen a recipient of the Carus Award for International Interfaith Peacemaker by the Parliament of the World’s Religions and was part of a team who helped to broker the release of 82 of the Chibok girls kidnapped by the brutal terrorist organization, Boko Haram.

  • Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe National Coordinator, Sri Lanka

    Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe

    National Coordinator, Sri Lanka
    The Right Reverend Kumara Illangasinghe was an emeritus Bishop of the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, between 2000 and 2010. He was previously the principal of the Theological College of Lanka between 1992 and 1999. In 2015, he was appointed Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the Parliament of the World's Religions.

  • David A. Das National Coordinator, Bangladesh

    David A. Das

    National Coordinator, Bangladesh

    David Anirudha Das is the National Coordinator for Bangladesh IP Teams and the General Secretary and CEO of the National Council of Churches in Bangladesh (NCCB). Since 2009, he has provided leadership in church coordination, advocacy, interfaith engagement, program management, and partnerships with government and international ecumenical bodies.

    David brings decades of experience in development, humanitarian response, theological education, administration, translation, and information management. He also serves in several national and international networks focused on ecumenism, human rights, migration, peace, and justice.

  • Newlove Bobson Atiso

    Newlove Bobson Atiso

    National Coordinator, Togo

    Newlove is the National Coordinator for Togo IP Teams. He has led numerous justice and peacebuilding initiatives across the region as founder of the Foundation For a Better Future in Togo, People to People International-Togo, the Régional Chairman of People to People International Africa, Vice-Chairman for Koymada International Foundation, and a founding member of Association Friends of Children and Aged People in Togo. His graduate education specialized in Marketing and Public Relations, and he participated in the Young African Leaders Initiative where he took a course in African Civic Engagement at the University of Georgia in 2022.

  • William Lloyd

    William Lloyd

    National Coordinator, Liberia

  • Oyergiu Joshua National Coordinator, Uganda

    Oyergiu Joshua

    National Coordinator, Uganda

  • Evans Nyesi National Coordinator, Kenya

    Evans Nyesi

    National Coordinator, Kenya

  • Franklin Okello Coordinator Mombasa, Kenya

    Franklin Okello

    Coordinator Mombasa, Kenya

    Franklin is an environmental law lecturer, mediator, and social impact leader based in Kenya. He is the founder and CEO of People to People Kenya and also serves as an OMNIA Country Leader. His work focuses on climate justice, environmental education, youth empowerment, peacebuilding, and community development. Franklin also works closely with grassroots Interfaith Peacemakers Teams, bringing together people from different faiths and communities to promote peace, dialogue, social cohesion, and conflict resolution at the local level. Through community engagement, mentorship, and advocacy, he supports initiatives that strengthen unity, environmental responsibility, and sustainable development among young people and vulnerable communities across Kenya.

  • Shilla Adyero

    Coordinator Nwoya, Uganda

    Shilla is a proven nonprofit leader and human rights activist with over 8 years of experience in project planning and implementation with focused at addressing struggles of marginalized and vulnerable people particularly children and women through multilevel and diversely oriented advocacy, and research.

  • Paul Tukah

    National Coordinator, Cameroon

  • Jackson Wenesayo

    National Coordinator, South Sudan

  • Priscilla Aninnwaa

    National Coordinator, Ghana

Our Board of Directors

  • Renee Regacho-Anaclerio Board Member

    Renee Regacho-Anaclerio

    Chair

    Dr. Renee Regacho-Anaclerio has served in public education as a bilingual teacher, principal and deputy superintendent. She has focused on educational equity and systems change to provide quality outcomes for all students. She currently serves as board member for both the Placer County Board of Education and the Latino Leadership Council in California.

  • Olivia Chase

    Olivia Chase is a transformative/restorative justice practitioner and trainer specializing in the examination and application of restorative justice philosophy and praxis, including indigenous antecedents, for climate and conflict transformation, community building, peace-building initiatives, strategic planning and more. She has a strong sub-speciality in family reunification conferencing serving United States system-impacted individuals and families.

    Olivia’s faith and justice affiliations include Trinity United Church of Christ-Chicago, The (In)Justice for All Film Festival International, Friends of the Congo, The Sankofa Egg Writers’ Collective, and The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples’ Engaged Spirituality.

  • Daniel Conley Board Member

    Daniel Conley

    Dan Conley is principal of Beacon Communications, a global Public Relations Company based in Chicago.

  • Larry Greenfield Chair, OMNIA Board

    Larry Greenfield

    The former Executive Director of the Parliament of the World's Religions, Larry Greenfield has been engaged in Interfaith relations for over 30 years. He served as president of Colgate-Rochester Crozier Divinity School and as the Dean of Students at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. He formerly served as vice-president for research at the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, co-founder of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, theologian-in-residence and editor for Protestants for the Common Good and Community Renewal Society, executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago, board chair of the Baptist Theological Union at the University of Chicago.

  • Isaac Laudarji Board Member

    Isaac Laudarji

    Dr. Isaac Laudarji, is the board chair of Community Peace Dialogue and Interfaith Initiatives, OMNIA's partner organization in Gombe, Nigeria. He recently retired from being pastor of an ECWA Church in Kaduna area in Northern Nigeria. Prior to that, he was pastor of the ECWA Church in Chicago, at which time he served as a member of the faculty of the Center for African American Theological Studies (CAATS) program of OMNIA’s predecessor organization Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE) Dr. Laudarji received his Ph.D. in Religion from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA.

  • Kristen Opalinski Board Member

    Kristen Opalinski

    Ms. Kristen Opalinski is the Manager of Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

  • Bishop Munib Younan Board Member

    Munib Younan

    Rt. Rev. Dr. Munib Younan is the Bishop Emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land. A Palestinian Christian living in Jerusalem, Bishop Younan is an outspoken advocate for justice for Palestinians in contexts around the world.

  • Close-up of a smiling middle-aged man with gray hair, glasses, wearing a dark suit and tie, in front of a neutral background.

    Shanta Premawardhana

    Shanta Premawardhana is president of OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership. Prior to OMNIA, he served as the Director for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. He was also the Associate General Secretary for Interfaith Relations at the National Council of Churches, USA.