our staff

Felicity Ruby is a writer, political campaigner, policy adviser and project manager.

She has worked for a number of international NGOs such as Greenpeace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and for the United Nations in Geneva and New York. She worked as senior advisor for Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam for his first 6 years in the Australian Senate, particularly focusing on internet policy, digital rights, and media reform. She was the first staff member and coordinator of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

While heading the UN Office of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Felicity founded two projects, PeaceWomen and Reaching Critical Will. She coordinated the coalition of NGOs that drove the adoption in 2000 of Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the first of several resolutions that saw the Security Council acknowledge that women existed and that war affected them differently. Engaged soon after by the UN Development Fund for Women to join a team writing the book Women, War, Peace, she also generated gender profiles of all countries on the Security Council agenda.

Felicity supported global software firm Thoughtworks to respond to internet policy and political developments after the revelations of Edward Snowden through timely policy briefs that included options, risk assessment, actor analysis and suggested messaging. For over 9 years at Thoughtworks she identified and facilitated strategic interventions for the company to contribute to multilateral and regional policy fora, multi-stakeholder dialogues, NGO and movement efforts. She wrote, organised and campaigned for over 14 years until her friend Julian Assange was free.  She has published extensively on issues of peace, justice, press freedom and a nuclear free future in New Internationalist, Arena, Open Democracy, Crikey, New Matilda, Digital Journalism, Australian Foreign Affairs and was co-editor of the book, A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposés.