Avner Mizrahi is the CEO of engageSPARK, a social enterprise that he co-founded in 2012 to help international development organizations, university researchers, and other nonprofits engage with hard-to-reach populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Avner has served as engageSPARK’s CEO since 2019 and has grown the company’s reach to 185+ countries, helping clients such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard, various UN agencies, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, and many other humanitarian organizations collect data from and disseminate information to their beneficiaries, research participants, and employees remotely, at scale, and across the globe via SMS (text messages), IVR (robocalls), Airtime Top-ups (mobile phone credit), CATI (live call interviews), and WhatsApp.
Before engageSPARK, Avner practiced law, first as a corporate litigator, then as a human rights lawyer. He led one of the largest and first insurance cases to come out of the 2008 credit crisis and then spent several years in Uganda fighting for the rights of vulnerable and marginalized individuals. While in Uganda, Avner co-founded the anti-corruption organization Not In My Country and then co-founded engageSPARK. Avner has a JD from New York University School of Law and a BA in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University.
