Our People

Our Team

Photo of Akriti Mehta. A woman with long, wavy brown hair smiling at the camera. She is wearing a blue top, and a black jacket. The background is softly blurred, showing greenery and an urban setting with buildings and plants.

Photo of Alberto Vásquez. A man with medium-length curly hair and a beard. He is wearing black-framed glasses, a black t-shirt, a light blue denim jacket, and jeans. The background features trees, greenery, and a blurred building.

Akriti Mehta
Co-director

Mad/disabled researcher and activist with more than ten years experience in community, academic, and activist knowledge production. Akriti has completed a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science focussed on justice and solidarity-based practices within psychosocial disability movements in India. She is part of collectives focused on disability justice, anti-racism, and queer action in the UK and in India.

✉️ a.mehta@madthinking.org

Alberto Vásquez Encalada
Co-director

Mad/disabled lawyer and activist with twenty years of experience in disability rights and mental health policy. Alberto holds a Master’s in Disability Law and Policy from the University of Galway. He has consulted for various UN agencies and is a founding member of the RedEsfera Latinoamericana por las Culturas Locas, la Diversidad Psicosocial, la Justicia, el Buen Vivir y el Derecho al Delirio. He chairs Sociedad y Discapacidad (SODIS) and co-chairs the Disability Rights Fund (DRF).

✉️ a.vasquez@madthinking.org

Our Board

China Mills
Chair

China (she/her) is the Head of Research and leads the Deaths by Welfare Project at Healing Justice Ldn, documenting welfare state violence by centring the resistance of people with lived experience of the welfare system, and the strategies of bereaved families, in fighting for justice. China cultivates research practices which foster cross movement solidarity and build towards life affirming systems and infrastructures. She is part of the Stigma Free Futures design team at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, working alongside people with lived experience of poverty stigma. For many years, China worked as an academic researching and teaching global mental health, with a focus on state and corporate production of harm, distress and deaths by suicide.

Akwe Amosu
Board Member

Akwe’s career has spanned journalism, advocacy, and philanthropy. Most recently she led The Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights, a five-year project to provoke new thinking in the global human rights field. Before that she worked at the Open Society Foundations serving as the Chief Integration Officer, after earlier leading OSF’s Africa work, Akwe began her career in African journalism, moving to the Financial Times, and later to the BBC World Service and finally allAfrica.com. She co-chairs the board of Global Voices and is a member of the advisory board of Lawyers for Justice in Libya. Akwe is also a coach, and a published poet.

Photo of Mercedes Ramiro, a woman with short brown hair wearing a white knit top, smiling slightly in front of a stone wall.

Mercedes Ramiro
Board Member

Mercedes Ramiro is a senior finance professional with extensive experience in international non-profit organizations. Most recently she joined Enfants du Monde in Geneva, where she oversees financial planning, accounting systems, and audits across offices in Guatemala, Chad, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh. Before that, she spent over six years as Senior Finance Manager at the International Disability Alliance, where she managed and coordinated relationships with donors and DPOs, while also leading and mentoring a multicultural finance team. Her career has been defined by a commitment to strengthening financial governance and accountability in the non-profit sector, ensuring resources are managed transparently and effectively in support of organizational missions. Skilled in grant management, compliance, and financial risk assessment.