Professor Rachel Jewkes is a founder member of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative and Secretary of the SVRI from 2006-2019, before the formation of the leadership council. She is the Executive Scientist for Research Strategy and Intramural Units at the South African Medical Research Council and an honorary professor at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Public Health. Rachel is a medical doctor with public health specialist training who has led South Africa’s research on gender-based violence (GBV) for three decades. She established and led the South African Medical Research Council’s Gender and Health Research Unit, which has described the prevalence, risk factors and drivers of GBV in South Africa and developed an understanding of the socio-cultural context, particularly located in highly patriarchal gender relations. She has developed and evaluated multiple interventions to prevent GBV and assist survivors across a range of sectors from community to schools and the health sector, with a particular focus on rape, post-rape health care and the health sector response. Rachel was the lead technical advisor for the UN Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific which conducted research in nine sites in six countries. She was the consortium director of the What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Global Programme from 2013-2020, which led a programme of research and intervention design and delivery towards the prevention of violence against women and girls in 13 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA and Central and South Asia. She is a member of the Global inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee (GPAC) for the UN Trust Fund. Rachel is an A1-rated scientist from South Africa’s National Research Foundation and is the author of nearly 400 peer-reviewed journal articles, reports, training manuals, intervention curricula and book chapters.