Johanna Day
Johanna joined Media Defence in 2025 with responsibility for Finance and Operations. Previously, Johanna has led the Finance department of several charities, and she also has 20 years of consulting and financial services experience spanning compliance, risk & regulation, mergers & acquisitions, strategic and financial planning.
Yuri Marchenko
Yuri Marchenko joined Media Defence in 2023 as a Senior Legal Officer. Yuri is a lawyer with almost two decades of experience in human rights litigation, advocacy, and research. He worked at Validity Foundation in Budapest, the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS) in London, and the OSCE Office for Democratic […]
Dorothee Archambault
Dorothee joined Media Defence in 2020, to implement and lead the Development cluster. Dorothee is responsible for fundraising, communications, M&E and is overseeing the delivery of our programmatic activities. Prior to joining organisation, Dorothee led the Partnerships team at NCT where she was responsible for generating income from corporate partners, trusts, foundations and commissioners. She […]
Carlos Gaio
Carlos joined Media Defence’s Legal Team in 2020. In 2023, he was appointed CEO. Prior to joining the organisation, Carlos worked for 10 years as senior lawyer at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He also worked for human rights foundations and NGOs in the UK and in Brazil, specialising in human rights law, UN […]
Pádraig Hughes
Pádraig joined Media Defence as Legal Director in 2016. He previously worked at a law firm specialising in international human rights law, international humanitarian law and public law. He also worked at an NGO litigating on issues concerning violations of human rights including extraordinary rendition, torture, arbitrary detention, freedom of expression and discrimination before international […]
Sabah A
Sabah qualified as a solicitor in 2013 and joined Media Defence in 2018. She previously practised in the areas of criminal defence, extradition and civil litigation. Prior to that, Sabah worked on cases involving international human rights law and public law as well as litigating and advocating on various criminal defence and extradition cases before […]
Ludilson Manuel
Ludilson joined Media Defence in 2019, and is responsible for the day-to-day financial administration and management. Ludilson has a BA Hons Degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of West London. Prior to joining Media Defence, Ludilson worked as a Finance Assistant at Conciliation Resources.