Rose Maruru is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of EPIC-Africa, where she leads efforts to strengthen the visibility, credibility, and resourcing of African civil society through data, trust-building, and collaborative infrastructure.

With nearly three decades of experience across Africa, the Middle East, and the United States, Rose works at the intersection of philanthropy, civil society strengthening  and data and knowledge generation. Her work has consistently focused on one core question: how do we ensure that community-led organizations are seen, trusted, and resourced to lead change in their own contexts?

Before co-founding EPIC-Africa, Rose held senior leadership roles across global development institutions, including TrustAfrica, Oxfam International, the African Development Bank, Population Council, and Save the Children. She worked closely with funders, intermediaries, and civil society organizations, gaining a systems-level understanding of the structural barriers that limit funding flows to African CSOs, particularly those closest to communities.

At EPIC-Africa, she is helping to build practical, African-led solutions to these challenges. This includes supporting a shift toward more trust-based, data-informed, and community-centered philanthropy, and advancing the African CSO Platform as shared infrastructure for visibility and trust building

Rose brings a rare combination of operational depth and strategic insight, with expertise spanning grantmaking systems, partnership development, civic space, and organizational capacity. She is particularly focused on how data, when designed with and for communities, can rebalance power in the development ecosystem.

She currently serves on the board of the Firelight Foundation, contributes to global dialogue through the WINGS steering committee on the enabling environment, and sits on the editorial board of Alliance Magazine.

Her work is grounded in a simple but urgent belief: that Africa’s civil society is not a delivery mechanism, but a driver of solutions, and must be supported as such.