Zan Times’ advisory board

Pashtana Durrani

Pashtana Durrani is founder of LEARN Afghan and is an international scholar-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is an internationally recognized educator, activist, and author. 

In 2018, she launched LEARN Afghan as the country’s first digital school network. It now operates underground to provide safe learning environments for girls living under Taliban rule. Pashtana is a Harvard University graduate with an M.Ed. in education policy analysis. 
She also wrote Last to Eat, Last to Learn, a memoir chronicling her journey and the founding of LEARN Afghan. Her leadership and advocacy have been globally recognized  by the Malala Fund,  BBC 100 Women, UN Young Activists Award, Muhammad Ali Center, Women Economic Forum and recently, Amnesty International, which honoured her with the Ginetta Sagan Award.

Nadine Hoffman

Nadine Hoffman, executive director of the International Women’s Media Foundation, works alongside its president to develop the organization’s strategy and advance its mission in support of a growing global community of journalists. 

With 25 years of experience working in journalism and international media support, Nadine Hoffman brings a depth of knowledge, with expertise in grantmaking, journalist safety and assistance, and gender equity programming. She has led IWMF’s reporting initiatives in difficult environments globally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Ukraine.

Since joining the IWMF in 2010, Nadine has grown the organization’s portfolio of safety work, and she plays a key role in funder and partner cultivation, bringing together key stakeholders to protect and elevate women’s voices in public spaces. She understands the barriers that gender diverse journalists experience and the resources needed to meet these challenges head-on.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Nadine began her career as a reporter in Boston after earning her master’s degree in journalism from Emerson College. 

Jennifer Hollett

Jennifer Hollett is a leader in media, tech, and politics. She is the executive director at The Walrus, an award-winning media organization in Canada known for its independent journalism and national ideas-focused events.

As a TV host and producer, Jennifer has more than a decade of experience at CBC, CTV, and MuchMusic. In 2002, she travelled to Kabul to work on an award-winning documentary on Afghan youth and women. She won a Canadian Online Publishing Award for her work hosting CBC’s blog during the G20 Summit in Toronto, and was recognized by Amnesty International Canada with a 2009 Media Award for her CBC radio reporting from Israel and Palestine. Jennifer co-founded a startup and developed the fact-checking “Super PAC App,” which helps make political TV ads more transparent. It debuted in the top spot in its category in the App Store. She was also the head of news and government at Twitter Canada.

Driven by a passion for social justice, she has worked with Journalists for Human Rights, CARE Canada, and Plan Canada. She is a strong advocate for women’s and girls’ rights, and has moderated the G(irls)20 Summit in Toronto, Paris, Mexico City, Moscow, and Sydney.

Aunohita Mojumdar 

Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who has been a reporter and editor for more than 35 years. She is the former Editor of the Southasian magazine Himal Southasian. She has lived and worked in Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and India. Between 2003 and 2012, Aunohita was a freelancer based in Kabul, where she reported extensively on the complex process of rebuilding and rejuvenation, as well as the international presence in Afghanistan and their competing strategic goals. Her reporting has been published in numerous regional and international media outlets including The Guardian, BBC, Asia Times, Al Jazeera, Eurasianet, the Hindu and Women’s enews.

She earlier worked for the Times of India and The Statesman newspapers and reported on national politics, the Indian Parliament, foreign affairs, and the conflict and post-conflict period in Kashmir and Punjab. As the Editor of Himal Southasian, Aunohita also worked on the complex issues of sustainability and survival of a small media organisation in the face of financial and political challenges.
She currently works primarily as an editor and is based in Bangalore with her cat and her husband, both of whom she met in Kabul.

Sabrena Sabet

Sabrena Sabet is a news product leader with nearly a decade of experience building core products that transform business operations for global media companies. She’s currently at The Washington Post, where she develops data products and capabilities that enable commercial ad partners to intelligently connect their brands with the right audience and content at the right time. Those products sustain journalism by supporting business revenue and audience engagement.

Her background includes driving business transformation through building products and platforms, such as streamlining publishing workflows to growing commercial revenue and partnerships, which enable journalism to thrive. She led strategic initiatives at Dow Jones’ Barron’s Group that redefined how journalists collaborate and deliver award-winning content during a critical election cycle. She also played a key role in accelerating advertising revenue growth at The Wall Street Journal by building first-party products and services.

As a first-generation Afghan American, Sabrena carries a deep awareness that where you are born shapes everything, including from the opportunities you’re given to the voice you have in the world. This understanding drives her commitment to building technology that holds power accountable, centers truth, and amplifies stories that might otherwise be overlooked. Her connection to her heritage and the resilience of Afghan women fuels her dedication to advancing meaningful change.

Mina Sharif

Mina Sharif is an Afghan-Canadian writer, media producer, and women’s rights advocate with more than two decades of professional experience working in and on Afghanistan. 

From 2005 to 2019, she lived in Kabul, where she worked across media development, television and radio production, and community-based initiatives, collaborating with journalists, civil society leaders, and international organizations. Her commentary and essays have appeared in outlets including Al Jazeera and Teen Vogue, and she is the author of Your War, Our Lives, a short story collection about Afghan civilians’ lived realities during two decades of war.

Mina advises organizations on narrative ethics, women’s political participation, and culturally grounded communication strategies that resist simplification, political erasure, and voyeuristic framing. She brings a rare combination of on-the-ground experience, diaspora perspective, and media expertise, ensuring Afghan women are represented not as symbols of suffering, but as complex political actors with voice, agency, and authority. 

As an advisor to Afghan women-led media, she is committed to strengthening independent journalism with rigor, credibility, and international resonance.