The CCAN core committee elects up to three co-chairs to serve a term of one year. At least one co-chair must represent a civil society organisation from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Co-chairs schedule and facilitate meetings, ensure regular communication with government and company representatives, and ensure that both the core committee and the wider Network represent a diversity of views and backgrounds.
The co-chairs for 2024/2025 are:
Gazbiah Sans
Gazbiah Sans (she/her pronouns) is the Director of PVE Works. She is an expert in Counter-Terrorism (CT) and Countering/Preventing Violent Extremism (C/PVE), specialising in gender inclusion and working in fragile and conflict contexts.
She has over 15 years of experience, notably with USAID in Cameroon on the Boko Haram affected Lake Chad Basin Region and with the World Bank in Afghanistan. She is also a member of the Internal Review Panel for the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF).
Her research and publications inform policy and practice by providing solutions on Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content, Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV)/ Women Peace and Security (WPS), Digital PVE (hate speech mis/disinformation), Youth engagement/Youth Peace and Security (YPS) and Human Rights.
Katy Vaughan
Dr Katy Vaughan (she/her pronouns) is a Lecturer in Law at Swansea University in Wales researching and teaching in the areas of counterterrorism law and policy and the impact of this on the protection and promotion of human rights.
Katy is a member of the Cyber Threats Research Centre, an interdisciplinary centre with members with expertise in law, criminology, political science, and psychology exploring a range of online threats from terrorism, extremism and cybercrime, to child sexual exploitation and cybercrime. She is also a member of VOX-Pol which is an academic research network focused on researching impacts of violent online political extremism and responses to it.
She is also currently a member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism Legal Frameworks Working Group.
Abdur Razzaq
Abdur Razzaq (he/him pronouns) is the Chairperson of the Royal Commission Follow-up of FIANZ (the umbrella Muslim organisation of Aotearoa New Zealand) and leads the national response to the 15 March terror attack. His advocacy focuses on ensuring that the lessons learned after this tragedy are applied effectively to prevent similar events from occurring in the future.
An educationalist by profession, he was the founding CEO of Education New Zealand (formerly NZEIL), a government-owned organisation. He is currently the Executive Chairperson of New Zealand’s oldest private sector developmental and technology transfer organisation, implementing World Bank & Asian Development Bank projects globally in over 40 countries. He also chairs the New Zealand Halal Industry Forum, which is comprised of government ministries and meat and dairy export sectors, among others.
