Institutions and the People Who Carry Them
About Global Empowerment Direct
Global Empowerment Direct is a specialist advisory practice in governance, rule of law, justice reform, and gender. Established in 2018 and led by Krystal K. Thompson, GED advises international organizations, development banks, governments, and businesses in complex, high-stakes environments. Alongside that work, GED is home to a harder conversation: what these institutions cost the people inside them, and what it takes to stay steady over a long career.
Our Story
Global Empowerment Direct began in 2018 as a consultancy supporting the rule of law, governance reform, and justice institutions. That work continues today, across more than 25 countries, with international organizations, development banks, and governments in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Central America.
Alongside it grew a second focus, shaped by twenty-five years inside some of the most demanding institutions in the world: what those environments cost the people who carry them, and what it takes to stay grounded over a long career.
GED brings both together: the technical work of reform, and an honest account of what it demands of people.
Selected Clients
GED and its founder have delivered work for the United Nations, UNDP, UNODC, the Asian Development Bank, the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, USAID, the U.S. Department of State, the Pan American Development Foundation, and the Australian Government (DFAT).
Areas of Focus
GED’s work falls into four areas. The first is the foundation. The rest grew out of it.
Governance, Rule of Law & Justice Reform
The core of the practice. Since 2018, GED has advised international organizations, development banks, and governments on institutional assessments, reform roadmaps, court administration, legal aid systems, gender and GBV/SEAH safeguards, and business and human rights due diligence. The work spans 20 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Central America.
Leadership in Complexity
This work comes from within the rooms where hard decisions are made. GED advises senior professionals, institutions, and businesses on how leadership works under pressure, where power, accountability, and culture meet.
Cross-Cultural Practice
Twenty-five years in courtrooms, ministries, and missions. GED advises institutions and businesses on working across cultural and institutional lines: how authority is read, how trust is built, and how judgment is held in rooms where the rules are unwritten.
Sustaining Professional Practice
Demanding institutions cost the people who carry them, and that cost is rarely named. GED works with senior professionals and their organizations to help them stay grounded, clear, and effective over a long career.
Leading in Complex Systems
(Launching soon) A program for senior professionals in high-responsibility institutional environments, examining how leadership is practiced where power, accountability, and culture intersect. First pilot in 2026. To hear when it opens more widely, get in touch.
How We Work
Engagements are scoped to what an institution actually needs, and often begin small. Across all of them, the work is change management: not just designing reform, but moving an institution through it.
01. Diagnostic
A focused review of where an institution or project stands: safeguards readiness, justice-sector capacity, and institutional systems. Delivered as a clear assessment with sequenced priorities.
02. Design
Policies, standard operating procedures, roadmaps, and results frameworks built for the context they will operate in, and are written to be used rather than filed. Design includes the adoption path: who must change what, and how that change is led.
03. Delivery
Training, facilitation, and implementation support, from national dialogues and multi-stakeholder consultations to justice-sector and safeguards training for the people who carry the work.
04. Advisory
Ongoing counsel to senior leadership on reform, risk, and change management: leading institutions and their people through transitions that hold.
If you are scoping safeguards, justice-sector, or institutional reform work, get in touch.
Delivering technical assistance on GBV/SEAH safeguards for an Asian Development Bank-supported geothermal operation, Indonesia, 2026.
Selected Engagements
Safeguards for a geothermal operation in Indonesia. GBV/SEAH procedures and survivor-centered grievance mechanisms for a development bank-financed energy operation, approved for rollout across all company sites.
Court reform in Central America. A new case management system performance metrics, and sentencing guidelines for a national judiciary, closing 57% of the criminal case backlog, against a 50% target.
A five-year rule of law strategy in West Africa. National diagnostics and inclusive consultations across government, judiciary, and civil society, producing a five-year roadmap endorsed by the government.
A global rule of law programme. Design of the current phase of a United Nations global programme across five regional hubs: outcome narratives, results frameworks, and theory of change.