Professional Experience:
My international development career has been mostly in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, whilst I’ve also managed large refugee programmes across East Africa. My senior leadership positions with international NGOs have been as a Country Representative for Caritas Switzerland in Vietnam, a Country Director for the International Rescue Committee in Tanzania, and as Executive Director for a new charity, ‘Challenge to Change’, which I helped to establish in 2010, to respond to climate change adaptation challenges in Vietnam. I have led developing country programmes and organisational strategies, established new programmes and legal entities, managed multi-stakeholder partnerships between governments, NGOs and academic institutions, and regularly taken overall responsibility for NGO financial and human resource management.
My areas of knowledge and expertise are in sustainable livelihoods, climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, natural resource management, gender equality and social inclusion, participatory approaches, stakeholder engagement and capacity development. My work has consistently involved building and maintaining relationships with local government, and with institutional donors and a range of partner organisations.
Fundraising has also been integral to each of my roles. For Caritas Switzerland, I oversaw the writing of all project proposals for submission to institutional donors, and as Director of Challenge to Change, I successfully raised more than US$2 million from foundations and larger development agencies. Since returning to the UK I have supported the University of Kent to prepare international research proposals and gain funding for academic partnerships between Kent and universities in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Myanmar).
From my broad experience as described above, I have a strong understanding of programme development and management across diverse cultural, institutional and geographical contexts, and a firm commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.