SIMETRICA-JACOBS - Key Persons
Agnieszka (Agnes) Szydlowska performs economic and econometric analysis, focusing on the application of non-market valuation methodologies to measure social value, and supports the team in project delivery.
Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs, Agnes was a Research and Teaching Assistant at Northwestern University across various fields, including behavioural economics, microeconomics, macroeconomics and finance. She also worked at the National Bank of Poland, monitoring financial market data to support the management of the Bank's foreign investment portfolio.
Augustin Lagarde conducts econometric analysis and policy evaluation and supports the Senior Economists in project delivery.
Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs, Augustin worked at Bruegel as a Research Assistant in the area of international climate commitment and sectoral competitiveness. Prior to this, Augustin worked as a Policy Analyst at the French Ministry of Environment.
Augustin holds two undergraduate degrees in Economics from the University of Poitiers (France) and from the University of Banska Bystrica (Slovakia), and an MSc in Environmental Economics from the Toulouse School of Economics.
Chantelle Matthews is the finance manager with 20 years of finance experience, overseeing all areas of finance and administration including payroll.
Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs Chantelle worked at Denmik Data Solutions and Burson Marsteller as the Finance Manager and was instrumental in setting up policies and procedures.
Chantelle holds an Advanced finance Diploma from the Hartwell Business Institute.
Daria performs economic analysis, focusing on the application of non-market valuation methodologies to measure social value, and supports the team in project delivery. Daria has worked across projects in housing, transport, and arts, culture, and heritage sectors.
Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs, Daria worked in the investment consultancy industry.
Daria holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Warwick and a BSc in Economics and Politics from the University of Bristol.
Mary-Kathryn (MK) leads the business to deliver its strategic mission - working with organisations to help them conceptualise, embed and measure the impact they hope to achieve. MK focuses on strategy development, business planning and innovation, leading on stakeholder and partner engagement through our key collaborations. She has worked with high profile clients across different sectors, developing frameworks and tools to enable them to operationalise social value.
MK joined Simetrica-Jacobs from HACT, where she was the Deputy Chief Executive. In addition to business-wide strategic leadership and business planning, she led major projects and brokered partnerships between housing, research, technology and data and played a key role in leading HACT's work on social value. She also established the UK Housing Data Standards partnership with OSCRE International in 2017.
In 2021, MK was also appointed as a Non Executive Director to the Board of Abri Group, a housing provider with a portfolio of 40k properties operating in the south of England. She also sits on the Audit and Risk Committee of Abri Group.
With over ten years of experience investigating the intersection of evidence, policy and practice in the UK, she has an extensive background in qualitative research methods and in mixed methods research in applied contexts. MK holds a first class degree in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in Irish Studies (Social Anthropology) and a PhD in Social Anthropology from Queen's University, Belfast.
Naike conducts economic and econometric analysis and supports the team in project delivery.
She completed her PhD in Economics with a focus on public economics and policy effects at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), where she also held a teaching associate role, delivering undergraduate course seminars in Quantitative Methods, Economic Philosophy, Macroeconomics and Industrial Growth and Competition.
She has also worked at Thomson Reuters as a Client Service Representative.
Naike holds an MSc in Economics from RHUL, BCom(Hons) in Economics and BSc in Economics and Mathematics both from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa).
As a member of the senior team within the company, Paola plays a direct role in implementing Simetrica-Jacobs' Business Plan and long-term Strategy. She develops and directs research projects and performs quantitative and qualitative analyses for social value measurement, wellbeing assessment, and impact evaluation.
Paola has a particular expertise and a proven track record in developing and managing effective impact analyses and social and equity impact appraisals of infrastructure interventions.
Paola has influenced social value strategy and policy development by reviewing the UK TAG guidance to measure the social impacts in transport interventions. She also has experience in leading and producing business cases for infrastructure investment schemes and funding applications to support Local Authorities' transport strategies.
Paola has not only led but also managed research projects aimed at understanding the socioeconomic benefits of various transport schemes in both Europe and Latin America. She has served as a peer reviewer in prestigious transport scientific journals. Paola has successfully collaborated with diverse clients across various countries, including the UK, Spain, Colombia, Luxembourg, Romania, New Zealand and the US, encompassing multilateral development banks, national governments, and multinational companies.
Paola holds a Ph.D. in transport economics (summa cum laude distinction) and a Master's Degree in Transport Planning from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain. She also holds a B.A. in Civil Engineering from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia.
Edward Dallas leads delivery of Simetrica-Jacobs's projects for clients. He has worked across a range of projects in sectors such as infrastructure, sports, cities and education both in the UK and globally. His work has applied non-market valuation methodologies to understand the value of otherwise intangible outcomes such as a strengthened sense of community, increased physical activity and enhanced confidence. He leads on ensuring that Simetrica-Jacobs continues to innovate new approaches that aid a better understanding of project, policies and programmes. He supports organisations across the public, private and third sectors looking to understand their impact and the value that they create for society.
Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs, Edward worked for over ten years in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, including postings in Taiwan and Colombia. He subsequently worked at London Business School, leading their engagement with employers globally on behalf of their Business Administration and Finance students.
Edward holds an MSc in Economics from LSE and an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge. He also studied for a Post Graduate Diploma in Policy Studies from the Centre for Financial and Management Studies.
Eleni is a Economist, supporting the team in delivery across a range of methodologies and projects. She holds an MSc in Environmental Economics from The University of Manchester and a BSc in Economics from the University of Patras.
Peter O'Donovan conducts economic and econometric analysis and supports the Senior Economists in project delivery. He has worked extensively on designing and constructing social value calculators for a wide range of sectors and has a keen interest in wellbeing analysis.
Rafael conducts economic and econometric analysis and supports the team in project delivery.
Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs, Rafael worked at the Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas (INE, Chile's Office of National Statistics) as enterprise surveys coordinator. In this capacity, Rafael led the team in charge of the methodological, data processing and publication aspects of the country's Innovation and Research and Development (R&D) surveys. Rafael has also worked on several other business statistics.
Rafael holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Chile and an MSc in Science and Technology Policy from the University of Sussex.
Job Titles:
- Business Operations Manager
Shaun drives the implementation and refinement of business strategies, ensuring everything runs smoothly and efficiently. He steers the business towards its strategic goals, overseeing project operations, resource and capacity planning, ensuring seamless integration of IT functions and maintaining strong internal communication between project teams.
Shaun comes from a background in architectural design, project management, and masterplanning, where he specialised in implementing regenerative design and sustainability initiatives across large-scale international projects in the higher education, public and social housing, and arts and culture sectors. Before joining Simetrica-Jacobs, Shaun worked at Haworth Tompkins, a world-renowned architectural design firm, as Project Quality Manager overseeing quality control, contract negotiation, regulatory compliance and project delivery.
He holds two undergraduate degrees in Architectural Design and Business Law from the University of Massachusetts, and an MBA in Project Management from Pennsylvania State University.