THINK NPC - Key Persons
Abigail joined NPC's Data & Learning team in 2021 as a Senior Consultant, bringing over 7 years' Research and Evaluation experience. A specialist in Theory of Change development, Impact Measurement and planning, developing and testing MEL systems for charities and funders.
Since joining NPC Abbie has worked on over 20 research projects, including grant-makers across a range of fields, such as Forces in Mind Trust, Tommy's, The Health Foundation and The MacArthur Foundation. Abigail is currently working with the UK Safer Internet Centre to review and refine their existing MEL and to develop new approaches within a coherent Evaluation Framework.
Before NPC, Abigail spent 2 years in the tech industry, analysing social data to map out cultural trends and uncover insights into attitudinal and behavioural shifts. Abigail has a background in Social Psychology and Neuroscience, and previously worked with the NSPCC and RNIB to explore unconscious drivers of donation behaviour.
Abigail has a keen interest in corporate social impact, tackling climate change and using psychological techniques to understand and address social issues.
Albert Tucker MA is an independent consultant and has extensive experience and practice in senior manager and in leadership roles in community development, regeneration and social enterprise across diverse communities in the UK and Internationally. When consulting Albert brings 40 years of experience working at all levels across the voluntary, public and private sectors and with a strong ethical and commercial background drawn out of many years of successfully leading organisations with combined social and economic objectives.
Albert has been and remains active in supporting the voluntary sector. He was a Trustee of Comic Relief, The BIG Lottery Fund, and City Parochial Foundation for over 15 yrs, supporting cutting edge work in the voluntary sector and a non-Executive Director of The Places for People Group, one of the largest and leading Registered Social Landlords in the UK, also Chair of the Assurance and Regulation Board responsible for leading on governance, regulation and social impact performance. He is a Governance and Business Adviser for AFFORD an African diaspora organisation advising Business in Africa and the UK. He is a trustee of Common Purpose, and the Carnegie UK trust.
He has an MA in Social Policy and Administration.
Alex works within NPC's Research and Consulting team as Associate Director: Transforming Funding. Alongside his team he works with a range of funders, philanthropists, and impact investors to ensure that they can achieve the greatest impact.
Alex is interested in a systemic approach to tackling complex issues and is experienced in building and supporting partnerships to achieve this. He has experience of the full lifecycle of grant-making, from developing innovative programmes through to supporting and undertaking evaluations using a range of methodologies. He has also written theories of change and strategies for a wide range of organisations
Alex has worked in the social sector for 17 years and is a Clore Social Leadership fellow. Prior to working at NPC, Alex was Head of Funding at The National Lottery Community Fund where he led a range of multi-million pound strategic investments, including programmes aimed at building diverse partnerships to reduce health inequalities and tackling loneliness. Alex is a trustee of Leap Confronting Conflict.
Alfie is a Development Executive, providing administrative and research support for the Innovation and Development Team, as well as the Open Philanthropy Programme, supporting colleagues across NPC to secure funding for projects which help maximise the impact of the social sector.
Alfie has a BA in French and Portuguese from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Linguistics from Queen Mary University of London. Prior to joining NPC, Alfie worked in language translation.
Alfie is passionate about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, with experience in advocacy for LGBT+ and disabled students, studying for their Undergraduate and Master's degrees. Outside of NPC, Alfie has volunteered at a number of cabaret fundraisers for a variety of causes, including Cabaret vs Cancer, Prepster, TVPS, and The Outside Project.
Angela leads the Research & Consulting team at NPC, driving the team's focus on impact and managing its operations. The team supports and partners with organisations to help them articulate their purpose, manage to outcomes, understand their impact and learn. She leads debates in the sector on charity policy and philanthropy and frequently talks to media and at events. Recently Angela has been leading NPC's work on the Cost of Living Crisis, highlighting the difficulties for charities at the current time.
Over the years at NPC, Angela has worked on a wide variety of consulting projects with both charities and funders. She has provided strategy advice to several large funders, including the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales. She is currently working on an evaluation of Catalytic Capital for the MacArthur Foundation.
Angela works closely with many philanthropists, helping them with their giving strategy; conducting due diligence on charities; and evaluating the performance of the grants. She also advises impact investors on the impact of their giving.
Angela was instrumental in developing NPC's approach to theory of change, shared measurement and work with philanthropists.
Angela joined NPC in 2007 and prior to that was an investment analyst at Baillie Gifford for three years, one of the UK largest fund managers.
Ben joined NPC as a Project Manager within the Think Tank and External Affairs team, on secondment from the Civil Service. He will be working primarily on implementing the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action plan, whilst supporting other projects across the business.
Prior to joining NPC, Ben worked at the Department for Work and Pensions in Universal Credit. Before joining the Civil Service, he was a Primary School Teacher in Lambeth for 7 years and previously studied languages at the University of Bath.
Pronouns: He/Him.
Brendan works within the Research and Consulting team as a Senior Consultant, specialising in User Involvement. He is currently supporting local and national partner learning as part of Sport England's drive to increase sport and physical activity for people, and their communities, in order to reduce inequalities.
Brendan has 20 years' experience working in the private and charity sectors. From managing user involvement in the design, delivery, and evaluation of services within a county council. To supporting a grant-giving trust to involve users at board-level and supporting young people to shape Further Education college inspections.
As manager for the UK Government's flagship Youth Democracy and Leadership programme, he managed 120 client relationships to empower 2000+ participants to influence and inform decisions that affect their lives.
As a Principal in the Research & Consulting team, Charlotte leads projects that help charities and funders evaluate, improve and communicate their impact, with a interest in governance and leadership. Recent projects include research on leadership and decision making throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, published in Charity Boards in Recovery and NPC's trusteeship seminars run in partnership with The Clothworkers' Company. She enjoys coaching clients and often works in a facilitative style, helping to build capacity in an organisation and allowing clients to retain ownership of work. Charlotte also leads NPC's work on children and young people. Current projects include leading NPC's work with the Stone Family Foundation in the UK, and supporting charities in a variety of ways: from developing new strategies to implementing measurement frameworks.
Before joining NPC, Charlotte studied for an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences at UCL, and has a keen interest in how behavioural insights can be used to affect attitude and behaviour change. Prior to this, Charlotte worked for KPMG as a Management Consultant, where she worked in a variety of areas, including change management, culture change and organisation design across the private and public sectors.
Principal: Involvement and Decision-making (maternity leave)
Claire works in NPC's Research and Consulting team as Principal: Funder Evaluation and Learning. She has worked in research and evaluation in and around the charity sector for over eight years and brings expertise in designing and leading mixed methods projects, with a particular focus on qualitative methods. At NPC, she has supported clients including the Santander Foundation and NHS Charities Together to understand their impact and develop learning to inform their programmes. She is currently leading our work creating a new framework for funders to evaluate and learn, while balancing trust, evidence and equity.
Before joining NPC, Claire worked at Social Life, leading a range place-based research and evaluation projects for private, public sector and charity clients. She also brings experience in academic research, where she focused on market-based approaches in development. She started her career working in fundraising for Recode a digital inclusion charity in Brazil.
Claire has a longstanding involvement in the grant-making sector, as a trustee of the William Grant Foundation, where she champions the organisation's funding for the environmental sector. Claire holds an MA in Anthropology of Development from SOAS, University of London.
David is a Senior Consultant in the Research and Consultancy Team specialising in Impact Investing. He is currently working with Rethink Mental Illness to support their work increasing quality supported accommodation in the community for people with severe mental illness through using a systems lens and innovative approaches to social investment to unlock and scale solutions.
David also works with the MacArthur Foundation on the Catalytic Capital Consortium (C3) initiative in NPC's capacity as Learning Partner and leads NPC's work as impact partner to Social Investment Scotland (SIS) Ventures, providing impact practice and management support. Among other projects, David has worked with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport researching and appraising options for the use of grant subsidy into blended finance to support the social sector and with Fair4All finance in co-designing their Community Finance Resilience Fund. He is particularly interested in the potential of impact investing as a lever to deliver systemic changes in how and where capital flows, and in redirecting it to grow other forms of value such as natural and social capital.
David brings experience in impacting investing from working at Big Society Capital and with Good Finance. He is a Director/Trustee and Vice-Chair of the Enlighten Learning Trust, a growing multi-academy trust encompassing both primary and secondary schools. David holds degrees in philosophy and divinity, and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in social philosophy, ethics and ecclesiology.
David is NPC's Associate Director US. Based in the US David leads our work with US foundations and charities and helps NPC deliver research and evaluation projects. He is an economist with more than 25 years' experience in the non-profit and public sectors in the UK and the US.
David was NPC's Head of Measurement & Evaluation for three years-helping charities find simple, realistic ways to measure their impact, even where their activities and services are complex. He directed and worked on a wide variety of projects, Unlocking value, the development of our Four Pillar approach to impact measurement and shared measurement projects and co-authored NPC's guidance on economic evaluation.
Delroy is a strategic consultant who works with stakeholders to enhance their reputation across technology, privacy and financial services issues, particularly for their impact on vulnerable groups and consumers. He is also the co-founder of the Financial Inclusion Centre, established to improve all people's financial lives.
He has enjoyed senior leadership and management roles in the charitable, consultancy and corporate world-from StepChange Debt Charity to Which? and FIPRA. He previously worked for leading politicians and social justice campaigners Diane Abbott MP and David Lammy MP.
He is currently a Trustee at the Terrence Higgins Trust
Elizabeth is a Senior Consultant at NPC specialising in Impact investing. She is an experienced project and programme manager having worked across a range of sectors (housing, urban planning, healthcare, humanitarian response) and geographies (Australasia, South America, South East Asia, Europe). Originally trained and practiced as an architect, Elizabeth went on to complete an additional MA in Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University. She has since worked for Arup International Development, was co-founder of the consultant network Stet and had a previous role as the Evaluation and Learning Principal at NPC.
Elizabeth has more than 15 years experience leading teams to undertake various research projects and evaluations to inform strategy and policy change. For example, evaluating the MacArthur Foundations Catalytic Capital impact investing initiative, gathering learnings from the Connect Fund-a partnership between the Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Access Foundation and with Action Against Hunger to support their Community Engagement strategy.
Elizabeth's experience includes providing strategic and governance advice, as well as detailed guidance such as due diligence, indicator development, and analysis. She has also worked directly with investment funds, for example the MAN Group's Community Housing Fund as an Impact partner. She is particularly interested in working with clients to best support the embedding of research learnings into future policy and practice.
Emma is an expert consultant who enables charities and grant-makers to drive social change through robust monitoring, evaluation and impact measurement.
She uses her facilitation skills to lead theory of change and measurement framework development processes, incorporating cross-organisational views and centring lived experience.
She has co-authored Monitoring, evaluation and learning with trust and equity: a guide for grant-makers and philanthropists, a guide for funders to navigate the demand for more trust-based philanthropy and greater focus on equity, with the need for gathering vital data and evidence to understand and improve impact.
Currently Emma is the monitoring and evaluation specialist for Everyone's Environment, a partnership between NPC and more than 80 charities across the sector seeking to accelerate action on the social impacts of the climate and nature crisis.
Yearly, Emma volunteers as a carer, supporting disabled people to partake in outdoor education.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Head
- Trustee of the Healthcare Embassy
As head of Data and Impact, Erwin leads NPC's evaluation and learning work and thought leadership. He supports all types of organisations trying to do good, ranging from charities and foundations, to social enterprises and individual philanthropists. He helps them to go from good to best, improve learning and maximising impact.
Erwin has a keen eye for meaningful and proportionate evaluation, challenging the sector to use data that is already there and design new measures in an efficient and purposeful way. As an economist, he lets data analysis guide his decision making, ensuring conclusions are robust and sound. At the same time, he underscores the importance mixed evaluation: no numbers without stories, no stories without numbers. Together they often provide the most useful insights.
Erwin has over 10 years of experience in the business and charity sector. Before joining NPC, he had his own social sector impact consultancy in the Netherlands (Impacters), working on programmes for disadvantaged youth (IMC Charitable Foundation), integration of migrants (Foundation New Home Rotterdam), at-risk single mothers (Mothers of Rotterdam) and the gender pay gap (Salaristijger). Erwin started his career as a Strategy Consultant at Booz & Company (now PwC Strategy&), after obtaining a MSc. degree in Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Erwin is a trustee of the Healthcare Embassy, a foundation in the Netherlands unlocking the potential of innovation in the conservative healthcare sector.
Job Titles:
- Board Member for Islington Giving
Job Titles:
- Communications Manager
- Communications Manager in NPC 's Think Tank
- Events
Gillian is a Communications Manager in NPC's Think Tank and External Affairs team. She manages NPC's event programme, including the annual NPC Ignites conference and our Leading Impact webinars. Gillian also manages the weekly newsletter, with the latest news from NPC, from upcoming events, new resources to recent blogs. She is responsible for NPC's website and social media channels @NPCthinks. Alongside this, Gillian supports the development of NPC's digital marketing plans, brand identity and communication strategies.
Before joining NPC, Gillian lived in New York and worked for the charity, New Alternatives for Children as their Community Relations and Marketing Coordinator. Prior to that Gillian worked for five years in content creation for Reach Plc.
Gurmeet works within NPC's research and consulting team as Principal for Impact Investing. Gurmeet has spent over a decade in Impact investing prior to joining NPC. Across her career, she has worked with Development Finance Institution's (DFIs), family foundations, corporates and investment funds in advising and leading on impact investing strategies, largely in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
Within the UK, Gurmeet is on the investment committee of an impact fund hosted by Big Issue Invest and Unltd. She is also a trustee of two UK-based charities with international programs.
Job Titles:
- Senior Consultant ( Maternity Leave )
Hannah works within NPC's Research and Consulting team as a Senior Consultant, with a particular focus on effective philanthropy. She is currently supporting a trust to develop its grant-making in the field of blended mental health provision for young people. She is also carrying out due diligence and grant monitoring work for several other funder clients.
Hannah brings over eight years of experience working in the charity sector. Before joining NPC, she led the grant-making programme at Classics for All and developed a range of significant partnerships with universities and cultural institutions, focusing on tackling educational disadvantage. She started her career as a teacher and has a particular interest in supporting children and young people's wellbeing.
In a personal capacity, she is a Trustee at Bristol Hospitality Network, a small member-led charity that works alongside people seeking asylum who are facing destitution in Bristol. Hannah has a Masters degree in Education Policy and International Development.
Hayley joined the Research and Consulting team in 2023 as a Programme Manager working on a major project for Sport England. Alongside consortium partners Ipsos and Sheffield Hallam's Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, Hayley leads NPC's work as learning partner for a significant new initiative aimed at reducing inequalities in sport and physical activity.
Hayley has over 15 years' experience working in the charity and public sectors, as well as a number of years engaging with the UN and other international fora, with a particular focus on equality, human rights and social justice. Prior to joining NPC, Hayley led a team of experts assessing the UK's compliance with international human rights law across a wide range of issues. In this role she also managed a national programme that built the capacity of hundreds of civil society organisations to better utilise human rights law as a tool for change.
Hayley is passionate about wellbeing, diversity, equity and inclusion issues, and centring living experience at the heart of any meaningful change.
Helen is Head of Development, leading on the strategy, management, planning and delivery of NPC's fundraising activity. As a charity ourselves, NPC raises funds to support our important work and address key issues facing charities and the people they help.
Helen has over 15 years' experience in fundraising. Prior to joining NPC, she was Head of Fundraising and Campaign Development at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, responsible for leading the organisation's fundraising for STEM Education and scholarships programmes to support and inspire the next generation of engineers from diverse backgrounds. She has also worked in high value fundraising for a range of national charities including Cancer Research UK, Shelter and Girlguiding. Helen is a Trustee of Angels Support Group, an experience-led charity that supports families of autistic children and/or those who have ADHD, and those awaiting diagnosis.
Job Titles:
- Media and Communications Manager
Job Titles:
- Head of Policy and External Affairs
- Policy Lead
Lucy has had a wide range of executive and non-executive roles across the charity and public sectors. She is currently a Lay Member and Audit Chair of the NHS Islington Clinical Commissioning Group, a Trustee of the Baring Foundation, and a Trustee of JoinIn the sports volunteering charity. She is on the NCVO Advisory Council.
Lucy moved into local government following ten years as a community activist in North Islington, Greater Manchester, and Hackney. Since then she has held senior roles across the charity, local and central government sectors. She ran the local government improvement agency, was a director of public services at HM Treasury and was the chief executive of Bristol City Council, leading the council though local government re-organisation. She received her CBE for services to local government in 2009.
As CEO of CSV (now Volunteering Matters) Lucy undertook a major transformation and restructuring programme to enable the national charity to survive. Previous non-executive roles include Chair of New City College (the merged Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge FE Colleges), a trustee of the east London charity Community Links, and Vice Chair of Governors for the Working Men's College (Camden's adult education community college).
Job Titles:
- Personal Assistant
- Project Administrator
- Personal Assistant and Projects Administrator
- Research and Consulting Services
- Writer, Editor
Mirabel is a Personal assistant and Project administrator at NPC, providing support to the Chief executive and the senior management team. She also works alongside the Research & Consulting department, providing assistance with business development and project work. Mirabel has experience volunteering with charities such as Macmillan Cancer Support and Short Breaks Charity, working on various initiatives to raise awareness.
Mirabel is a keen writer, editor and podcaster, and does freelance work, collaborating with creatives on various projects.
Job Titles:
- Programme Manager
- Senior Consultant
Job Titles:
- Senior Consultant: Innovation
Peter Wheeler joined The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as a London-based Executive Vice President in September 2013. He has a long and distinguished career as an investment banker having been the Head of Wholesale Banking for EMEA and Americas for Standard Chartered and previously a partner and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, working initially in New York in the 1980s, then based in Hong Kong, where he established and led the firm's Investment Banking business for Asia outside of Japan from 1991 to 1998. He was the firm's first Chief Representative in Beijing.
In his post-banking business life, Peter was a seed investor and Board member of Climate Change Capital until it was sold to Bunge in 2012. He sits on the Board of Rift Valley Corporation, a dynamic African agro-industrial enterprise which owns and operates a diversified portfolio of subsidiary companies across seven operating platforms in Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. He is a founding partner of Silk Road Finance Corporation, a Hong Kong-based and Chinese- led investment and advisory boutique working with Chinese State-owned and private companies in their activities on the Belt and Road geographies. He is an active seed investor in a personal capacity in innovative new companies in the renewables and low carbon economies.
He is a Board member of Social Finance, a social enterprise dedicated to the transformation of the third sector's capabilities by developing access to a range of innovative financing methods. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Stranded Assets Program. He has recently served on the Board of the Young Foundation (as Chair) and Virgin Unite.
Job Titles:
- Finance
- Operations Manager
Job Titles:
- Finance
- Operations Officer
Job Titles:
- Resource & Operations Manager
If you have any questions or to register your details please contact Shreena Soomarah.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Better Society Capital
Sir Harvey became Chair of Better Society Capital in January 2014. He has had a long and distinguished career in the international financial services industry, and is the former chair of Prudential plc, the London Development Agency, London First and Man Group plc. He is currently chairman of governors of Birkbeck College, and chair of the Mayor's Fund for London and Prince's Teaching Institute. He is also co-chair of the new board of the London Enterprise Panel (LEP), the local enterprise partnership for London, and sits on the advisory board of Bridges Ventures.
Harvey was a founding trustee of NPC and is trustee of a number of charities, including Children and Families Across Borders (President), Heart of the City (Chair), iCould (Chair) and the Royal Anniversary Trust. His role as a leading City philanthropist was recognised in a Beacon Award earlier this year. Harvey was knighted in the 2016 New Year's Honours list for services to Economic Growth and Public Life.