Volunteering for Social change

Ahmad El-Zubi
Founding CEO, Naua

Ahmad is the Founding CEO of Naua (2016), a not for profit social impact platform that aims to promote a culture of giving and philanthropy (Naua.org) and volunteering (Nahno.org) by connecting civil society actors within a common framework for measuring impact. Previously, Ahmad served as the Director of Research and Policy at the Jordan Investment Commission (2010 – 2016) and was a part-time lecturer at the Business School of the University of Jordan (2009). Before that he was a Program Support Officer at Hydro One Networks, Canada (2007). Ahmad is also a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community in Amman (2011 – 2016) and was the first elected curator. Ahmad has an MBA (2009), BSc in Math (2006) and BA in Economics (2006) from McMaster University, Canada.

Emma Thomas-Hancock
Director for Volunteering Delivery, Volunteering Matters

Emma joined Volunteering Matters in 2000 and specialized in engaging with and supporting young volunteers. In 2002 she moved to Volunteering Matters consultancy team, providing 1:1 consultancy delivering training in Volunteer Management to external organisations. Now, she is the Director of Delivery, as part of the charities executive team Emma is operational lead for the 80 plus projects and programmes that Volunteering Matters runs across the UK. She is also a trustee of a charity based in Brighton as well as being a Voluntary Sector Community Mentor and the Welfare Secretary for a community football club.

Wendy Osborne
Senior Consultant, IAVE

Wendy Osborne retired as Chief Executive of Volunteer Now in Northern Ireland in 2017. She has over 35 years experience of working in the field of volunteer support and development. She has provided leadership locally and nationally and has experience of influencing and developing national policies for volunteering at a Northern Ireland and UK level. She has recently been working as a senior consultant to IAVE on a range of projects including their global convenings, research and development work with national leadership for volunteering organizations.

Matt Clausen
Vice Chair & North America Regional Representative, Board of Directors, IAVE

Matt Clausen is Vice Chair and North America Regional Representative to the IAVE Board of Directors. He is also the Senior Advisor to the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund, an initiative to support dynamic higher education partnerships, increased student training and exchange opportunities, and strengthened regional education cooperation and competitiveness throughout the Americas. In his role, he provides senior-level support to the fundraising, strategic positioning, messaging, and program visibility strategies.

Previously, Matt spent fifteen years in the senior leadership of Partners of the Americas, a non-profit organization that brings together people, governments, and local organizations to address challenges in the hemisphere, including building resilient civil societies and by promoting citizen engagement and transparency. He also completed a three-year tenure as President of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), fighting for human rights in Latin America and at the U.S. border. Matt was part of the Brookings Initiative on International Volunteering and Service, working with global and cross-border volunteering advocates to form the Building Bridges Coalition (BBC), and then to serve as its chair. He also led President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund.

Denise Hayward
Chief Executive, Volunteer Now

Denise Hayward has been Chief Executive with Volunteer Now since August 2017 and prior to that Director of Engagement since 2010. She has extensive experience in public and organisational volunteering policy development, local volunteering infrastructure engagement, volunteering research, supporting good practice in volunteering, young people and volunteering, older people volunteering and events volunteering. She has knowledge of, and expertise in, working with volunteers and volunteering issues gained over many years working in the voluntary and community sector. Denise is an active volunteer for Armagh Talking Newspaper and Tearfund.

Gloria Arlini
Deputy Director, Strategy and Policy, National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC)

Gloria Arlini has over 12 years of experience traversing the public, private and people sector across Singapore and Indonesia. Growing up amidst multiple cultures, she holds an innate curiosity of people and the communities they live in. She is trained as a sociologist and is passionate about using stories and lived experiences to create common grounds for understanding. She is currently the Deputy Director, Strategy and Policy at Singapore’s National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC). In this role she heads up Colabs—an initiative to bring multiple stakeholders to develop community-based collaborative approach to address today’s complex social issues.

Alexandra Infante Perales
Executive Director, Perú Voluntario and CEO, IKIGAI Social Lab

Alexandra is an economist, life coach and meditation teacher with more than 14 years of experience in designing and implementing volunteering programs within the corporate sector, government, academia and civil society. In 2007, Alexandra cofounded UNIVAS, the volunteering program of the University of Piura. In 2012, Alexandra cofounded Educa.Impacta.Crece, a non-profit organization focused on socio emotional learning for children in Peru. In 2015, Alexandra led Banco de Crédito del Perú’s corporate volunteering program, focused on education and with the participation of +2,000 volunteers. In 2017, Alexandra cofounded IKIGAI Laboratorio Social, a social lab focused on designing high-impact social programs. Also in 2017, Alexandra worked with the Peruvian government on the design of the national volunteering program. In 2020, Alexandra cofounded Perú Voluntario, the first formal national volunteering network in the country, whose goal is to promote and integrate volunteering through the already existing platforms and networks. It seeks to unite and promote volunteering in Perú with fairness, providing training and creating opportunities.

Cynthia Onyango
Regional Technical Advisor, Civil Society, Aga Khan Foundation East Africa

Cynthia Onyango is the Aga Khan Foundation East Africa, Regional Technical Advisor, Civil Society, based in Nairobi. She provides technical oversight on all civil society programming and has been with AKF for over one year. She has over 10 years of experience successfully designing, implementing and measuring civil society initiatives in Kenya, Uganda, Somali and Ethiopia with both international and local organizations. Cynthia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from the Moi University and currently finalizing her Master’s degree Health economics and policy.

Carlos Palacios
Lead, Global Volunteer Program, Telefonica Foundation

Carlos has a Degree in Economic and Business sciences at the Universidad Autonoma of Madrid. He has developed his career for more than 20 years in the field of Human Resources, highly focused on Training and skills development projects, as well as Leadership and Change Management, always linked to professionals giving their maximum potential, working in high performance and in the best working environments. Part of his career has been developed at the world of Human Resources consulting, focused in the area of Strategy and Executive development, he joined in 2015 to Telefónica Group, working on strategic projects of Human Resources and engagement projects for employees. In 2019 he assumed the leadership of the Corporate Volunteer Program, which is the maximum expression of commitment and connection of employees with society and an expression of Group Telefónica Values. The Volunteer Program is one of the most important in the world with more than 56,000 employees involved in it.

Nichole Cirillo
Executive Director, IAVE

Nichole joined IAVE as the Executive Director in October 2019. Nichole has significant executive experience across environmental and social justice sectors and has led the engagement of a large network of global volunteers.  Her roles have included Mission Director/Head of PR at Stonyfield Organics, International Director of Learning at Earthwatch, Senior Manager, Outreach and Mobilization at Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) and Executive Director at Friends of the Public Garden and Boston Common. At Earthwatch Nichole led the implementation of a citizen-science volunteering program related to fresh water across 36 cities globally, developed and managed a sustainability leadership volunteering program that built a climate leadership network of 1400 finance executives across five continents. Nichole’s role at UUSC saw her lead the design and implementation of a capacity building strategy for global social justice grantees, and train and mobilize volunteers for disaster relief in Africa and Haiti.