London, England, United Kingdom
A humanitarian leader with expertise in humanitarian action, strategic leadership, and programme management. I have led humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Ukraine. In 2022, I completed the Executive Leadership Programme delivered by the Global Executive Leadership Initiative (GELI) in collaboration with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. I hold a Bachelor's degree in International Development and Global Food Policy from University College Cork, Ireland, and recently earned a Master of Science in War and Psychiatry from King’s College London, United Kingdom. I am deeply committed to upholding the rights and dignity of people affected by conflict and humanitarian crises, as well as ensuring the safety and well-being of humanitarian workers.
- Leading a joint response in Ukraine for Alliance2015 members, Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe. - Overseeing teams and partnerships delivering over €17M annually in humanitarian and development assistance to more than 110,000 programme participants. - Accelerating local leadership by promoting national staff into leadership and management roles. - Championing localisation by designing and executing a responsible transition of programme delivery to trusted local partners. - Optimising our operating model for cost-effectiveness and oversight; consolidating workforce and operational footprint to accompany local partners. - Expansion of wellbeing and duty of care support for staff and local partners, including resilience leadership capacity and minimum standards in security management.
- Reviewing monthly literature search on veteran wellbeing for consistency and accuracy and processing relevant literature for uploading to the Forces in Mind Research Centre repository.
- Led the organisation’s third-largest overseas operation, managing a team for over 1,000 staff across 30 locations and a portfolio of local partners. - Delivered a business development strategy, mobilising an annual budget of over 77 million USD in 2022 supported by USAID, EU, UKAid, and UN. - Championed expansion of trauma awareness and social cohesion programming with targeted donor identification leading to winning proposals by USAID and EU. - Initiated project to restructure operations and promote improved practices, collaboration, and effectiveness, contributing to two unqualified audits. - Introduced the Collaborative Cash Delivery Network in South Sudan building an alliance of 14 international and four national non-government organisations implementing cash assistance and awarded two proposals by ECHO.
- Led a team of 20 technical and operational staff and 18 local partners (total workforce of 300+ people) with an average annual funding pipeline of four million EUR. - Initiated a partnership portfolio review to enhance accountability, performance, and strategic alignment. - Positioned Trócaire for new business development opportunities through clear strategic direction, relationship building, diverse funding pipeline and rigorous proposal development practices. - Built new relationships with government ministries, partners, and donors, generating 500,000 EUR for Trócaire’s humanitarian programming.
- Promoted from Food, Income and Markets Program Manager to Area Manager within six months. - Supervised a team of 15 staff, across programmes and operations, and a budget of one million EUR/year. - Championed project to identify and address operational bottlenecks in finance, human resources, and procurement practices. - Provided technical and strategic leadership to programme teams in livelihoods, water and sanitation and women’s economic participation.