MEET OUR TEAM
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TRUSTEE BOARD
Thomas Billington
Co-Founder,
Fish Welfare Initiative
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Karolina Sarek
Co-Founder, Ambitious Impact; Chair, EA Animal Welfare Fund
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Akhil Bansal
Doctor; Head of AMR Funding Circle at Schmidt Futures; Research Advisor to The Life You Can Save
Patrick Stadler
Co-Founder, New Incentives; Co-Founder and Managing Director, Pour Demain
Andres Jimenez Zorrilla
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, Shrimp Welfare Project
SAMANTHA KAGEL
CEO
Samantha took over as CEO of Ambitious Impact in December 2025. Prior to this, she owned the management and execution of our flagship Charity Entrepreneurship program as Chief Program Officer, driving forward our efforts to refine the model and scale its impact.
Before joining AIM, she was a non-profit consultant specializing in agile project management, learning & development, team design, and business strategy. Prior to switching into the nonprofit sector, Samantha worked at Google and Disney, and holds business and management degrees from the University of Texas and University College Dublin.
JOEY SAVOIE
Co-founder and CEO (Outgoing)
Joey works on high-level strategy across all the departments and mentorship and training for the participants of the Incubation Programs. He is also one of the primary contributors to the handbook "How to Start a High-Impact Nonprofit".
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Prior to AIM, Joey co-founded Charity Science, a meta-organization that increased the amount of counterfactual funding going to high-impact charities. Subsequently, he co-founded Charity Science Health, a nonprofit that increases vaccination rates in India using mobile phones and behavioral nudges. He has given lectures on various aspects of charity entrepreneurship and Effective Altruism in Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, EAG London, EAG San Francisco, Berlin, Basel, Vancouver, Stockholm, and others.
AIDAN ALEXANDER
Chief Operating Officer
Aidan’s mandate is to scale our flagship Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program — launching more high-impact charities each year, with an increasing proportion becoming field leaders.
He previously ran the program at AIM, where he also helped launch the Impactful Grantmaking program and co-authored How to Launch a High-Impact Foundation. He then entered the program and co-founded FarmKind (a donation platform that makes it easy for everyone to play a role in ending factory farming) before rejoining the AIM team. Aidan began his career in management consulting at BCG and in strategy and ops at Uber.
When he’s not working, he’s busy being a techno gremlin and staring at people’s pets for so long that it starts to get a bit weird.
JUDITH RENSING
Chief of Staff
Judith currently co-runs the AIM Grantmaking Program, runs our staff hiring, and serves the team as Chief of Staff. Since becoming a part of the AIM ecosystem in 2020, she has worked in different roles across management, talent identification, marketing, and research; and co-authored "How to Launch a High-Impact Foundation".
Before joining AIM, Judith graduated the CE Incubation Program and launched the nonprofit High Impact Athletes, built a social start-up, and conducted research in two international bioethics groups.
JACINTHA BAAS
Chief Growth Officer
As Chief Growth Officer, she’ll be responsible for AIM’s broader scaling and growth strategy. She’s always keen to hear from people in the community for their best pitches on what AIM could do to be even more impactful than it is right now.
She is an entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience in founding & scaling organisations. In her role as co-founder of a sustainable tech scale-up, she grew the company to 30+ staff. Her achievements were awarded with various prizes and recognitions, such as the Next Women To Watch, the Inspiring Fifty: Women in Tech, and the Forbes 30 under 30. She holds a degree in Sociology from the London School of Economics.
Outside of work, Jacintha is always up for going bouldering, loves sharing feed-a-whole crowd vegan recipes, and is also great for evidence-based takes on pregnancy, birthing, and parenting.
MORGAN FAIRLESS
Research Director
Morgan is our Director of Research. He holds an MSc in Public Policy & Administration and BSc in Politics & Philosophy, both from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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Before joining AIM, he worked in international development consulting, student union leadership, and freelance writing and editing in social science.
BEN WILLIAMSON
Special Projects
Prior to joining AIM, Ben co-founded the Maternal Health Initiative (MHI) through the 2022 Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. MHI tested a scalable model of postpartum contraceptive counselling in northern Ghana to reduce maternal mortality and increase reproductive autonomy.
He is also the founder of Effective Self-Help, a mental health research organisation, and co-Director of Holyrood Parkrun, a free running race with around 400 participants each week in Edinburgh. Ben holds an MA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Edinburgh.
VICKY COX
Senior Research Manager (Animal Welfare)
Vicky is part of the research team, investigating and evaluating animal advocacy interventions. She is also the Program Manager of AIM Research Program and advisor to the animal program participants.
Before joining the AIM team, Vicky went through the CE Incubation Program. Prior to this, she was a research intern for AIM, primarily completing the priority country research for our recommended animal charities. She did this internship alongside her Maths with Actuarial Science degree at the University of Southampton, where she helped to found an effective altruism society. Vicky went vegan and became interested in effective altruism in 2016, after reading works by Peter Singer.
STEVE THOMPSON
Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program Manager
Steve co-leads our flagship Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. He develops content and approaches, coaches our startup founders, consults on new programs and outreach, and contributes to overall team dynamics, cohesion, and direction, as well as finding great founders and great co-founder pairings.
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Steve previously co-founded the Entrepreneurs Academy in Ireland where he was the Head of Learning and Creative Director. He has worked across the corporate sector as a Senior Leadership Development Consultant for over 10 years where he focused on creativity, EQ, and teamwork. He has extensive experience in both the design and facilitation of large scale training and development programs.
Steve has also published a book to raise money for GiveWell, designed a full-scale magic and illusion show, built his own house from scratch, and is a co-founder of Training for Good, the new EA meta charity.
EZRA HAUSDORFF
Charity Growth Manager
Ezra works on the Programs team, with a focus on supporting AIM alumni charities on their path to scale. Ezra is also the founder and Director of Heron AI Security Initiative, which works to ensure that advanced AI systems have sufficient levels of security as they're integrated into society.
Previously, he managed a nonprofit that provided-impact focused career guidance, founded a research program to increase evidence-based donations, served in the public sector developing national tech policy, and worked as an economist for a private consulting firm.
Ezra holds a BA in Economics and Liberal Arts (with Honors) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
MARTIJN KLOP
Grantmaking Support
Martijn Klop supports the funding circles, part of AIM grantmaking. Apart from the grantmaking team, he also supports multiple other AIM projects with flexible (research) capacity and assists with the evaluation of our charities, part of AIM’s M&E function.
Before joining AIM, Martijn has done EA community building at a city and national level and helped launch a global health policy fieldbuilding initiative (Health Progress Hub). In 2024, Martijn graduated from Utrecht University with two Master’s degrees, in Theoretical Physics and Neuroscience and Cognition.
BRECHTJE VAN DEN BOSCH
Operations Director
As Senior Operations Manager, Brechtje focuses on enhancing efficiency within Ambitious Impact. She also provides operational support to nonprofits arising from the Charity Entrepreneurship program as well as advise on risk and security management topics to charities operating in medium/high-risk areas.
Prior to joining AIM, Brechtje ran operations for a specialist risk management consulting firm in West Africa. Whilst living in Nigeria, she managed more than 80 consultants working with clients throughout the whole region. She also worked as a consultant in Amsterdam and supported clients on compliance, security and crisis management topics. She holds a bachelors in Safety and Security Management and has a background in the Dutch police force.
DILAN FERNANDO
Senior Operations Manager
Dilan is passionate about building and nurturing the impact ecosystem. As Senior Operations Manager, he works to amplify AIM's effectiveness through productivity improvements, HR, and administrative support for incubated charities.
Previously, he served as People Operations Lead at Animal Think Tank, where he developed the organisation's core processes and led its adoption of Holacracy. He also helped launch Animal Rising as its Media Coordinator, leading a 30-person volunteer team to put plant-based food systems on the UK press agenda.
Dilan's journey to impact began in 2015, after an unlikely friendship with a dog in Cambodia changed his worldview. He went on to co-found the Monash University Vegan Society and Young Voices for Animals, and in 2019 left a marketing role at National Australia Bank to pursue purpose full-time. Outside of work, Dilan is a Vipassana meditator, an aspiring singer, and a die-hard Sri Lanka cricket fan.
ISABELLA (IZZY) MENCATTELLI
Operations Manager
Izzy is one of our Operations Managers, helping our organization and incubated charities to run smoothly and efficiently. She focuses on program support, as well as managing our office space and events.
Izzy’s previous experience includes fundraising and event planning. Before joining AIM, she led an academic summer program for teenagers, to help them navigate their future career options. Izzy is a Board Advisor for an international development charity that empowers communities in Kenya and Tanzania through quality education.
FILIP MURÁR
Senior Research Manager (Global Health & Development)
Filip is our Senior Research Manager working on systematically evaluating ideas for new charities to be incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship Program.
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Before joining the AIM team, Filip was a Senior Research Advisor at The Behavioural Insights Team. He oversaw the design, delivery, and evaluation of quantitative behavioural science studies, with methodologies including online lab experiments, randomized controlled field trials, and machine learning predictive analytics. During his studies at the University of Cambridge and University College London, he led the Trinity Effective Altruism student group and co-founded Effective Altruism UCL.
SHAILEEN MCGOVERN
Research Manager (Animal Welfare)
Shaileen is part of the research team, where she helps identify and evaluate animal advocacy interventions.
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Her career spans roles across the agriculture sector, including work at Zoetis as a Senior Scientist and in business development consultancy, supporting farmers on breeding for productive, healthy dairy cows and assessing precision livestock farming and agtech solutions for animal health. She has also worked as a Lab Analyst in the Plant Science Division at Ireland’s Department of Agriculture and as a Policy Officer at the Department of the Climate and Environment, contributing to the delivery of Ireland’s Climate Action Plan.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science, a Master’s in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, and most recently, a Master’s in Public Policy with her thesis research on plant-based food transition policy in state-funded canteens.
DYLAN COLLINS
Visiting Research Fellow
Dylan is a Visiting Research Fellow from the Centre for Global Equity in Emergency Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is a practicing medical doctor and health systems researcher focused on improving how global health interventions are designed, evaluated, and delivered.
He earned his medical degree from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in clinical epidemiology from the University of Oxford, and later specialized in emergency medicine. Dylan brings applied experience across academia, NGOs, and government agencies, including work in resource-limited settings at the interface of policy, implementation, and frontline care.
TRISH KENNELLY
Founding to Give Program Manager
Trish is the Program Manager for the Founding to Give program. She has spent her career connecting people and possibilities, and she's excited to continue doing just that at AIM.
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Previously, Trish was COO at On Deck, where she helped to grow the company from pre-funding through Series B and launch the On Deck accelerator for founders at the earliest stages. Prior to that, Trish ran programs for impact founders at Unreasonable Group, was the first employee at Remote Year where she helped to scale the company through Series A and acquisition, and worked in a boutique consulting firm focused on real estate and development.
In her spare time, Trish loves to surf, hike, travel, and do anything that feels like a "concentrated dose of life".
EMMA STOKS
Recruitment Director
Emma leads recruitment at AIM, with a focus on identifying founders for the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program.
Prior to joining AIM, she worked as a learning and development consultant, supporting individuals and organizations to learn and perform effectively in complex environments. She holds a BSc in Politics, Economics, and Philosophy from Minerva University. Emma also brings first-hand experience of AIM’s programs to her role, as an alumna of the Effective Giving Incubation Program.
CRYSTAL LAM
Recruitment Manager
Crystal is focused on finding talent for our programs. She holds a BA in Philosophy & Politics from Durham University, where her thesis on the value of equality earned highest honors, and a BPhil in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, with her postgraduate thesis on the philosophy of love similarly recognized.
Before joining us, Crystal worked in business development, operations and project management at an Oxford-based machine learning startup specialising in Bayesian optimisation and strategy consulting at PwC.
Outside of work, Crystal enjoys bouldering, goes to church, and bakes sourdough with her three-year-old starter, Ryelie. She loves creating delicious, cost-effective, and time-efficient recipes for friends and family. In the office, you’ll often spot her with a big furry companion by her side—Eva, a rescued German Shepherd who’s also an honorary member of the recruitment team.