EA to Marcela Navarro and Kate Wolfenden
Kat has travelled extensively, teaching English as a second language to children all over the world through the mediums of play and theatre. Seeing this method of teaching’s positive impact first-hand, and recognising the importance of sharing knowledge, Kat decided to put these skills to use in the charity and education sector. She has two years experience in supporting C-Suite leaders before moving to Project X as an Executive Assistant to the two Co-Founders. Kat is passionate about people and the environment and is combining her personal values and professional skills in a bid to help save the world through Project X Global.
On Purpose Associate
Prior to joining Project X as a delivery support for the 10 in 10 Programme, Alice was managing strategic projects in a leading travel management company, acting as an internal consultant in activities related to structure optimisation, sales effectiveness, and global collaboration. She also worked for Ferrero France on the strategic development of a new CSR program for the brand Kinder, as well as on Trade Marketing activities for the brand Nutella. In 2017 she co-founded the Brixton Food Assembly, a local food market in South London aiming at bringing the community together around fresh, local products. Alice has some volunteering experience as a fundraiser for a charity acting around education in Burkina Faso, and participated in Model UN conferences in Cambridge and New York. She holds a Masters in Management from EDHEC Business School in France and a Master in Global Business from the University of Victoria (Canada). She’s a native French speaker who’s also fluent in English and Spanish.
Non Exec Director
James Shaw was born in India and educated in England at Ludgrove, Shrewsbury, RMA Sandhurst and The Army Staff College. He started his working life with a brief spell in the City before joining the Army in 1971. During his 34 years of service, he deployed to the Middle East on several occasions, Northern Ireland and The Balkans. He commanded his Regiment during the first Gulf War, a Brigade in Bosnia and the largest and most complex Division comprising 13 Brigades and 34,000 soldiers during the second Gulf War. He was awarded the MBE in 1986 for services in Berlin during the height of the Cold War and advanced to CBE in 2004. Since leaving the Army in January 2005, he has worked in Private Equity, has his own Advisory Business and acts as a mentor to a number of aspiring young individuals.
Associate – Development
Juliet’s joins the Project X team to support on development. Juliet brings a breadth of experience in the philanthropy developed during her time working for a Goodwill Ambassador to Nelson Mandela’s Children Fund, Macmillan Cancer Support, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and during her MSc in Grantmaking, Philanthropy and Social Investment at the Cass Business School where she gained a Distinction. She has continued to build the diversity of her portfolio: developing strategies for philanthropists, writing philanthropy and social investment advisory toolkits for wealth advisors, relationship building, and coordinating events and content for family office and philanthropic audiences.
Senior Manager Research
Karen Lawrence has over 20 years experience specialising in designing and implementing participatory natural resource management plans linking biodiversity conservation, stakeholder engagement processes, community livelihoods and sustainable finance mechanisms.
Examples of work include mapping of Cornish coastal community landscape values, participatory natural resource use plans linked to livelihood strategies for supporting protected areas in Cambodia, Thailand and Philippines for USAID and EU projects, as well as community forestry in Nigeria for a DFID project.
She was 6 years with WWF-UK where as a design and impact advisor, she supported the conservation science and impact monitoring of the Living Amazon Initiative, supported the deforestation trend analysis with scenario assessments, and applied the IUCN ecosystem assessment methodology, she also designed and implemented with WWF Brazil an impact evaluation assessment to show the avoided deforestation of supporting rubber tappers in 3 million hectares of brazilian rainforest. All of this work was underpinned by building the capacity of local teams, facilitating community resource mapping and planning whilst linking it to remote sensing data and geographical information systems.
She is also experienced in designing strategies, projects, and developing monitoring and evaluation processes for meaningful engagement with multi-sector, and multi-cultural stakeholders. She designed and facilitated the stakeholder evaluation of the WWF PISCES project and evaluated the Civic Mediation process used in the Celtic Seas Partnership to explore relationships between the Scottish fishing industry, E-NGOs and Government. She has also worked with ZSL as an impact manager and more recently conducted an evaluation of WWF-Indonesias conservation strategy.
She has an engineering degree, a masters in land and water management and a doctorate in political ecology from Kings College London as well as masters courses in renewables energy.
Associate Feed-X
Nadia is a passionate international climate policy specialist, with diverse experience across the private sector, public sector and environmental standards. Before joining Project X Nadia supported the UNFCCC Secretariat in working with the Executive Committee for loss and damage in operationalising its mandates. Prior to this, Nadia spent more than four years inPwC’s Sustainability and Climate Change practice, working with private and public sector clients including British Venture Capital Association (BVCA), WBCSD, World Bank, and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) on the Climate and Development Knowledge Network. She holds a BSc in Biology and an MSc in Environment Technology (Dist.) both from Imperial College London.
Director of the Project X Finance Community
James graduated from Oxford University and then spent almost 20 years as a trader and fund manager, including setting up the world’s first climate change hedge fund. He left the financial markets in 2008 to take a Masters in Environmental Technology at Imperial College and moved into the NGO sector to work with investors to help them address the risks and opportunities from climate change with a particular focus on ESG strategy and integration. Prior to supporting the Project X programme, James headed up the Investor team at CDP, building its investor community to 830 investors representing $100 trillion in assets.
Director of Strategic Communications
Simon has more than 20 years’ experience in commercial strategy, innovation and risk management. He is Managing Director of Project Rome, a communications and strategy consultancy. Previous roles include Head of Sustainability and Innovation at the accountancy firm, BDO and Managing Partner of the Sustainable Business Practice at PIPC, an international programme management consultancy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and visiting Professor of Sustainability and Innovation at Chester University.
Director of Finance
Nigel Higgs is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, and holds a Masters degree in Finance. During Nigel’s 35 years in business he has held a variety of senior finance and operational roles in companies ranging from SMEs to large multinationals both in the UK and Europe. Nigel also brings experience of working with venture capital funded companies, from start-up through to exit.
Non Exec Director
Thomas is CEO of WWF Switzerland. Prior to taking on the role of CEO in 2012, Thomas spent 9 years heading up WWF Switzerland’s programme division and was responsible for the organisation’s national and international conservation projects. Previously, he worked in private banking for Citibank and as an engagement manager for McKinsey & Co. Thomas holds degrees in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Durham, in International Relations from Cambridge and in Business Administration from IMD.
Non Exec Director
Sue is the Head of Corporate Stewardship Finance within WWF-UK and has been with WWF-UK since 2010. Previously Sue had been with Barclays for 23 years and had undertaken a number of senior roles, including Financial Controller for the Global Retail and Commercial Bank, Head of the Finance and Reporting Service Centre, and Group Programme Director Sarbanes Oxley. Sue is a chartered accountant with 23 years of experience in the finance sector and a German degree (BA Honours) from Exeter University.
Director of Industrial Sustainability
Steve is Head of Research in Industrial Sustainability at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Manufacturing and Director of the EPSRC Centre of Industrial Sustainability. His 30 year plus career within industry and academia, which includes 12 years at Martin-Baker and as Professor of Life cycle engineering at Cranfield, has focused on how industry can bring environmental and social sustainability concerns into design and manufacturing practices to bring about a sustainable industrial future.
Executive Chairman
Rob has focused on technology commercialisation and impact investing in resource efficiency sectors for around 30 years. He is co-founder and Chairman of a number of investment organisations including WHEB, Cambridge Agritech and Five Seasons VC. A chemist with an MA and PhD from Cambridge, Rob spent ten years in Shell’s agrochemical business before working in the 1980s with Rothschild’s Bioscience unit investigating environmental investment opportunities. He then joined KPMG where he worked on numerous M&A and privatisation transactions as well as on the development of environmental funds.
Director of Development & Co-Founder
Kate was a serial creative entrepreneur running several small businesses before moving into the NGO sector and developing corporate partnership programmes over 6 years for award winning charities such as Oxfam, Carbon Disclosure Project and Childreach International. After completing an MBA Kate moved into an innovation role at WWF to create novel fundraising models. She then developed Project X with Marcela over 18 months. Part of Kate’s role will be operational liaison with WWF.
CEO & Co-Founder
With a career of over 20 years of experience in value chain, sustainability and banking, Marcela is a recognised leader in purpose-led transformation models, with a proven track record in South America, North America and Europe. Prior to co-founding Project X, Marcela was Head of Customer Innovation at RBS, and a member of its Corporate Banking Board, where she led innovative programmes transforming the way traditional systems work together, resulting in multimillion pound savings, additional revenue for the bank, its customers and suppliers and significant environmental benefits. In 2015, she was recognised as Leader of the Year by Business Green and in 2014 she received a Word of Difference Award for her contributions to supplier inclusion.