SEWF Board

Azima Dhanjee

Azima Dhanjee is a Child of Deaf Adult (CODA), Co-founder and CEO of ConnectHear, Board Member of the Social Enterprise World Forum C.I.C and a member of the National Youth Council (an initiative by the Prime Minister of Pakistan). She is a Diana Award winner and has been invited as a speaker on various platforms. She is an alumna of the Institute of Business Administration (Class of 2020), with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration.

Azima is raised by Deaf parents and Pakistani Sign Language (PSL) is her mother tongue. Growing up, she was always concerned by how simple communication was a challenge for the Deaf due to the language barrier. The lack of awareness and accessibility led her to start ConnectHear at the age of 19 with her high school friends. ConnectHear is a social enterprise that strives for sign language accessibility and Deaf inclusion by using technology.

Gerry Higgins

Gerry is the founder and Managing Director of SEWF where he works to develop a global impact economy. Gerry has a BA in Education and a MSc in Business Studies and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Social Enterprise UK in 2017. Gerry is Irish but has lived in Scotland for over three decades and leads the SEWF team to strengthen and grow the social enterprise movement through convening, influencing and capacity building.

Leading SEWF has come about after decades, working in, establishing and supporting social enterprises in the UK and Ireland and this brings an understanding of the challenges of sustainability and leadership in values-led businesses.

Huda Jaffer

Huda is a product/service/systems designer with a keen interest in user centric design specifically for sustainability and developmental issues. She has an undergraduate degree in design from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore and a Masters of Science in Engineering and Business (Integrated Design and Management) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Huda has been critical in building the necessary processes of SELCO Foundation, which has led to it being known as a pioneer in the field of building the ecosystem for sustainable energy access for the poor.

Amanda Kiessel

Amanda is co-founder of Good Market, a curated community of social enterprises, cooperatives, responsible businesses, voluntary organisations and changemakers. Together they are working to create a 21st century economy that’s “good for people and good for the planet.”

The online platform includes more than 3,000 enterprises from 98 countries. Amanda has a PhD in Environmental Studies, a Masters in Sustainable International Development, and a degree in Biology with a specialty in ecotoxicology.

Before Good Market, she spent 15 years in Asia working with local organisations on agroecology and sustainable food systems, organisational change, and social enterprise development. Amanda is an Ashoka Fellow.

Hélène Malandain

Hélène has been serving as the Chair of SEWF since 2019. Hélène runs Pocketknife, a New Zealand-based advisory firm that works with people and organisations who navigate change towards better futures. She has recently relocated to France, her home country.

Hélène has been working in the social impact and social innovation space for over 10 years. Her journey started with a focus on growing social enterprise in Aotearoa New Zealand as a vehicle towards economic transformation, and has since expanded to many sectors and pockets of the economy.

Her work currently ranges from advising grassroots community-led networks on multi-year behaviour change programmes, to co-designing change strategies for NFPs, advising local government on New Economy frameworks, and working with researchers on the topic of ethical leadership.

Hélène enjoys working across multiple scales: from global and multicultural environments to local and place-based contexts. She’s used to working on the ground, or around the Board table. She is curious about models, innovative frameworks and philosophies that can inform the redesign of our systems towards a new economy. She is committed to continuous learning, to growing her toolbox and her practice, and to keep expanding her horizons – and those of others’ through collaboration.

Erinch Sahan

Erinch is the business and enterprise lead at the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Recently, he was World Fair Trade Organization’s CEO and previously spent seven years at Oxfam leading campaign initiatives and founded Oxfam’s Future of Business Initiative. Erinch has also worked at Procter & Gamble as a market strategy manager, established a furniture business and worked for Australia’s aid programme. Erinch sits on the SEWF Board and is a tutor at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. He holds degrees in finance and law, and an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University.

Tizzita Tefera

Tizzita is the co-founder and a board member of Social Enterprise Ethiopia. Social Enterprise Ethiopia works to raise awareness around the field of social enterprise in Ethiopia as well as undertakes policy advocacy work on behalf of the 55000 social enterprises in Ethiopia. She has also worked with intermediaries such as Social Enterprise Kenya and is a board member at Social Enterprise World Forum. She is passionate about all things social enterprise, having worked in different capacities in the sector. She also works as a principal consultant at We Scale Impact, working to scale the impact of social enterprises.

Charlie Wigglesworth

Charlie is responsible for all aspects of SEUK’s operations and business activities. This includes diversifying SEUK’s revenue streams, leading on membership, advisory work and corporate relationships as well as SEUK’s research and strategic objectives. He has worked with major multinational companies on delivering their social enterprise and sustainability strategies with a particular emphasis on supply chains. He was responsible for creating the Buy Social Corporate Challenge, the largest B2B commitment to spend with social enterprises globally with 23 partners and £65 million already committed. Charlie’s work on social value in the public sector has included co-authoring Communities Count (the largest research into social value implementation to date); advising HS2 Ltd and Parliamentary Procurement and Commercial Service around their social value policies; and delivering training to a wide range of public bodies. Prior to SEUK, Charlie worked in the private sector with clients across the public, private and third sectors, delivering training and consultancy on public policy issues. He has extensive experience of business development and account management, developing bespoke packages for a wide variety of clients from large multinationals to small charities.