SEWF22 Facilitators

Natasha Akib

Natasha Akib is a digital producer who believes in individuals and communities telling their own stories. She specialises in using the skills of film production, media and marketing for purpose-driven organisations. She is responsible for developing, producing and facilitating Stories for Impact – Digital Storytellers’ educational workshops, tools and resources. Stories for Impact has supported thousands of storytellers worldwide to find, make, edit and share their own video stories using smartphones and affordable technology for fundraising, advocacy, community engagement and more.

Meg Allan

Meg Allan was born and raised in the small coastal town of Mallacoota located in Far East Gippsland, Victoria and is passionate about regional futures and fostering opportunities for people of all ages to remain in place. Meg is a co-founder of Wilderness Workspace, which has evolved into the Wilderness Collective and uses enterprise, co-working and knowledge sharing as the catalysts for rural rejuvenation. She is the East Gippsland Shire Council Mallacoota District Place Manager, supporting community-led recovery and future renewal after the Black Summer Fires. Meg is also a member of the Gippsland Community Leadership Program 2022 cohort and is the recipient of the Wayne Casey, Gippsland Young Community Leader Scholarship.

George Argyrous

George worked within the university sector for many years, teaching research and statistics and publishing many articles on the uses and abuses of evidence in decision-making. He also worked with many organisations to improve their evidence-based decision-making. He has authored several high-level government evaluation frameworks in areas as broad as disaster recovery and countering violent extremism. He has a particular passion for capability building so that practitioners can become more critical users of evidence to inform their work. Recently, he moved to the Paul Ramsay Foundation as the Evaluation Lead, supporting the Foundation’s mission to break cycles of disadvantage.

Kate Barrelle

Dr Kate Barrelle is Chief Impact Officer and co-founder of STREAT, a Melbourne-based, food-system, work integration social enterprise. As a forensic and clinical psychologist, Kate has almost 30 years’ experience working in community, government, private sector, research, and social enterprise. Her PhD involved interviews with former extremists. Kate is passionate about behaviour change at an individual, collective and system level, especially providing opportunities for at-risk youth. Kate is also the handler of ‘Magic’ – the Therapy Dog at STREAT. If she could have a superpower, it would be flying! She has a lot of injuries as a kid testing this out.

Manfred Bauer

Manfred Bauer has more than 10 years of work experience in sustainable development, financial innovation and multilateral partnerships. This includes a proven track record in business acceleration, investment readiness, due diligence, impact investing fund creation and deployment, and network development for Social Enterprises in emerging markets. He worked in the United States, Mexico, Central America, Brazil and Australia, leading projects to regionalise operations, develop internal capacity in hybrid organisations (mix of grant and commercial revenue), nurture and leverage networks regionally, and foster cross sector partnerships.

Lauren Black

Lauren is a Social Impact Specialist with the Foundation team at Atlassian, where she manages a global skilled volunteering program and provides support for non-profit customers. Her role involves program and product design, delivery and impact evaluation as well as stakeholder communications and engagement. Previously she led employee volunteering and giving initiatives across Asia-Pacific. Lauren has recently joined the Coralus (previously SheEO) network as an activator. Prior to joining Atlassian, Lauren coordinated a gender equity program at the University of Technology Sydney and volunteered for various non-profit organisations including the Freedom Hub, Amnesty International and Good Return.

Polly Chapman

Pollyanna has worked in research, policy and delivery with universities, local authorities and Scottish government. This includes creating the Highlands and Island Social Enterprise Zone (HISEZ) in 2003, in which she chaired the board when social enterprise was barely known in Scotland. She has worked for HISEZ since 2011, winning contracts and supporting social entrepreneurs across Scotland. She co-founded Impact Hub Inverness in 2017, which is now the trading arm of HISEZ. She has delivered capacity building support across the Impact Hub network, including for IH Accra, Joburg, Kyoto and Pnomh Pehn, and onboarding over ten new IH teams. Polly has been CEO of Impact Hub Inverness since 2018 and delivers business support for social enterprises from start up through growth.

Andrew Curtis

Andrew’s experience spans the street to the Board room with some of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia and the UK. He has worked as a Founder, CEO, Board Member, consultant and Director in charities and social enterprises. He specialises in strategy, start-up business models, scaling and business planning, and is especially keen on developing under-utilised property and resources to achieve social impact. Andrew is passionate about justice and human rights and has devoted his career to achieving equity for people at risk of social exclusion. He has a PhD from OU/Queens College Oxford University and an MBA from Swinburne University.

Hanna Ebeling

Hanna Ebeling is CEO at Sefa where they work closely with purpose-driven organisations on developing capital solutions and capability support to suit their needs. From traditional banking with HSBC to venture philanthropy in the Philippines, Hanna brings a global practice lens to Sefa. Her passions include blended finance in partnership with foundations, community-led enterprises and ground-breaking housing models. She is on the board of disability service provider Woodville Alliance and social enterprise Vanguard Laundry, and as a member of government and sector reference groups contributes to improving collaboration between government, private sector and philanthropy.

Sabine El Zein

Sabine El Zein is combining her academic background in medical social work with her knowledge and experience in social entrepreneurship as founder of “Athaar آثار”, in order to create a unique and creative impact in this world.

Sophia Fatouros

Sophia holds an MA in Mass Communications from the University of Leicester and an MA of Social Impact by Research from Swinburne University of Technology. During her social impact studies she focused on creative strategies for social enterprise marketing. She has a passion for digital storytelling for social impact and its application to commercial projects and uses her skills to amplify the work and impact of the Jobsbank team and partners. She has rich experience in media production, digital campaigns and audience development.

Nichole Foster

Nichole Foster works with STREAT, a Melbourne-based, food-system, work integration social enterprise. Nichole is a project manager with STREATwise, STREAT’s knowledge and innovation arm, that focusses on social enterprise knowledge and resource sharing. Nichole’s passion for sustainable food systems and youth development originated in Austin, Texas in 2016 where her career began. Since then, she has focussed her attention on strengthening the connections between food system communities and organisations, providing opportunities to at-risk youth and growing STREAT as a social enterprise. When she isn’t at her laptop writing and executing to-do lists, she’s baking extravagant cakes and growing flowers in her garden.

Ben Gales

Ben is an economist with extensive experience in social, government, and private sectors. During his time in the UK government, he was involved in the genesis of impact investing with the launch of the Social Investment Taskforce in 2000. He was also responsible for the development of Australia’s first Social Impact Bonds for the NSW Government, “Newpin” and “Resilient Families” and, later, for leading the Office of Social Impact Investment. Ben was the CEO of Social Enterprise Finance Australia (SEFA) and led the establishment of the NSW Productivity Commission in 2018. He has also spent time as a venture capitalist specialising in technology investments, and in particular software and semiconductor investments.

Sarah Gun

Sarah is co-founder and creative director at Collab4Good. She is the founder and CEO of two social enterprises, event company GOGO events and circular economy logistics business UP by GOGO. She is CEO of charity the GOGO Foundation. Sarah is a thought leader, change maker, and social entrepreneur. Her mission to create an equitable society through business innovation is changing the lives of people with complex trauma. Sarah’s social innovations have been recognised by awards at SXSW, Westpac Foundation and Coralus (formerly SHEEO). Sarah is committed to action for systemic change to reduce inequality in society.

Rob Haggett

Rob Haggett is the Head of Mobilising Capital and Operations, overseeing Social Impact Hub’s Impact Investing Hub. With 20 years of experience, Rob has worked across the corporate, government and the not-for-profit sectors in Australia as well as internationally in the UK, Indonesia, Nepal and Cambodia. He has strong expertise in business strategy, operations, social impact and design thinking.

Leigh Jones

Customer focused and data driven, Leigh has spent the past 12 years in digital roles across a range of industries, from legal and investments to national and international retailers. He landed in the not-for-profit sector four years ago with Speckle Loans, bringing a world first ethical, digital lending product to market. Leigh is committed to using digital and marketing for good, focusing on the “why” we do what we do. When not working he can be found playing, coaching or watching various sports.

Kenneth Kwok

As Founder of Global Citizen Capital and KIDsforSDGs, Mr. Kenneth Kwok has one core mission: emboldening the reputation and representation of impact-driven innovation to collectively empower one billion lives, starting with youth. Through the work his organisations do, he has built an intergenerational community seeking to help the world build back better, stronger and greener. He is proud to support young social entrepreneurs to develop the Hong Kong and Shanghai community hubs for SEWF 2022.

Mikey Leung

Mikey gets more done in 5 years than other people do in 10 lifetimes. He attributes that to being born in the year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac, but his team at Digital Storytellers think he owes it to coffee. With over 15 years of study in the practice of digital wizardry, Mikey has worked as a web designer, radio journalist and travel writer before finally finding his spiritual home in the moving image. When he’s not behind the camera, he’s out advocating for impact storytelling and helping clients achieve their storytelling goals. He also does a killer rendition of ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ on guitar and vocals.

Julia Loersch

Julia brings nearly a decade of screen production experience to the team at Digital Storytellers, and comes to the organisation from a background in broadcast fiction. As Executive Producer, she devotes her skills in narrative, image and producing to bring compelling stories to life. Her religious dedication to integrity in message and production means Digital Storytellers creates the most engaging pieces possible.

Karen Mahlab AM

Karen Mahlab AM is a passionate believer in the power of community and connection and serially ignites projects that build both. She has been a “field builder”, supporting emergent eco-systems in the social economy by building the channels of connection between local communities, not-for-profit organisations, social enterprises, volunteers, philanthropy and business. Over three decades she has been a Publisher, Media owner, business proprietor, social entrepreneur and board member, concurrently sitting on a wide variety of commercial and not for profit boards. She founded one of Australia’s first and best known digital social enterprises: Pro Bono Australia – Australia’s preeminent media organisation for civil society organisations. Karen has also co-founded The Public Interest Journalism Initiative, PS Media, Macro Melbourne and a host of other social enterprise and philanthropic startups.

Maya Marcus

Maya Marcus is the Head of Impact Education at the Social Impact Hub (SIH). She is responsible for SIH’s programs and educational content. This includes overseeing SIH’s flagship Scaling Impact Accelerator, RISE and the Social Impact Fellowship. She is the Deputy Chair for the Foundation for Young Australians, a SheEO Activator and a Techstars Facilitator, Organiser and Community Leader. Maya was previously the General Manager of Innovation, Operations & Growth at Young Change Agents, and the Manager, Entrepreneurship Education at the University of Technology Sydney. Maya is passionate about helping people to unlock their full potential to create impact.

Jessica Mendoza-Roth

Jessica Mendoza-Roth is the Founder & CEO of the Social Impact Hub, a purpose driven intermediary that collaborates with a broad range of changemakers. Through advice, education, mobilising capital and ecosystem building, it builds capacity to amplify impact. Jessica is also a consultant to the impact investment sector and has deep expertise in help social enterprises prepare for impact investment. She holds a B.A. and LL.B. (with First Class Honours) from UNSW and a LL.M. from Harvard Law School, where she was the recipient of the R.G. Menzies Scholarship to Harvard and studied social entrepreneurship, philanthropy and impact investing.

Nishara Miles

Nishara has spent much of her career in communications roles across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, with a passion for grassroots community engagement and investment. She is an advocate for insights-led, shared value programs and championed this work in previous roles within rugby league and rugby union, the Department of Defence, the Fred Hollows Foundation and ING Bank (Australia). She joined the Paul Ramsay Foundation in 2021 and is managing the co-design and implementation of the Foundation’s new social enterprise incubator, which aims to grow the pool and impact of social enterprises working to break cycles of disadvantage in Australia.

James Muskett

James is a seasoned professional services recruitment and business development practitioner, specialising in creating meaningful partnerships with clients. James focuses on driving positive social change through developing recruitment solutions for clients around Australia. He is passionate about social procurement and is particularly interested in the role of social procurement champions in driving successful business partnerships. Through his business development role at IPA, James is enthusiastic about the future of social procurement within the business world and harnessing it to break the cycle of disadvantage.

Chris Newman

Chris Newman is a Managing Director at ArcBlue, one of the Asia-Pacific Region’s leading procurement consultancy, analytics, and training organisations. One of ArcBlue’s key areas of expertise and experience is in social and sustainable procurement, where Chris has been a leader over the last decade. Chris has played a key role in social and sustainable procurement activity across the region including policy and strategy development, major infrastructure projects, and place-based programs.

Adam Ognall

Adam joined Philanthropy Australia earlier this year to drive forward the peak body’s engagement activities and vision for a more generous and inclusive Australia. Originally from Glasgow, Scotland Adam spent 2 decades working in the UK’s for purpose sector and has been Board Chair of two social enterprises.

Amy Orange

Amy is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Collab4Good, as well as Social Procurement Lead SA at Social Traders. Driven by the goal of building a strong and thriving social enterprise ecosystem in South Australia, Amy draws on her own experience of founding a social enterprise to build the capacity and capability of impact-driven individuals and organisations to drive positive social impact through enterprise, collaborative initiatives and best practice in business model design.

Matt Pfahlert

Matt is a pioneering social entrepreneur, with a long-standing commitment to rural Australia. As co-founder and CEO of ACRE, Matt is driving the renewal of Australia’s rural communities so that future generations may thrive. As founder of the Typo Station Youth Project, Matt started his first social enterprise in 1993 at the age of 23, working with ‘at risk’ young people in wilderness settings, this led to his Young Australian of the Year Award in 1996. In 2013, Matt undertook a Churchill Fellowship to study social enterprise and entrepreneurship education for rural rejuvenation in the UK and North America.  In 2016, Matt led a $2.7M community buy-back of the Old Beechworth Gaol. A neglected Australian heritage icon famed for its connection to Ned Kelly. The site is being re-purposed as an exemplar of social enterprise and rural rejuvenation. In partnership with Scotland’s renowned Social Enterprise Academy (SEA), ACRE is supporting the next generation of social entrepreneurs in primary and secondary schools as well as underserved communities across the country. Matt is a passionate advocate for community-led approaches to building an agile, resilient and enterprising rural Australia.

Gia Hân Phạm Bùi

Gia Han is an 18-year-old social entrepreneur, researcher, and sustainability advocate from Vietnam. She founded a non-profit consulting platform for youths, The Student Consulting Group, where she led a team of 30+ to consult a wide range of local social enterprises and multinational companies on their CSR strategies. Notably, her organisation’s work has helped an F&B franchise of 400+ restaurants in Vietnam to utilise technology and investment to reduce food waste by 50%. Her extensive research background in urban sustainability and youth empowerment has earned her a nomination as an ASEAN Youth Leader in 2018 and a Panellist UN-ESCAP’s Forum on the 2030 SEA Sustainable Development Agenda.

Max Richardson

Through his role as Portfolio Analyst, Max Richardson is an integral part of the Social Finance team. Max’s role focuses on portfolio management, ensuring Sefa’s borrowers are up to date with impact reporting and ongoing support. Since joining just over a year ago, Max has enjoyed supporting the broader team on various projects including impact frameworks and financial models. Max is interested in the role of finance in unlocking positive social change and prior to this was finishing up his studies at ANU.

Mauli Ryan

Mauli is a Senior Program Manager on the Foundation team at Atlassian. She comes with over a decade of experience in leading programs and portfolios across a diverse range of products from digital advertising to SaaS. During her tenure at Atlassian, Mauli has operationalised teams to scale at speed. Helping to improve their performance and impact through ways of working and best practices of teamwork in a remote and distributed environment. Before joining Atlassian, Mauli established a charity program that supported sustainability, children, and animal welfare for various non-profit organisations including RSPCA and Children’s Westmead Hospital.

Stephen Torsi

Stephen is a social impact leader with over 20 years’ experience across corporate, not-for-profit and government sectors in the UK and Australia. He is currently a Program Manager for Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, Australia’s largest and oldest community foundation. Stephen is average at a lot of things but very good at building trusting and collaborative relationships. He is obsessed with uncovering the root causes of inequality and how complex systems thinking can illuminate the darkest corners of our shared purpose. Stephen is also Chair of youth service YouthNow and serves his community in several voluntary roles.

Sheena Watt MP

Sheena Watt is a member of the Victorian Parliament, representing the Northern Metropolitan Region in the Legislative Council and the Parliamentary Secretary for Housing. She is the first Aboriginal Australian woman to represent the Australian Labor Party in the Parliament of Victoria.

Prior to becoming a member of Parliament, Sheena was an Executive Manager at AFL SportsReady and served on the Board of Directors for some of the most important community organisations in Victoria, including the Centre for Australian Progress that incubated social change organisations.

Sheena has extensive experience in Aboriginal Affairs, health and employment and has a strong commitment to advocate for those who face poverty, discrimination or disadvantage. She is committed to breaking down structural inequality and supporting healthy and connected communities.

Moira Were AM

Moira is Systems Director and co-founder of Collab4Good. She has extensive experience in community led initiatives and has worked from the kitchen table to the cabinet table. She has helped shape policy, programs and leaders making impact. Most recently she co-led a circular economy incubator for social enterprises emerging in SA. She is a global facilitator with Coralus formerly SheEO women and non-binary people working alongside each other, making real progress on the World’s To-Do List. Moira lives on Kaurna country on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia with 4 brown hens.