Founding Team

  • Izzy Horrocks

    CO-FOUNDER & CEO

    Izzy has a track record of building high-performing social sector organisations as a coach, funder and CEO. She has more than 15 years of experience working with social ventures to improve lives at scale. She has an MBA from Oxford and undergraduate degrees in economics and politics.

    Experience in venture philanthropy: Izzy was an Investment Director at Impetus and an associate at Global Innovation Fund (two leading London-based venture philanthropy funds). While at Impetus, she worked closely with another UK charitable trust to establish a £4.3M fund to invest in initiatives that work with students who have been excluded from mainstream education. Izzy coordinated a team to undertake market scoping on 200+ organisations, and conduct detailed due diligence to find the most promising five charities to support.

    Track record of capability building: Izzy has worked closely with the leadership teams of eight social sector organisations to build their capability to achieve impact at scale. For example, at Impetus, she helped three UK youth charities build their “impact function” (think of the traditional “finance function” but applied to optimising the social impact of a charity). Back home in Aotearoa, she worked with ImpactLab, coaching CEOs of four charities to pilot improvements to their services and test whether these changes actually improve the lives of the people they serve. This blog summarises some key lessons: “The Drive to Improve: What can our for-purpose sector learn from our best rugby teams?

    Experience on both sides of strategic philanthropy: in addition to working in funding organisations, Izzy has had leadership roles in two social ventures. She co-founded a social enterprise in Kenya, and was co-CEO of Hauora Aotearoa, a kaupapa Māori mental health charity.

  • Jimmy McLauchlan

    CO-FOUNDER

    A former lawyer, NEXT Foundation Fellow and Winston Churchill Fellow, Jimmy has led the successful implementation and scaling of the ENGAGE programme in Aotearoa. He is the co-lead of the Kia Tīmata Pai study, and has expertise in lifecourse research, implementation science and partnering with government.

    Success in scaling evidence-based programmes: Jimmy has led the development, funding and implementation of the ENGAGE self-regulation programme over the last eight years. He has worked closely with academic subject matter experts, early childhood educators, philanthropic funders, government officials, and politicians, to secure $20m of government funding, enabling the programme to reach 2,200 ECEs by 2027.

    Experience in high quality research and impact evaluation: Jimmy is the co-lead of the Kia Tīmata Pai study, a gold standard RCT measuring the impact of language and self-regulation interventions on child development in early childhood education. He works closely with University-based research collaborators on a range of research projects and has co-authored papers on language, self-regulation and adult literacy interventions.

    Experience in government policy and government funding: As Chief Development Officer at Methodist Mission Southern, Jimmy has spent 11 years working closely with government officials and politicians – across three successive governments. Jimmy has detailed, practical knowledge of government policy processes and funding systems, strong networks within government, and regularly advises other NGOs on strategies for increasing scale through partnering with government.

  • Kelly Peterson-Teariki (Ngāti Rangiwewehi)

    KAITAKAWAENGA KAUPAPA (Programme Connector)

    With over 20 years of experience, Kelly is a respected leader in improving lifecourse outcomes for rangatahi and whānau as a teacher, CEO and board member. She weaves matauranga Māori and western science into everything she does.

    Track record with rangatahi and whānau: The foundation of Kelly’s mahi is building high trust relationships. She’s personally worked with hundreds of rangatahi and whānau across South Auckland - first as a kaiako/ teacher at Aorere College, then as  Deputy Principal at Papakura High School where she developed innovative programmes for reengaging rangatahi in positive pathways.

    Experience as a founder, CEO and board member in Kaupapa Māori organisations. In 2022 Kelly founded Mana Inc to improve life course outcomes for the next generation in her community. She’s surrounded by a thriving team of educators who are supporting many rangatahi and whānau to design and implement empowering tupuna practices to help transform their own lives. She has experience in all of the elements needed for impact at scale: frontline delivery, kaupapa development, hiring and managing teams, impact evaluation (including working with academics), fundraising and government contracts, governance, partnerships and scaling operations.

    High trust collaborator. Kelly knows it takes a village to support our rangatahi to thrive, and she knows it takes a village to help kaupapa to scale. This includes sharing their story via a film “More than Ram Raid Mums” to raise awareness of what it takes to improve life outcomes and sharing practice with National Advisory Judges Board to share the value of strengths-based reporting in our youth justice system. Kelly also collaborates and delivers purposeful kaupapa to strengthen cultural capacity across corporations. As a proud tangata whenua and tangata tiriti, Kelly is effectively empowering corporations to understand and implement Te Tiriti.

Trustees

  • Robyn Mildon (Chair)

    Robyn, PhD, is an internationally recognised figure in the field of research translation and implementation science and program and policy evaluations. She is the Founding CEO of the Centre for Evidence and Implementation, a global social purpose organisation with offices in Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Norway and whose work now spans across 18 countries. She is a Visiting Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. Robyn is the Chair of the Evidence and Implementation Summit 2025. She has authored or co-authored multiple peer-reviewed publications, commissioned evidence reviews and book chapters. Robyn’s work has helped to advance the implementation of better evidence in policy and practice settings, improving the quality and effectiveness of health, education, and human services.

  • Jan Hania (Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-Tonga, Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama)

    Jan is a respected leader with a track record of weaving together philanthropy, business, government, iwi and community to restore ecosystems (and peoples’ interactions with them) in Aotearoa and internationally. These successes in the environmental field provide important lessons for scaling evidence-based social change programmes in Aotearoa. Jan is and has been involved in a number of iwi, philanthropic, government and business enterprises, all involved in restoring ecological resilience and human connection.

  • Kingi Snelgar (Ngāpuhi, Te Whakatōhea and Ngāi Tahu)

    Kingi is an expert in criminal justice and indigenous rights, with a Master of Laws from Harvard University (as a Fullbright scholar). As a barrister, Kingi appeared regularly in the Manukau Youth Court and Manukau District Court to defend young people facing a range of serious criminal charges. In this day job, he sees what happens when children and families don’t get the support they need early on to avert negative lifecourse outcomes. Kingi also served as Counsel to Assist at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care, where he co-led the Māori investigation and supported the residential inquiry.

  • Annie Lewin

    Annie has spent her career as a storyteller at the intersection of technology and humanity. Trained as a journalist, she moved to Silicon Valley as the first generation of tech companies were reaching scale. This evolved into a nearly two decade career at Google as a leader of communications and social impact teams across the US, Europe and Asia. Now home in Aotearoa New Zealand, she continues to lead a multimillion dollar grant portfolio for Google.org across Asia Pacific and globally, helping nonprofits use AI to transform their social impact work to be more creative and impactful. An experienced nonprofit trustee, she has been on the founding team of social enterprises that have broken new ground in community energy and digital wellbeing, as well as lending her passion for the spoken and written word to literacy and leadership nonprofits as a board member.