IMPACT LAB COHORT PROFILES

ABHINAV VERMA
Abhinav is a social innovation, public policy, and strategic social investments
professional with experience across the private sector, non-profit and
foundations, and national governments. Prior to the MBA at Saïd Business
School, he managed portfolio strategy and coalition building for The Rockefeller
Foundation’s Asia Office, catalysing action across pandemic prevention, public
health, energy access and transition, digital transformation, and building the
impact ecosystem in the emerging economies.

During his work with the Indian Health Ministry as a part of the University of
Chicago’s International Innovation Corps, he led the earliest conceptualisations of India’s shift to a digital health
ecosystem and developed regulatory and product pathways for propelling emerging technology integration into
national health programs.

Abhinav trained as a management professional and lawyer with a specialisation in international law and
peacebuilding, before moving over to policy advocacy with leading firms in India, where he developed national
campaigns for policy regulations in blood safety, air pollution, and medical device safety. He is passionate about
inclusive healthcare, global south leadership, and responsible GovTech.

AKI HIGUCHI
Aki founded and manages an education start-up, trying to tackle the lack of
childcare support and English education in Japan. Her team has worked closely
with 5,000 children and parents over the past seven years. Currently pursuing an
MBA at Oxford; holds Master’s degree in public administration at Harvard
Kennedy School; Bachelor’s degree in law from Peking University; Fulbright
scholar & Laidlaw scholar. Enjoys playing tennis and the piano.

ANNATU ABDULAI
Annatu Neina Abdulai is a 2023 MBA Candidate at the Said Business School,
and a member of Mansfield College. In her last full-time role, she was the
Programmes Partner for Ghana at the Mastercard Foundation, where she
contributed to the design and management of the Foundation's Ghana initiatives.
She is an Advisory Committee Member of African Women Amplified, and an
Advisory Board Member of ThinkEducation.

Over nine years, in different capacities, she has supported over 100
entrepreneurs across various sectors to build up their businesses. Her roles
have included mentoring and coaching, business strategy and investment-
readiness consulting, and entrepreneur support program design, implementation and management. She was a
founding team member of Growth Mosaic; a B-Corp certified social purpose investment readiness consultancy
for social impact businesses in Ghana.

Annatu graduated with a Cum Laude in BSc. Business Administration from Ashesi University, and she is a
Certified Project Management Professional. She is a 2022-2023 Oxford Weidenfeld-Hoffmann-Kofi Annan
Scholar, a 2021 Mentor of the Year of the Ashesi Venture Incubator, a 2015 Engineers without Borders Kumavana
African Leader and a 2013 Sponsors for Educational Opportunity Africa Fellow.

AVINASH KOTHURI
Avi was Director of inclusive education at Thinkerbell Labs, which builds ed-tech
solutions to improve learning outcomes for the visually impaired. Thinkerbell Lab’s
flagship product, Annie, is the world's first Braille literacy device. Avi was a core
part of Annie's journey from a prototype to a fully-fledged Braille teaching device,
being used by children across continents. Prior to this, Avi worked with SocialCops
to help governments and non-profit organisations make better decisions using
data. Avi is a mechanical engineering graduate from BITS Pilani Goa. In 2019, he
was one of 25 people selected worldwide for the Dalai Lama Fellowship Program.

BRIGIT GOEBELBECKER
Currently pursuing a dual MPP/MBA, Brigit is a public servant by day and an
entrepreneur by night. With a background in cultural studies and over eight
years experience in user-centered social innovation strategy, she has designed
and implemented systems and experiences for multiple organizations seeking
creative solutions to pressing social issues. Brigit launched a behavioral
economics study in Rwanda, where she encountered first-hand how
interventions based on user input and experience improve the outcomes of
economic development programs. She moved to New York to pursue the
intersection of design, social services, and technology—civic tech. Working
across transportation, pre-tax benefits, blockchain, digital health, cybersecurity,
and workforce development, Brigit is passionate about employing user-centered design to modernize the delivery
of social services. She is enthusiastic about systems and organizational design, and wants to use her knack for
operations to ensure social change organizations work effectively for the people they serve.

BRITTANY POWELL
Brittany Powell, is a physician and general surgery resident at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. She is a health services researcher in the
field of global surgery, focused on National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia
plans (NSOAPs), and translating these plans into strategic policy and
workforce training programs to increase access to surgery in low- and middle-
income countries. Her regional area of focus is Rwanda and East Africa. She
just completed her Masters in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of
Government at Oxford, and is excited to start the MBA program at Saïd. She
envisions using these skillsets to catalyze unique partnerships between
governments, academic medical centers, nonprofit organizations, and the
private sector, to advance the field of global surgery. She is on the Board of Directors of Pivot, a Madagascar-
based health systems strengthening nonprofit organization. She received her MD from Stanford University and
her BA from Harvard College.

CHARLES FALAJIKI
Charles is a development practitioner and Edtech innovator with over 4 years of
transnational experience leading and working with diverse teams in private and
nonprofit organizations in Nigeria, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to
promote access to quality education for disadvantaged populations in Nigeria.
He works at the intersection of educational development, technology, and social
inclusion, designing large-scale development projects, driving advocacy, and
enhancing organizational efficiency in the non-profit sector. In the last five years,
he has worked with Generation Unlimited, Education Above All, UNESCO,
TheirWorld, and Global Changemakers, among others. As an alumnus of the
Lagos Business School Nonprofit Leadership and Management Program, he
has consulted for nonprofits and social enterprises in Nigeria, helping these organizations to develop an effective
governance structure, leverage social media for storytelling, and create a community/donor engagement strategy.
Named a Global Changemaker in 2020 by Global Changemakers, Switzerland, Charles is an emerging social
impact leader with a commitment to leading systemic change, particularly across low and middle-income
countries.

CHRISTEN BRANDT
Christen Brandt is an impact strategist and advisor dedicated to creating a
better world for girls. She is the co-founder of She’s the First, an international
NGO dedicated to ensuring girls everywhere are educated, respected, and
heard, as well as the co-author of Impact: A Step-by-Step Plan To Create the
World You Want to Live In.

Over the past decade, Christen has supported the efforts of grassroots
organizations in 26 countries with the resources and training needed to support
more than 140,000 girls. Her training methodologies and advocacy work all
revolve around one theme: Listening to girls. She has consulted for grassroots
organizations and philanthropic individuals, as well as companies including Barbie and Aerie, and has provided
impact coaching for students and employees of Syracuse University, Tiffin University, Publicis, the Clinton
Foundation, and more.

Today, Christen is the Oxford-Intesa Sanpaolo MBA Scholar at Oxford University, where she's exploring ways to
democratize philanthropy and meaningfully accelerate impact for women and girls. She has been recognized for
her work by the United Nations, the Obama White House, the TODAY Show, and more.

DIANA MURGULET
I am a data scientist with a passion for social good, particularly focusing on
feminism and education. I am an advocate for closing the gender gap in STEM
and frequently run workshops for girls and women on technical topics. I
especially love working with kids and teenagers, through programs such as
Teens in AI, because I know at that age girls lose their confidence in their
scientific skills. I am a passionate feminist and run a project called Women in
Numbers, which sheds light on the data surrounding women’s experiences –
from careers to caring, finances and period poverty. Our goal is to make
gendered data accessible, helping the world make more informed decisions on
what problems to solve. I have recently founded an NGO called Doobeegood
and organised a summer camp for 80 displaced Ukrainian kids in Romania. Our goal was to give children a week
of fun in a safe space, where they can explore educational activities such as robotics classes, creative writing and
crafts.

FOLASADE AYOOLA
Fola’s enthusiasm for energy equity motivated her co-founding of ElectricFish
Energy, a distributed energy company with a mission to drive equity.
ElectricFish uses their patented technology to provide electricity grid resilience
to the most vulnerable locations, with a network of energy storage packs
capable of supplying extreme-fast electric vehicle charging. Fola is also a Ph.D.
researcher in Energy Science and Engineering at the Stanford Doerr School of
Sustainability. Her work is focused on the deep decarbonization of large-scale
energy systems, exploring low-carbon transition pathway alternatives for oil-
dependent countries, particularly developing economies like her home country
of Nigeria.

GRACE NJUNGE
Grace Njunge has spent the last seven years working in impact consulting, initially
in the client services team and later on as chief of staff at Dalberg Advisors.

Grace has experience in strategy, investment and policy advisory and has
conducted over 25 projects across the agriculture, energy, and financial inclusion
sectors in Kenya and across Africa. During her time in consulting Grace supported
the design and strategy of an end-to-end digital platform that connects farmers to
inputs, loans, extension services, and off-taker markets in Kenya, contributed to
structuring a USD 500 million renewable energy debt facility to provide capital to
small-scale renewable energy projects in Africa, and advised policy reform to boost private sector investments in
the agriculture sector in East Africa among others.

Grace holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics (Honors) from Harvard University and is currently pursuing
a Masters of Business Administration at Oxford Said Business School.

HEATHER JOST
Heather comes into Oxford’s MBA programme with an educational
background in Anthropology and Music. Her career has been mainly cross-
cultural, teaching English as a foreign language. She has worked with the
Saharawi refugees in southern Algeria for the last seven years in a small
English school for adults and has worked as the coordinator of her team’s
Arabic-learning programme. Because of pandemic travel restrictions, she also
has experience working with refugees in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Through
varied experiences with NGOs and humanitarian groups, she has come to
believe that so much more can be done to identify root causes of problems
and come up with creative, lasting solutions. She looks forward to the Impact
Lab as a catalyst in her own learning and life so that she can return to these
cross-cultural, humanitarian spaces equipped to empower and connect change-makers for a community’s thriving.
There are so many people out there with a heart to benefit their communities, so she dreams to help those people
turn their good intentions into sustainable, collaborative social impact!
 JULIA BAKER
Julia Baker is an Expert Consultant in BCG's global Health Care Systems Sector,
working with governments around the world on the key challenges facing health
care. Julia works with health care systems managers, both public and private, to
develop strategy, innovate products, and design a path forward towards
sustainable, outcome led health care system management.

Prior to joining BCG, Julia worked within state government settings including as
Project Manager and Program Manager, and with Deloitte Access Economics.

Julia has been actively involved in the social entrepreneurship industry, writing
the Queensland Government social procurement policy, sitting on the board of a mental health re-ablement
provider, and advising disability employment services provider.

Based in Brisbane Australia, Julia holds a Master of Public Health (Policy and Stewardship), and Bachelor of
Science (Neuroscience, Science Communication) from the Australian National University.

KARYN MILLER
Karyn Miller has spent nearly ten years working for non-profit and non-
governmental institutions in strategy, operations, risk, and finance. She began her
career as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer managing community health
projects, and then served as the Executive Operations Manager for MiracleFeet,
an US-based organization that works with local partners in 29 different countries
to expand access to clubfoot treatment. Fascinated by innovative business
models and intersections between sectors, cultures, and functions, she came to
realize that our human health is inextricably intertwined with the health of our
planet. This realization, and many systems-level discussions about sustainability
and the clean energy transition, led her to co-found a non-profit cooperative called Emergi, which seeks innovative
ways to provide solar power to those who might not otherwise have access. She hopes to further explore the
intersection of equity, access, health, and energy through her MBA and the Impact Lab.

LAIS HIGASHI
Laís is a social entrepreneur who graduated in Business Administration from the
Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil), with a double degree at Kedge Business
School (France).

She has experience at Grameen Bank and Yunus Centre (Bangladesh), was a
Brazil Conference Ambassador at Harvard & MIT 2016, Hansen Summer
Institute Fellow 2017, Yunus & Youth Fellow 2018, finalist at Folha
Empreendedor Social Award (Troféu Grão category) 2019, One Young World
Ambassador 2021 and is a Laidlaw & Saïd Scholar 2022-23.

In 2015, Laís founded the São Paulo team of Litro de Luz (Litre of Light), which brings solar lighting to communities
without adequate access to electricity using simple materials such as plastic bottles and PVC pipes, besides solar
panels, batteries and LED lights, always teaching the residents how to build and maintain the technology.

In 2016, she became the President Director of Litre of Light Brazil, leading teams in 6 different cities, with
operations in all 5 regions of the country. Under her management, the organisation has developed a sustainable
business model, installed 3,700+ solar solutions, directly impacting more than 21,000 people in 120 low-income
communities (riverine, quilombola, rural, indigenous and urban).
 LINDSAY STROUSE
Lindsay is a marketer with nearly a decade of global technology experience
helping purpose-driven businesses and products grow. She’s led research and
strategy behind products such as Google Assistant and Google Nest, and ran
programs with Google for Startups helping small businesses and startups succeed
online. Often sitting between brand and product strategy, Lindsay spends her time
thinking about what needs to be built to solve complex problems and how to tell
the story of why. Trained in inclusive marketing and design thinking, she works
with teams to make insights-driven decisions using responsible innovation
principles.

Lindsay is also a mentor to startups and nonprofits on brand and marketing and is passionate about using inclusive
technology and storytelling as a tool for social good. She previously founded Find A Host, a platform connecting
displaced Ukrainians to housing, and is the creator of the Figuring It Out podcast, a series focused on normalizing
difficult conversations about life’s biggest decisions, now listened to in more than 35 countries.

Raised in the United States, Lindsay has lived in 5 countries, holds a Bachelors in Communications and
Psychology from New York University, and is currently an MBA Candidate at Said Business School.

NIJIA ZHOU
Nijia is joining the MBA through the 1+1 program after her MSc in Environmental
Change and Management. Prior she spent 4 years in R&D engineering at Procter
& Gamble company where she focused on the design and launch of sustainable
packaging for consumer goods. Her undergraduate background is in chemical
engineering and anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, where she
discovered her passion for the solutions in the intersection of technology and
culture.

She hopes to utilize her MBA to learn about solutions which are practical,
scalable, and take into account wholistic factors causing environmental change.
Nijia has particular interest in social and cultural impacts of sustainable development, circular economy of
materials. and net-zero business models. Nijia also works part-time as a research assistant with the Carbon
Dioxide Removal Hub at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

In her free time, Nijia rows with Linacre Boat Club, runs, drinks a lot of tea, and hopes to pick up distance biking.
She also particularly enjoys being outside in Oxford's beautiful parks with new and old friends from around the
world.

NITYA NANGALIA
Nitya is a Central Team Coordinator at India’s largest women’s organisation, Self
Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Bharat, where she brings a focus on
entrepreneurship as a way to achieve economic empowerment. In her time at
SEWA, she has setup up an intropreneurial initiative ‘Women’s Enterprise Support
System’ (WESS) to incubate, accelerate and invest in collective businesses setup
by urban/rural poor women across India. Nitya has previously worked as a part of
the setup team of Paytm Payment’s Bank, a fintech unicorn in India, and in the
fintech practice at PwC, Mumbai. She is an alumna of University of Chicago Trust’s
International Innovation Corps (IIC) Fellowship, and Lady Shri Ram College for
Women. Nitya is also a Laidlaw Scholar at Saïd Business School.
 OLUWAFIKAYO AKEREDOLU
Fikayo Akeredolu is studying for a DPhil (PhD) in Politics & International
Relations at Oxford University. Her research focuses on the politics and
economics of China-Africa relations.

She is a Financial Products and Technology Growth expert with experience in

the Middle East, Europe, China and Africa. In addition, she has experience
working at Bloomberg, Stears and Refinitiv (Now The London Stock Exchange
Group).

She is the Founder and Community Manager of the Growth Network, a

community of intelligent and like-minded people who want to understand how to survive and grow in the Nigerian
business landscape.

She is a Schwarzman Scholar and a research analyst at African Climate Foundation.

When not working, she enjoys running, playing tennis, reading about business successes/failures and working on
advancing the prospects of black women in the workplace.

REANTHA PILLAY
I am a South African medical doctor, Rhodes Scholar and Global health
practitioner. I am committed to reimagining health systems so that they can
provide innovative, high-quality, equitable care that is context appropriate and
context transforming.

As a junior doctor, I keenly felt the resource and leadership deficit of a healthcare
system that routinely failed patients and professionals. It was at this point that I
opted to work on rather than in the healthcare system.

The depth of the knowledge and skills gained in my MSc International health coupled with the breadth of
experience in the MBA should be an on-ramp to lending my voice to the strengthening of “anti-fragile” healthcare
systems.

The Oxford MBA, with its impact focus, is an opportunity to sharpen my implementation lens. I look forward to
engaging across disciplines and sectors because solutions to the complex, intertwined problems our health
systems face lie at intersections of communal knowledge. This experience will build my commercial acumen so
that I can help create an enabling environment for health systems change.

ROBERT ROGERS
Rob Rogers is passionate about the potential of scalable innovations to change
lives, especially in the areas of Education, Health, and Labor Markets. He has
seen first-hand how simple ideas can scale via government and shift systems
with the right leverage. Throughout the MBA, he is keen to learn how to replicate
this effect when scaling market-oriented products and services, with the hopes
of one day launching his own venture.

Rob joins the MBA from a 7-year career in various social impact roles. Most
recently, he worked with the Global Development Incubator where he helped
build and scale early-stage social ventures. Rob previously spent four years with
MIT’s Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and started his career in impact evaluation working with various UN
organizations. He holds an M.P.P. from Sciences Po Aix and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Rob is fluent in French and English and has lived in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Vietnam, France, and the US. Outside
of work, he enjoys cooking, craft cocktails, and all kinds of adventure sports.

SHANZEH MAHMOOD
Shanzeh is a development professional and advocate passionate about innovative
commercial solutions and social business models for social impact and improved
livelihoods, particularly around health, education and empowerment of women/girls
and climate justice. She has over 8 years of experience in portfolio & programme
management, advocacy, strategy development, investment design and scoping of
new business opportunities in the health sector. Before joining the MBA, Shanzeh
was a manager at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, managing a $60M
portfolio of social impact grants through 20+ partners operating across Sub-
Saharan Africa and India to provide youth-friendly services to adolescents and
young women. She has worked across a variety of country contexts in South East
Asia and Sub Saharan Africa including Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda and Pakistan. She strongly believes that
expertise from all sectors are necessary to achieve social change, and that private sector, social entrepreneurship
and philanthropy have an important role to play. Originally from Pakistan, Shanzeh was raised in Thailand and
Switzerland and studied International Development at SOAS and Cambridge for her undergraduate and masters
degrees. She hopes to use the MBA at Said to build skills and networks in business & financing models for social
impact, impact investing and social entrepreneurship.

SHAOYU LIANG
Yolanda has centred her career on leveraging private sector best practices to
the public sector. From a young age, witnessing the vast income gap in her
home country, Yolanda was inspired to initiate or participate in several village
volunteering teaching projects in Asia. After worked three years in Hong Kong's
financial services sector, she decided to bring the private sector expertise and
innovations into the social impact sector.

Right before her MBA journey started, she worked as a program officer in the
Clinton Health Access Initiative China office, managing various public health
strategic consulting likewise projects for local hospitals, foundations, academia,
and pharmaceuticals. The areas covered include infectious disease, women's reproductive health and pediatric
cancer. She has also worked as Head of partnerships in China's first impact investing alliance, exploring practical
ways to lead investors to conduct responsible and impactful investments in China.

Originally from Shenyang, China, Yolanda graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a bachelor's degree
in Economics and Finance. She is exploring more angles and models in the impact fields and hopefully will
continue to commit her career to it!

Yolanda loves cooking, bouldering and experiencing traditional events in different parts of the world!
 SHRUTI JAIN
Shruti is a Skoll and Laidlaw scholar at Saïd Business School. She has spent
the past eight years exploring the dynamics of food systems in India and globally.
She is the founder of Kaze Living – a sustainable foods venture involved in
hydroponic farming and ecommerce activities. Her farm-to-fork marketplace has
created a scalable platform for farmers and food producers to build their own
brands, sell directly to customers, and achieve greater financial stability,
ultimately helping them thrive during the Covid crisis. In three years, her work
has empowered 1500+ farmers and built a community of 6,000+ conscious
customers.

Shruti’s vision is to build a sustainable food system in India. She has centred her work around empowering
grassroots micro-entrepreneurs, enabling responsible consumption, and reviving Indian superfood crops. She is
deeply interested in exploring carbon markets for advancing food sustainability in India.

Shruti feels humbled and honoured to have been recognised by UNDP India under the Youth Colab fellowship –
a global leadership program for social entrepreneurs. She has also been featured by leading Indian publications,
such as India Today, The Economic Times, and The Times of India.

Prior to starting Kaze Living, Shruti worked at an international consulting firm for F&B clients on procurement and
supply chain projects. She holds a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Shaheed Sukhdev College of
Business Studies, University of Delhi. In her spare time, she enjoys attending meditative or spiritual experiences,
learning couple dances (she has learnt east coast swing and waltz), watching theatre and cultural shows, and
playing board games. She is a trained Kathak dancer and an enthusiastic skier.

SUGIARTO ERIFIN
Sugiarto works in the technological development for design for recycling for
plastics. In his work, he collaborates within the plastics value chain, including
equipment manufacturer, plastic manufacturer, and converter in developing
packaging solutions with sustainability benefits. A major part of the work is in the
development of packaging with mono-material structure, which aids greatly in the
recycling process. He also collaborates with plastics recyclers in Southeast Asia
and provides technical solutions to improve product properties of recyclate-
blended materials.

Working in an energy company, Sugiarto takes a keen interest in decarbonisation

and negative-emission technologies. These range from synthetic technologies such as carbon capture and
sequestration to nature-based solutions in enhancing natural carbon sinks.

Sugiarto initially grew up in Indonesia, before he moved to Singapore where he received his chemical engineering
degree. He is motivated to explore pathways to improve plastics recycling, accelerate climate technology
development through research collaboration, and develop systems that promote technology adoption and account
for externalities.
 SUNNY UBALE
People, Plastics and Processes.

My mother and I have been running our NGO for the past 14years,
empowering women belonging to the "Untouchable" caste of the Indian
caste system. We have been fortunate enough to support and witness the
power of financially empowering women of the community in accelerating
collective social mobility.

I am a Plastics Engineer by education and have seen plastics go from a

miracle material to a menace to the society due to its over exploitation. I
love plastic as a material and amazed by the number of ways in which plastics have made our lives easier. I've
been working towards plastics circularity as a professional in the largely unorganised Indian plastics industry for
the past decade.

As a person I am curious and baffled how processes and systems interplay and impact us as a society. Processes,
systems and businesses have the power to either uplift communities or bring them down to ashes. I wish to
contribute towards systems being designed to benefit the human kind today and tomorrow.