About

Mari represents Scope and develops new ways of delivering social impact and leads Scope’s social mission fund. Prior to co-founding Scope in 2008, Mari worked for 15 years on women’s and children’s health and rights, including for WHO South East Asia Region, UNFPA, IPPF, AMREF and Aurat Foundation in Pakistan. Mari holds an MSc. in Population and Development from the London School of Economics, and a Sociology degree from Helsinki University, and is a qualified social worker. Mari serves on a number of advisory boards, including the Senior Advisory Group of Saving Newborn Lives and Design for Health.

Dr. Sudharsanam
Balasubramaniam oversees Scope’s public health portfolio and project monitoring and evaluation. He is an epidemiologist with more than 15 years working in maternal, neonatal, child, adolescent, and reproductive health, as well as experience working with non–communicable diseases, nutrition, child protection, and digital health. Previously, he worked with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Jhpiego in India where he was instrumental in expanding the organisations’ portfolios, new business development, and operations. Dr. Balasubramaniam also has academic, public health, and clinical research experience. He holds a MD in preventive medicine and MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, specialising in epidemiology and biostatistics. He has multiple peer–reviewed publications and conducts peer reviews for international journals and conferences.

Mirka is responsible for Scope’s financial management and leads accounting, operational budgeting, financial and administrative process and product development and other financial matters. Mirka also takes part in advancing Scope’s organisational operations and services as well as working with the Board and Scope’s financial subcommittee. She has 15 years’ experience in financial and office management. Mirka holds an MBA and a Bachelor’s degree in Management.

Joan leads the design team and facilitates an innovation-centric culture at Scope. He is a designer and anthropologist, expert in Human Centered Design and innovation who brings more than 20 years’ experience in creative innovation, ethnographic and design thinking, consultancy and education. Prior to Scope, Joan led design and innovation projects for companies like Hewlett Packard, Intel, Mondelēz, Novartis, Oxfam Intermon, Roca, Sanofi, Unilever and Vodafone. Joan was Dean of Elisava School of Design and Engineering of Barcelona. He holds a PhD in Social Communication from the University Pompeu Fabra, a Master in Design from Domus Academy and degrees in Anthropology from the University of Barcelona and Design from WSA University of Southampton.

Andy supports strategy development and project execution, contributing to insight generation, ideation, scenarios building, and media outreach. Prior to Scope, Andy worked as a brand and communications strategist in various Kenyan advertising agencies, leading multidisciplinary projects across research, design, advertising, public relations, and digital communications. During this time, he launched new brands, steered market entry efforts, and revitalised businesses through rebranding and repositioning campaigns. Andy holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from Strathmore University, Nairobi, and is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

Adithya leads the design of new digital services and solutions for Scope programmes and products, including leading customer journey mapping and facilitating co-design workshops. He has worked across various countries and industries, including the tech, energy, and financial sectors, all while maintaining a focus on integrating ethics and values in design and business to generate positive change. His work has involved leveraging research, design thinking, futures thinking, and effectual thinking to address complex challenges. Adithya’s career has included product design as well as UX and service design consulting. He also co-founded the Nordic Rebels, a group dedicated to transforming learning experiences and the winners of a Danish Design Award. He holds master’s degrees in integrated product design and international design business management.

Based in Kenya, Amal supports Scope’’s initiatives, campaigns and projects in Kenya and Tanzania. She has previously undertaken Scope’s research on family planning in various Kenyan counties. She brings knowledge of the creative sector and has substantive socio-economic analytical skills from her extensive experience in the fields of law, creative investment and fund management. She holds an LLB from the University of Reading and is a qualified Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She is passionate about using innovative, holistic and interpersonal approaches to social change.

(On family leave)

Shalini works with programme staff to support monitoring and evaluation of Scope’s projects and generate learnings that strengthen policy and programming. Shalini has extensive experience in data analysis, research and programme management. She is interested in the application of data-driven decision-making to real world problems. Prior to joining Scope, she worked with the World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab in Nigeria. She has also worked in Kenya, managing programmes and academic research focussed on maternal and newborn health. She holds a double Master’s in Economics and Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

Kate provides public health insights for the Core Project. She has over 15 years’ experience in global health, particularly reproductive and child health, health systems and implementation science.  She was global technical lead for maternal and newborn health at Management Sciences for Health. Prior to that, she worked as UNFPA’s Global Technical Specialist for the Campaign to End Fistula. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the American University and an MPH in Population and Family Health from Columbia University.

Scheaffer Okore is a feminist, gender policy, and strategy advisor. She advises philanthropists and international NGOs working intersectionally on policy, governance, and gender with a feminist lens, as well as writing for one of Kenya’s top newspapers. Sheaffer uses her revered voice to advocate for women’s participation, leadership, and representation. She is an Advisory Board Member at the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers, She’s The First, Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, and The She Tank. Scheaffer is an Obama Foundation Africa Fellow and was recognized by the ONE Campaign as one of their global women of 2018. She was also voted one of the 100 most influential young Africans in the category of governance and law, and one of the top 100 most influential Kenyans in 2018.

Rashmi manages the planning, implementation and tracking of Scope’s initiatives in collaboration with our partners. Her background is in project management and partnership building in international development. She has led digital healthcare innovation projects in Southern and Eastern Africa. She has worked in India, Hong Kong, the UK and South Africa. Her work experience includes strategic programme management for a financial capacity-building social enterprise. She has an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BSc in Psychology from University College London.

Tarin is a partnership manager at Scope. She has 12 years of experience working on behaviour change campaigns and programmes with government, NGO and corporates across Europe and Africa. For the majority of her career, she has focussed on co-creating programmes that support and empower young people. She joined from a London-based education consultancy and previously led an NGO running digital learning programmes for young people across the continent for clients such as Facebook, Girl Effect and the British Council.

(On study leave)

Hanna-Riitta oversees the planning, development, and management of our business and external relations. With nearly 15 years of experience in international development, she leads the team in developing partnerships. Hanna-Riitta has experience in project management and in developing proposals and technical tenders. Her professional background covers international medical assistance and development consulting. Additionally, Hanna-Riitta has extensive work experience in various regions of Africa and Asia. She has a Master of Social Sciences from Helsinki University and a BBA degree from the Helia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki.

Palash employs human-centred and systems design approaches to understand the wide range of development and global health challenges. Prior to Scope, Palash has worked in a dynamic range of areas, including public health, livelihood, and women’s empowerment. He also has experience in community integration. Palash has a keen interest in the ever-evolving nature of the design discipline and has presented several papers within the field. Palash holds a combined master’s degree in International Management and Design Innovation from the Adam Smith Business School (University of Glasgow) and Glasgow School of Art.

Tito employs human-centered design methods for projects in the field of sexual and reproductive health. He refers to himself as a social designer, using design methods to face challenges surrounding education, health, and poverty with in communities. Building meaningful relationships and experiences within communities is what drives his passion for design. With a B.S. in Industrial Design from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, USA and a current M.A. candidate of Collaborative and Industrial Design at Aalto University in Espoo Finland, he holds a multidisciplinary design toolbox.

Priyam supports Scope’s mission-led work through insights and inputs on local culture, communities and users. She comes with experience in applied ethnography and design research spanning rural and urban populations. At Scope, Priyam applies a fused lens of social science frameworks and design methods to health and development projects, particularly in the space of maternal and child health. She believes strongly that framing the right context, and building continual empathy at every step of the design process, is the definitive way of designing an impactful solution. Priyam holds an MSc in Social Anthropology from Oxford University.

Nicolas is an industrial designer, who lends his extensive product design expertise to Scope’s projects. Nico and his team builds on Scope’s design research and contextual knowledge when concepting, prototyping, testing and building products and physical services that aim to improve the quality of health care and products. Nico is constantly developing and sharing new thinking and refined tools for product design with the larger design and development community. Nico has been working as a product designer in various industries for over 14 years. He holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Design from Aalto University.

Joseph is a Service Designer at Scope, employing human-centered design and methods for a better world. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design and a Master’s Degree in Collaborative and Industrial Design from Aalto University, with a minor in Creative Sustainability. He specialises in utilising participatory design methods to facilitate diverse teams in co-creating sustainable product-service systems.

Brian supports communications strategies and content development across Scope projects. Prior to Scope, he worked in communications for an international development consulting firm, as well as in marketing and as an advertising copywriter. Brian’s interest in public health led him to live in rural Guatemala as a volunteer for a maternal and child health program, in addition to a brief stint as a paramedic. He holds a master’s degree in International Development Studies from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Helena’s work combines creative strategy, design and illustration, and she brings innovative means of visual communication to our global social impact projects. Before Scope, Helena worked as an illustrator and designer in the field of marketing and communication, advertising and design. Helena holds a Bachelor’s degree in Arts from UPV Valencia, in Spain and Lahti University of Applied Sciences, in Finland.

Petra leads desk research and literature reviews for Scope projects, providing her research and technical expertise across discovery, co-design, and implementation phases, in addition to supporting programme management and business development. She is passionate about women’s reproductive health, and the role that digitalisation can play in it-a topic she also researched in her masters’ dissertation. Petra brings to Scope her international mindset as well as her experience in NGO work and in education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in European studies from King’s College London and a MSc in gender and sexuality studies from Birkbeck College.

As a Development Specialist, Nea works with Scope’s business development, especially in background research and programme development. She also provides technical expertise for Scope’s projects and has recently worked on a project, which aims to provide better SRH services for young people in Nebraska, USA. Prior to joining Scope, she worked in public administration both with cross-border healthcare issues as well as social security affairs. Nea is passionate about sexual and reproductive health, especially about every woman’s right to make decisions over her own body. In her master’s thesis, she investigated the relationship between sexuality education in schools and youth sexual risk behaviour and health outcomes. Nea holds a Master’s Degree in Global Health from the University of Gothenburg and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Turku.

Anna has a 10 year background working in the international development sector with the UN and NGOs in India, Indonesia, Ukraine, Pakistan and Libya. Her technical experience is in project management and coordination focusing on public health, emergencies, and humanitarian needs, as well as conflict management and stabilisation. She did an MA in International Development at Phillips University in Marburg, Germany and a Bsc in Anthropology at the University of Surrey Roehampton in the UK. Anna is  particularly interested in learning human-centered design approaches, methodology, and tools and how these are applied to find solutions for pressing public health challenges.

Mark supports visuals and creative design for Scope communications, with a focus on projects in East Africa. He is a self-taught creative designer based in Nairobi, Kenya with more than 10 years of experience working with local and international clients to create and produce engaging visual elements and concepts. Before Scope, his multidisciplinary career included work as a graphic designer, UX/UI designer, marketing consultant, and interactive designer, with a specialization in front-end web development. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the United States International University – Africa in Kenya.

Mia leads and executes Scope’s human resources activities as well as manages the office functions and services. She also partakes in organizational policy and procedure development and supports all projects as a member of the Operations team. Previously, Mia worked in administration, customer relations and program coordination for 10 years. Mia holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences.

Jaana is responsible for supporting the finance and office functions at Scope to enable the smooth operations of the business and the successful delivery of projects around the world. Jaana also supports all projects as a member of the Operations team. Before joining Scope, Jaana has worked over eight years with administrative tasks within financial administration, human resources, customer relations and hospitality. Jaana holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Hospitality Management from Saimaa University of Applied Sciences and has lived in Germany and in Turkey during her studies.

Niina supports Scope’s Creative team with internal and external communications across a variety of digital and traditional media. She has a background in medical anthropology, global health, and international development, with a special interest in sexual and mental health. Niina has worked in science communications and journalism for AntroBlogi, an online anthropology publication, and interned in communications at the UNFPA and the Embassy of Finland in Namibia. Her experience with human-centered design (HCD) includes working with UNICEF as a graduate student researcher on an HCD project in Uganda. She holds a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Helsinki.

Pedro supports Scope in implementing the company’s impact measurement framework to ensure quality and effectiveness across all of our programmes. He has worked in the public and private sector in Colombia, including founding a non-profit organization that works with children and women in urban informal settlements. Pedro holds a master’s in Social Entrepreneurship and Management from Roskilde University in Denmark and is currently a master’s candidate in International Strategy and Sustainability at the Hanken School of Economics. 

Meri-Tuulia supports Scope’s creative team in visualising and crafting engaging concepts across a variety of platforms. She is currently studying for a bachelor’s degree in visual communications at Metropolia UAS in Helsinki and holds a degree in publishing and printing. Her previous experience includes working as a freelance graphic designer as well as internships with Voima newspaper and Into Publishing.

Katindi Sivi-Njonjo is one of only six female futurists in Africa and the founder of LongView Consult – a socio-economic research, policy analysis, foresight strategy and training firm. Katindi has published work around youth demographics, the future of women, civil society organizations, family planning etc., mainly in the context of Kenya and Africa. Her work has contributed to the conceptualization of various policy programmes as well influenced organisational strategies. She is a Doctoral candidate at Regent University studying Strategic leadership and Foresight. With Scope Katindi facilitated the #formnigani Youth Think Tanks and worked on the Kenya 2030 Futures Report.

Anyiko Owoko is East Africa’s leading entertainment publicist and founder of Anyiko Public Relations, an avant–garde PR agency. She holds a BA in Journalism and Media Studies from the University of Nairobi and has over 10 years experience in the media industry. Anyiko has collaborated with Scope on #formnigani creating strategies, curating events, and tapping into her media networks to successfully create awareness on the project since 2018. She has worked on various international and Pan African projects including #CreativeNations project by the Embassy of Sweden and the Ministry of Sports and Culture, Coke Studio Africa, Empawa Africa, Effyzie Music, among others. She has won several accolades for her workmanship in the media industry.

France Donnay, MD, FRCOG, FACOG, MPH is a consultant on global women’s health policies,  programs and practices. She works with Scope on social design for maternal care and cervical cancer programs.  She is Visiting Professor at Kings, and a member of several Advisory Boards. Her previous experience includes working as Senior Program Officer, Maternal Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At UNFPA, she was in charge of reproductive health technical support at Headquarters, before leading the UNFPA office in Pakistan. France has worked on safe motherhood policies at UNICEF, practiced obstetrics and gynecology.

Rose is an independent Designer with global experience in developing new services for health, finance and government. Having initially trained as a nurse, Rose turned to design as a way to achieve greater impact on a larger population. In recent years she’s worked with Fjord, the Australian Government, Asia Development Bank and with organisations seeking to build their own design capabilities. Her work is always collaborative – Rose’s view is that no one person can ever innovate as effectively as a collection of well-facilitated experts. Rose’s work ranges from planning and leading co-design with communities to lending her design skills to transforming global organisations.

Oluwatoyin Oyekenu is a seasoned global development professional with experience designing and implementing sustainable development strategies, as well as with project monitoring and evaluation and knowledgement management. She has extensive expertise delivering projects for DFID, USAID, and the EU across Africa, including gender-sensitive agriculture, water and sanitation, and education. In addition, She developed nutrition and gender programmes for Save the Children and created communication strategies for multiple state governments in Nigeria. Oluwatoyin holds a Master’s in Public Administration-International Development from the University of York and was a Commonwealth Professional Fellow with the University of Birmingham. As Programme Coordinator for Core Nigeria, she supports Scope’s work to help innovate primary healthcare services impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ashley is a global health consultant using data and partnership to drive policy change, with expertise in sexual and reproductive health, HIV, and humanitarian and development policy. She specialises in working at a leadership level to solve problems at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health and humanitarian assistance. Her work experience spans Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and includes programme design, fundraising, impact measurement, and mentoring staff. She holds a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University. Ashley serves as a Technical Advisor for Scope’s work with the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises.

Helena is specialised in emphatic design in resource-constrained environments. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Design at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland as part of the New Global research group. She was employed as assistant professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong 2005–06 and was teaching multidisciplinary student teams in project based slum upgrading at Aalto University between 2009 and 2014. She is lecturing regularly world-wide. She has her own architecture firm, Helena Sandman Ltd and is a partner in Hollmén Reuter Sandman Architects Ltd. Their work has won both national and international prestigious awards.

Gobinda is a development professional with a focus on change management practices in public sectors. His life experiences and interests led him to get into the issues of governance, public policy and development administration which can impact the lives of marginalised communities. He has been a Community Health Fellow with Public Health Resource Network, New Delhi and has worked with public health, water, sanitation and governance projects in the past with UNICEF, World Bank, UNDP, New Delhi. He is a recipient of India Africa Young Visionaries Fellowship 2014. He has a Masters degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Akshay is a Design Researcher and Strategist, and has worked in the areas of renewable energy, sanitation, water and hygiene amongst others. One of his most challenging and rewarding projects was working as a designer and interim project manager for the multi-stakeholder project on sanitation during his time at Quicksand Design Studio. He co-founded Amrutdhara, a social enterprise in the urban drinking water space. He is currently working on systems for involving grassroots workers in development planning using ICT.

Joyce is a Social and Behavioural Research Scientist at the National Institute for Medical research, Tanzania. She has worked on various health topic areas for over 16 years and has vast experience in the following: adolescents’ SRH behaviour; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment uptake; gender and sexuality; socio-cultural aspects of HIV and sexually transmitted infections; families and child outcomes; discrimination in adolescent access to SRH services; and malaria in pregnancy. She is currently a co-leader for the transactional sex working group of the STRIVE research programme consortium and a member of the Tanzanian adolescent health stakeholder’s working group.

Shivi’s skills and interests include leading interaction design for web-based and mobile application projects, working closely with research, visual design and development teams. She is currently working on design solutions for Mother & Child Care and Sexual & Reproductive health in India. Shivi has 5+ years of work experience in Medical Technologies for private and public settings mainly in mother and child care, oncology, cardiology and family planning. She has been a fellow for IDDS program run by MIT D Lab in July 2015. She has a Masters degree in User Experience Design from the National Institute of Design,India.

Joey is a communications specialist who has worked in the non-profit sector for 10 years. She is an experienced writer and has developed campaigns and drafted speeches for audiences around the world. Joey has worked for several NGO’s, including as Media Officer at the British Red Cross, and as Speech Writer at the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. She is especially skilled at developing creative marketing and social media campaigns to increase social engagement with good causes. At Scope, Joey has worked on among others, Core, Care2Share, iDeliver, MIMBA and GloBelly. She holds a BA degree in Drama from Queen Mary, University of London.

Mahima Lamsal has worked with national and international non-governmental organizations in Nepal and has extensive experience in group facilitation and community-based research on family planning. Previously trained in general medicine as a health assistant, Mahima works as a psychosocial counselor, focusing on organizational, individual, and family counselling. She collaborated with Scope on research tool design, data collection, facilitation, and translation for the Lab.Our Ward project in Nepal, which designed solutions to improve quality of care for women and newborns. She holds a degree from the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), Nepal and is studying Social Sciences at Tribhuvan University.

Joe has extensive experience in finance, economics, public policy and sustainable development. He works as a Senior Director in an investment bank. Previously, he worked at the World Bank, at the UK Department of International Development, and the Overseas Development Institute. Joe has spent more than half of this 20 year career living and working in developing countries in Africa and South Asia, mobilising private capital for infrastructure and environmental services in low resource communities. He is a frequent international speaker on the subject of environmental and infrastructure finance.

Mari represents Scope and develops new ways of delivering social impact and leads Scope’s social mission fund. Prior to co-founding Scope in 2008, Mari worked for 15 years on women’s and children’s health and rights, including for WHO South East Asia Region, UNFPA, IPPF, AMREF and Aurat Foundation in Pakistan. Mari holds an MSc. in Population and Development from the London School of Economics, and a Sociology degree from Helsinki University, and is a qualified social worker. Mari serves on a number of advisory boards, including the Senior Advisory Group of Saving Newborn Lives and Design for Health.

Tero Silvola joined Scope in 2019. He has over 20 years of experience in leading healthcare companies and establishing new ventures in healthcare services and healthcare IT. Tero (MSEcon) is a Board Member and CEO of BC Platforms 2013-present. BC Platforms is a pioneer in bioinformatics, genome data management and data science. The company has built a technology platform to answer today’s most ground-breaking research questions in next-generation sequencing (NGS) and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Today Tero contributes and works in different board positions in healthcare – companies and non-profit organisations.