About

Alexandra stewards the organization, provides strategic direction, and leads the team. Alexandra has previously worked as the Tanzania Country Director of TechnoServe and in over 17 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.  She has also worked with the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, KPMG International Development Advisory Services, and Monitor Group and has long-term experience partnering with private sector clients and donors like USAID, DFID, IrishAid, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Alexandra has a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.Phil from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. from New York University.

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.

Jennifer heads the creative team and oversees creative projects, strategy and concept planning, as well as the implementation of international campaigns and programs. She is a multi-faceted professional who brings 20 years of international experience gained across roles in communications, design and marketing. Previous roles include heading international clients for a top 10 global communications agency, CEO of a creative agency in London, and head of marketing for a US-based global technology company.

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.

Rupesh Vyas works as the Design Director for the project Core. He is professor of practice of visual communication design (information design) at Aalto University. He leads the new information design focus area at the Department of Media. Previously Vyas was senior faculty at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, responsible for developing information and interaction design education, among other tasks. Vyas has two decades of experience as an educator, researcher and design practitioner. He has contributed significantly to a variety of major projects with national importance in India, including the 2011 census, rollout of the Multipurpose National Identity Card, and national level visual standards for Drivers’s Licence. He is the World Regional Representative of International Institute of Information Design (IIID) in India.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(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.

Jarkko specialises in leveraging human-centred design for social and health services. He is an experienced service designer, with a decade of experience in ethnographic research, strategic design, prototyping, and workshop facilitation.  Prior to Scope, he served as a senior designer in a healthcare focused agency. Jarkko also has work experience as a product designer and a graphic designer. Jarkko has a master’s degree in Industrial and Strategic Design from Aalto University, with a minor in Creative Sustainability. He also holds a BA in Industrial Design from Kymenlaakso University of Applied Sciences.

Fang-yi is focused on human-centred design approaches and methodologies. Fang-yi supports the innovative service creation process, including through design research, concept development and rapid prototyping. Fang-yi is developing solutions addressing the issue of newborn health in low resource settings as well as HIV testing linked to care for adolescent girls. Prior to Scope, Fang-yi worked for several years as a product designer in Taiwan. Fang-yi holds a Master degree in Creative Sustainability from Aalto University and BA in Industrial Design from Tunghai University.

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.

Joseph is a Service Designer at Scope employing human-centered design and methods for a better world. He holds a Bachelors in Industrial Design and a Master’s Degree in Collaborative and Industrial Design at Aalto University, with a minor in Creative Sustainability. He strives to utilize participatory design methods for the co-creation of sustainable product-service systems and to work with others towards a higher social mission.

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.

Jenni develops creative design research tools and methodologies, and carries out project-based operational planning, coordination and management. Jenni has a background in maternal and child health in the UK, Nepal, Zimbabwe and India. Prior to Scope, Jenni was working at the University of Edinburgh designing culturally appropriate cervical screening services. She has wide experience consulting for NGOs  and the private sector. She has a masters from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is on the verge of submitting her PhD in Public Health at the University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

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.

Mick’s job is to synthesise research into creative strategies while being involved in conceptual thinking and ideation. He works with local partners in developing creative concepts. Before Scope, Mick had a dual role as both Senior creative and partner at Hasan & Partners and Creative director of Hasan & Communications. Mick has won various international advertising and communications awards. Mick has a law degree and has worked for, among others, the National Research Institute of Legal Policy, European Parliament in Luxembourg and the Institute of Economic Law. He has written a best-selling cookbook.

Laura manages communications strategies and their implementation at Scope. She also leads communication related project streams as well as international partner coordination. Laura is an experienced and sure-footed all-round communications professional and anthropologist from her academic background. Her work in refugee programmes took her to the Middle East and South America. Later her passion for journalism, PR and communication led her to work for a pioneer English-language newspaper in Finland and then managing communications and fundraising at the peace mediation organisation CMI.

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.

As a Visual Creative, John brings to life the creative and strategic ideas of teams in a simple but powerful way. John is based in Nairobi but works closely with various teams in Helsinki as well as other project teams based in countries such as Tanzania. Before joining Scope, John worked for various advertising agencies in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania as an art-based creative director. John’s creative career began at Jacaranda Designs as an illustrator and graphic designer, eventually moving into advertising where he worked for Ogilvy & Mather, DDB and McCann. John has won several local and international advertising awards for his work.

As a researcher, Petra works on Scope’s business development and supports the Creative Communications team in Plan Right and Core projects. 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.

Mia coordinates 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 Support team. Previously, Mia worked in administration, customer relations and program coordination for 10 years. She has worked in Australia and India and studied management in Hong Kong and Finland. Mia holds a BSc degree in Hospitality Management.

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 Support 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.

Bear is an expert at human-centered design. He has 4 years experience of intuitively understanding human feelings and also in creating bespoke systems for emotional support and exercise as treatments to life’s challenges. He enjoys sleeping under desks, treats, and long walks.

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.

Andy Awiti is a brand and communications strategist with experience in handling multi-disciplinary projects across advertising, public relations, digital marketing research and strategy development. Andy has worked for advertising agencies in Kenya launching new brands, steering market entry efforts for entities looking to penetrate the Kenyan market and giving businesses a new lease of life through full-scale rebrands as well as repositioning campaigns. With Scope, Andy has collaborated on #formnigani, contributing to the project strategy, scenarios building and media releases. Andy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Strathmore University, Nairobi.

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.

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.

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.

Camilla Hartwall joined Scope as an Independent Director of the Board in March 2014. Camilla also serves on Scope’s Financial Committee, with an oversight and advisory role on Scope’s financial matters. As a financial expert and company manager, Camilla brings with her 20 years of experience in company development, financial management, corporate governance, board management as well as 10 years of experience in various philanthropic programmes.

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.