About Ashoka UK & Ireland

Pip is the Country Director of Ashoka in the UK. Australian by birth, she has spent the majority of her career in South Africa. Prior to moving to the UK, Pip founded a youth development organisation in South Africa, enke: Make Your Mark. In early 2015, after six years as enke’s CEO, she handed over the reigns to study an MBA at Saïd Business School, Oxford. In addition, she has also consulted on innovative finance at the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship; mapped the entrepreneurial support landscape across Africa for the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trading; and facilitated strategy development. For her work in social innovation she’s been awarded a Skoll Scholarship, an Ashoka Fellowship; and she was a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. She currently still serves on the board of enke as a non-executive director.

Nikki is Co-Director of Ashoka UK with a core focus on partnerships to embed radical collaboration and changemaking for a better world into the corporate landscape. Before joining Ashoka, Nikki successfully led the Social Innovation Strategy for New Zealand’s National Innovation Agency to change the funding landscape for social entrepreneurs in the country. She has mentored social enterprises in accelerator programs and helped raise $2 million for New Zealand’s largest social enterprise in 2017. As a self-professed purpose-driven business catalyst, Nikki thrives on pushing new ways of thinking around impact business models. She is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and stands by the Benefit Corporation mission that business can be a force for good. A previous Managing Director of a 12-person marketing and branding agency, with years of experience in business strategy, business development, marketing strategy and partnership collaboration

Felix looks after the back office functions for the Ashoka UK team, Ireland team and the EU Hub. He joined Ashoka in June 2017, after 5.5 years of working as an actuarial consultant in the pension advisory industry. Felix holds two Master's degrees, in actuarial science and MORSE. (No, not MORSE of Morse code, but Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics & Economics. I know, tell me about it.)

Anu Bhatnagar joined the Ashoka UK team in May 2019 - as Partnerships and Support Network Manager - after having volunteered, and loved working with the team earlier. She is an On Purpose Fellow, and recently worked in social investment in the UK, including at Big Society Capital. In a previous life, she was a stockbroker at Morgan Stanley. Her change in career was sparked by experiences with purpose-driven organsations, fighting food waste with FoodCycle, and supporting the opening of the world's first Partition Museum in India. She holds a BA in Economics and International Studies and a post graduate degree in Management, studying in the US, the UK and in India.

Florian leads on systems change partnerships, research, and training in the UK and he co-designed Ashoka's European Fellowship program where he co-leads the systems change, new leadership and wellbeing modules. After managing and heading up Ashoka's Fellowship in the UK for three years, his work in recent years has increasingly focused on the ecosystem for social entrepreneurs – in particular on funding for their systems changing work.

Florian graduated in business economics and social entrepreneurship, studying in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, United States, United Kingdom, and Kenya. He worked as a social impact consultant on impact measurement, communication and stakeholder engagement, and co-founded the global #TweetADream campaigns which reached 25k young people in 35 countries with the aim of inspiring them to discover their own power for change.

Alex manages Ashoka UK’s community of Fellows and supporters, creating opportunities for them to connect and identify ways to drive change. She joined Ashoka in 2018 to manage events and a few months later took over the management of the Fellowship community. A languages graduate from Newcastle University in the UK, Alex spent the first part of her career in advertising. While she learned a huge amount and developed valuable skills, she realised that she needed a career which allowed her to have a positive impact on society and the environment, so left in 2017 to pursue a new direction. A volunteer placement at Ashoka sparked her interest in social entrepreneurship; as well as working at Ashoka, Alex has co-founded an organisation called The New Ism with Ashoka Fellow Mel Young, with the ambition of creating a new, more inclusive economic system built on existing social innovation.

Tatiana manages the search and selection of new Ashoka Fellows in the UK. Prior to joining Ashoka she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco focusing on youth programming and sport for development. She has extensive experience in the NGO sector working as a researcher, journalist, facilitator, and program manager. Tatiana holds an MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation from the London School of Economics and is pursuing a PhD in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh.

Anna joined Ashoka UK in 2016. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2007 and spent the following two years in Ecuador, learning and working alongside the Achuar tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon. On returning to the UK, Anna joined the Teach First programme and taught for 6 years in Croydon, Lambeth and Rome. Fascinated by the range of learning styles she had encountered, she undertook a MSc in Social Anthropology with Learning and Cognition at the London School of Economics. She now works for Ashoka UK part-time while setting up an education programme on her partner's farm in Norfolk. She is passionate about connecting all children with positive experiences of nature, farming and the outdoors.

 Clarice joined Ashoka in 2012 and was responsible for structuring the UK’s back-office. Since 2016, she’s been leading the finance and operations team across Ashoka’s 10+ offices in Europe. In her previous life, Clarice worked for more than 10 years with hospitality, travel and tourism, and was the COO of a travel agency in Rio de Janeiro. She moved to Europe to pursue a double-diploma MA in Sustainable Tourism Management from London Metropolitan University & ESCEM Business School (France), where she specialised in community-based tourism. When living in France, she also worked for CENTRAIDER (Centre for International Cooperation and Solidarity) in Tours, and for the Auvergne Region Tourist Board, in Clermont-Ferrand.

Mark is a member of the Leadership Group at Ashoka, based in Hong Kong. Mark started with Ashoka in 2007 as a Senior Advisor on Social Finance, based in London. He became UK Director in 2011, and European Director in 2014. Mark led the European Diamond from 2014-19, before moving to Hong Kong where he has launched the Hong Kong Chapter for Ashoka. Prior to joining Ashoka,  Mark founded Chelwood Capital, a global social investment advisory firm, which he continues to actively manage. Mark is recognized as a pioneer in impact investment, and over the past decade has helped raise over $250mn for social causes in areas including micro-finance, clean energy, healthcare, education and conservation. He is a Director of Emerge Education, a leading incubator for ed/tech start-ups, and a founding member of the ClearlySo Angels network, the UK’s first angel investment network for impact investors.