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Meet the team

We’re a team of social scientists and communications professionals. We provide expertise on climate communication and public engagement, helping organisations think about how they can tell a different climate story.

Meet our staff and leadership team, who are supported by our dedicated trustees. We’re based in the UK but work with partners worldwide. If we’re looking for any new team members, we’ll list them on our vacancies page.

Leadership team


Rachael Orr

Chief Executive Officer

Rachael is the CEO of Climate Outreach. She works closely with the board to ensure effective governance and growth of the organisation and with our senior leaders in defining and delivering the organisation’s overall strategy, goals and impact.

Rachael has spent her career in the voluntary sector in leadership roles combining a deep commitment to social justice and to public engagement. She has run campaigns for Shelter, led programme and campaigning work at Oxfam and currently serves as Chair of Trustees at the Refugee Council.

It was in her last role, leading a network of housing associations, that Rachael really appreciated the huge gap in public awareness and engagement on climate change – and the huge opportunity to fill this gap. Housing, like many sectors, is in a race to decarbonise, and the sector is still really developing its approach to community, resident and public engagement. Rachael firmly believes that Climate Outreach is uniquely placed to help many sectors fill this gap.

Rachael is a mum to two young children so most of her spare time is spent playing schools or superheroes – and tidying up. She spends any time she gets to herself running, cycling and going to the theatre.

Noora Firaq

Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Noora is Climate Outreach’s Deputy CEO. She leads on organisational development and business strategy of Climate Outreach and works closely with the board and other senior leaders.

Noora is from the Maldives – one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world due to the country’s natural land scarcity and low-lying geography. Having experienced how people and communities are adapting to climate change, Noora is passionate about having an inclusive conversation about how we tackle climate change as a global community.

After Business and Law School, she started her career at Financial Ombudsman Service (UK). She has worked in charities, co-operatives, and ethical finance in the UK. Through her diverse career experiences, she has developed a passion for organisational behaviour, transformation and leadership and has completed the Executive Leadership programme at Oxford University, Saïd Business School. She is always looking for innovative ways of working to facilitate teams to create impact.

Her first language is Dhivehi and she tries hard not to forget her Sinhalese from the days when she lived in Sri Lanka. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her friends, read and go for walks.

Zoe Macalpine

Chief Income Officer

Zoe is Climate Outreach’s Chief Income Officer and leads on all income generating activities.  She has spent most of her career in the voluntary sector and has over 20 years fundraising experience mainly in the development and health sectors (following a brief stint working in recording studios). Prior to her current role she was Director of Fundraising and Communications at World Child Cancer and has previously held roles at ActionAid International and UK, Terrence Higgins Trust, Marie Curie and other smaller charities. Zoe is particularly interested in how the voluntary and commercial sectors are grappling to fully engage with climate change. She wants to raise more funds to be able to share best practice and develop lasting and impactful partnerships to enable Climate Outreach to support everyone to be part of the climate solution.
She lives in north London with her two teenage children, so when she isn’t picking up damp towels, she can be found happily running in the rain or on her bike.

Staff


Lauren Armstrong

Communications & Media Coordinator

Lauren is part of the Communications team at Climate Outreach, working to share insights and materials to support government, organisations and individuals engage a wide range of people with climate change. Lauren has worked in communications for a number of years across energy, science and consultancy landscapes.

Lauren holds a Master’s in Climate Change from King’s College London, a highly multidisciplinary degree pulling from both physical and social sciences. Her thesis explored the role of gender in peer-group perceptions of climate scientists’ media statements, and was published in 2021. With a love of environmental sciences and psychology, working in communications to further climate action is a perfect combination of her interests and experience. She believes using evidence-based techniques to engage diverse stakeholders is key to tackling climate change.

In her spare time, Lauren enjoys trying new things (successfully or unsuccessfully), the outdoors, and reading.

Tara Bryer

Programme Manager

Tara manages Climate Outreach’s science communication programme – supporting scientists, researchers and experts on public engagement with climate change. Before joining Climate Outreach, Tara trained researchers on public engagement at Cancer Research UK and ran science clubs with Science Oxford.

Tara completed her Msc. in Science Communication at Imperial College London in 2014 and is also a PRINCE2 accredited project manager.

Denise Cauchi

Australia Program Lead

Denise joined Climate Outreach in February 2024 to lead on new ways of talking about climate in Australia. A firm believer in collaborative, evidence-based practice, she is working with researchers and with partners Multicultural Leadership Initiative and Cricket for Climate to reach wider and more diverse audiences.

Denise left a much-loved 20-year career in human rights, international development and multiculturalism after realising that climate change was the most urgent challenge of our time, threatening the rights and wellbeing of everyone. She made the move in 2018, as Executive Director of Doctors for the Environment Australia, where she worked on the health impacts of climate change and the health benefits of climate action.

Denise holds a Master’s degree in International Development and a Bachelor of Arts. As a Maltese migrant to Australia, Denise grew up speaking English and Maltese. She also speaks Spanish, a little Arabic, and is now learning Portuguese.

Denise lives in Melbourne on the lands of the Wurundjeri people. She loves spending time with family and friends, walking along the local creek, dancing, and tending to an unruly garden.

Alvin David

Head of Finance

Alvin joined Climate Outreach in July 2021 and is our Head of Finance. He is responsible for managing our finances, ensuring strong financial control, and helping to scale up our systems and processes that will support our growth plans. He has 25 years of experience in senior finance roles within large organisations, predominantly in the mineral extraction and construction materials industry.

Whilst Alvin originally trained as an accountant, he also holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies. After some travelling in southeast Asia, he became increasingly interested in the close interconnections between climate change and development. This led to postgraduate studies in Climate Change and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Alvin lives with his family on the Kent coast. He can often be seen enjoying some long cycle rides through the Kent countryside and beyond.

Jenny Gellatly

Programmes Coordinator

Since joining Climate Outreach in 2020, Jenny has been coordinating our work on the pan-European Spark project, a multi-year audience research project dedicated to developing knowledge and understanding on how to communicate climate justice with young adults in Europe. She believes in the need for action on ecological issues to be underpinned by principles of equity and justice.

Jenny brings experience of project management, community engagement, partnership working, research, training and facilitation. She has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Geography and International Development from the University of East Anglia. She is co-founder of School Farm Community Supported Agriculture and, prior to working at Climate Outreach, she worked as a Creative Associate with arts organisation Encounters, and as the Coordinator of Transition Town Totnes.

Jenny’s life has been split between Wales, where she grew up, England and Spain, where she met her husband. She speaks English, reasonable Spanish and, somewhere in the recesses of her brain, Welsh (though this needs attention). Outside of work, she cares for her one year old, travels between family in Wales, England and Spain and, when she can, likes to read sci-fi and get out on her bike in the rolling hills of Devon, where she now lives.

Steve Gerrish

Office Volunteer

Increasingly concerned about climate change from the mid 1990s, Steve could not understand why almost no-one around him shared his concern. Climate Outreach public events from 2005 were addressing this problem, which led to him being active in local climate action groups and taking an interest in building energy use.

Steve worked for the Potato Council for 25 years, providing an information and knowledge transfer service to potato growers. He took redundancy when the organisation relocated to Warwickshire in 2009, which provided opportunities to volunteer for Climate Outreach and to study for MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies at the Centre for Alternative Technology.

In late 2011, Steve stepped in to provide part-time support for Carbon Conversations at Climate Outreach, and stayed on as a volunteer. At the same time he trained as a Domestic Energy Assessor and in 2013 began working for a local family firm carrying out energy assessments on new dwellings, and advising architects and builders. Now semi-retired, he continues to work part time as both a volunteer with Climate Outreach and as an energy assessor.

Nameerah Hameed

Advocacy Manager

Nameerah is our Advocacy Manager, working to support MPs, governments, and businesses on climate engagement. And supporting partners on how to engage different audiences meaningfully on climate change.

She previously joined as an Engagement Advisor working on the Climate Engagement Initiative, an ambitious and multi-partner project that aims to influence the outcomes of the UNFCCC negotiations on Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE), and to support governments to strengthen their national public engagement initiatives.

She is also the founder of Women In Energy Pakistan, working to build a strong community of female professionals and foster a culture of career and leadership development.

With over ten years of experience, Nameerah has worked in the nexus of energy and climate policy in the UK, USA and Pakistan. She formerly served as a Policy Specialist in the Government in Pakistan working on renewable energy and energy efficiency with development partners. She studied Energy, Resources and Environment at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in USA.

Emma James

Researcher

Emma joined Climate Outreach in December 2021 as a Researcher. This role focuses on helping to design and disseminate quantitative and qualitative social science research for various climate communicators including Local Authorities and Grassroots Campaigners. Emma is excited to combine research with public engagement as she loves learning from data and sharing climate change knowledge in a way that inspires action.

Emma completed an MSc International Environmental Studies degree at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Her thesis investigated the use of information as a policy instrument to encourage climate relevant behaviour. A BSc Physical Geography degree at Lancaster University and interning with the British Columbia Council for International Cooperation to research the SDGs are also part of her background. More recently, Emma worked on a climate change programme in local government.

Outside of work, Emma enjoys playing basketball and has played for National, University and Local leagues. If not playing basketball, Emma can often be found walking her dogs!

Alastair Johnstone

Climate Visuals Manager

Alastair is the Climate Visuals Manager. With a background in photojournalism, he is particularly interested in how you tell stories through photography, and how viewers interact with photographs.

Prior to joining Climate Outreach Alastair was a picture editor at The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers, working on domestic and international news photography. Before this, he trained in photojournalism at the London College of Communication and worked as a newspaper photographer.

Alastair is happiest when taking photographs and riding bicycles, often at the same time, ideally up a hill.

Luisa Melloh

Researcher

Luisa joined Climate Outreach in September 2021. In her current role as Researcher, she enjoys designing and analysing research and turning empirical data into actionable insights.

Her first experience of climate change action was on a youth exchange with an Indonesian partner church, in which participants developed playful ways of engaging primary school students in Germany and Indonesia in pro-environmental behaviours.

After graduating with an MA in Sustainable Development and an MSc in Migration Studies, Luisa supported the Sector Project on Migration at the German development agency (GIZ). She then worked at St Antony’s College as a Research Manager for the Europe’s Stories project and PA to Timothy Garton Ash. As part of this, she co-authored a chapter on young Europeans’ views on free movement in the EU.

Luisa is a German native and, in addition to English, is trying to revive her Indonesian, which stems from a year of living in West Papua. In her free time, she enjoys singing, playing the piano, hiking, and amateur rock climbing.

Fahmida Miah

Programme Manager

Fahmida is a Programme Manager at Climate Outreach, helping deliver a range of the organisation’s projects. Fahmida has spent much of her career in the charity sector, her role at Media Trust saw her lead programmes of free training, mentoring, and resources for UK charities. She has also supported charities and newsrooms in embedding inclusivity and intersectionality into their storytelling to better reflect lived experience.

She holds a BA Hons in English, an APM Project Management Qualification and has completed a Level 4 Project Manager Apprenticeship.

Being a second generation British Bangladeshi, and with Bangladesh being a particularly climate vulnerable country, Fahmida has a deep interest in the intersections of racial and climate justice. Alongside work, she helps run Bangladeshi Diaspora Climate Action (BDCA), a network of UK Bangladeshi professionals leveraging their expertise to support climate mitigation and adaptation in Bangladesh and build climate awareness in their community.

You can also often find her painting, reading, or exploring London’s parks and food markets!

Siri Pantzar

Quality and Impact Manager

Siri became Climate Outreach’s first Quality and Impact Manager in January 2024. In this role, she ensures that Climate Outreach has the evidence required to understand and tell the story of the impact of our work, and to continuously learn and improve the organisation’s projects and programmes. Siri is passionate about creating brave and inclusive spaces where people can openly share and learn both from things that have worked and from things that didn’t turn out as expected.

In her free time, Siri is a keen amateur poet and photographer. She grew up in Finland but is now based in Edinburgh, where she is an active part of the local art community; you can often find her drumming, organising or photographing performances around the city. Siri originally joined Climate Outreach as an Executive Assistant in September 2020. She has a Masters’ Degree in Global Environment, Politics and Society from the University of Edinburgh.

Samuel Pilgrim

Executive Assistant to Deputy CEO

Working closely alongside our Deputy CEO, Noora Firaq, and the wider Climate Outreach team, Samuel supports our most-frequent tasks to ensure we can successfully focus on our ever-growing output.

With a childhood encased with rising talk of climate change and the severity at hand, Samuel pledged to focus his life’s efforts on making as much positive change as possible, sacrificing superficial personal desires to assist the future of humanity.

Samuel undertook a digital marketing apprenticeship, but owes most of his life’s learnings not from professional studies, but from engaging in conversation with people all around the world, whilst gaining exposure from different cultures, religions, and environments.

Having a key interest in all forms of design, Samuel runs ‘Clouted‘, his own website design business, and has also provided work towards sustainable industrial and fashion design projects worldwide.

On a day’s rest, you’ll find him either on a long walk surrounded by nature, reading a book, or playing chess.

David Powell

Senior Advocacy Manager

David leads our advocacy work, championing public engagement and effective climate communications with policy makers, politicians and those who influence them.

David has nearly two decades of experience as a campaigner, communicator, researcher and strategist on environment and climate change. He’s worked as Head of Environment and Green Transition at the New Economics Foundation and senior campaigner on economics and resources at Friends of the Earth. He has a MA in English Literature, an MSc in Environmental Strategy, and a Graduate Diploma in Economics. He’s particularly interested in the intersection between systems change and individual psychology, and how to build campaigns that harness the deeply held concerns we all have about the climate crisis.

Outside of work he hosts the climate psychology podcast, Your Brain on Climate, and until 2022 was co-host of Sustainababble. He is also the chair of Somerset Wildlands, and spends whatever time there is left running and playing the sax.

Alex Randall

Head of Programmes

Alex manages the Climate Change and Migration Coalition – an alliance that exists to challenge the lack of long-term strategies to support and protect people at risk of displacement linked to environmental change.

Before joining Climate Outreach, he worked at the Centre for Alternative Technology. He has also worked for the Public Interest Research Centre on their Values and Frames project. He co-founded Cheat Neutral, a spoof offsetting company, and UN Fair Play, an organisation that works with small island states at international climate change negotiations.

Raphene Sládek Rose

Executive Assistant to CEO

In her role as Executive Assistant, Raphene works closely with the Leadership Team and Board of Trustees to provide administrative support.

She developed her skill at providing efficient business support in both the private and non-profit sectors, including at a global fintech company, a private equity firm and a small faith-based charity. Working in a broad array of organisations revealed her passion for collaborating with a variety of people to drive solutions and increase organisational effectiveness.

Raphene earned her BA in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. Being immersed in the environment of a modern university with a highly international student body, her studies and the lived experiences of her peers highlighted the pressing reality of climate change. Through her role at Climate Outreach and her voluntary campaigning work with climate-focused NGOs, Raphene strives to make a positive impact.

Outside of work, Raphene enjoys gym classes and long walks in nature, travelling, eating out with friends and Jamaican food with loved ones. She has basic competency in French and is learning Czech.

Jasmin Souesi

Communications & Media Manager (Maternity cover)

Jasmin joined the Climate Outreach team in November 2023, and is working as part of the communications team to amplify the voice of the organisation.

Prior to joining Climate Outreach, Jasmin worked as a senior BBC News journalist. She started her career in radio, and has worked on flagship BBC news programmes including Business Matters and the Global News podcast. She has experience in developing digital strategy for news content, and has commissioned and produced videos watched by millions of people around the world. Jasmin became particularly interested in communicating climate issues when she worked with a team dedicated to expanding the BBC’s international audience. She soon realised that audiences were hungry for people-centred storytelling around sustainability. Her work in solutions journalism launched her quest to learn as much as possible about all things climate.

Jasmin holds an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London, an MSocSci in African politics from the University of Cape Town, and a BA in Political Science from the American University in Cairo. She loves learning languages, bingeing on box sets and spending time with family.

Léane de Laigue (Maternity leave)

Communications & Media Manager

Léane leads on disseminating our insights and resources in a way that creates the biggest impact possible. She started her career as a Marketing Manager for Johnson & Johnson, before deciding to become a history teacher. She was asked to teach an Environmental Studies class without any previous experience in the subject, and learning and talking about climate change with her students completely changed her worldview. She has since dedicated herself to public engagement with climate change, working for the David Suzuki Foundation and now Climate Outreach.

Léane’s life has been evenly split between Canada, France, the UK and the US, with a bit of time in Hong Kong and Argentina. She is a native speaker of English and French, speaks Spanish and is currently learning Mandarin. She holds a Master’s degree in Environment and Management (Canada) and an MBA in Marketing (US) as well as undergraduate degrees in Education (Canada) and Humanities (France). In her spare time she can be found climbing mountains, kayaking, reading graphic novels and sometimes unicycling.

Trustees


Susan Adams

Chair of Trustees

Susan is a London based lawyer and governance expert who is committed to making a difference in the world through purpose-led responsible leadership.

Susan is an experienced non-executive in the healthcare and charity sector, has held senior executive positions at Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo and Standard Chartered and ran her own business for several years as an executive coach. She is a current Fellow of the Forward Institute.

Outside work, when not spending time with her family, Susan sings jazz and latin music for fun, reads voraciously and loves weight-training and running.

Phil Bloomer

Trustee

Phil is the Executive Director of Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, a digital action platform that empowers human rights advocates in civil society, business, government; tracks the human rights performance of over 9,000 companies around the world; and seeks corporate accountability for around 550 allegations of abuse each year. The Resource Centre also presses for policy and practice that drive fast and fair transitions to zero carbon economies; uphold labour rights; and protect civic freedoms .

Phil was previously the Director of Campaigns and Policy at Oxfam, where he led global campaigns on climate justice, trade and investment for development, access to medicines, and major humanitarian crises. Phil worked for 11 years in Central America and Colombia working on human rights, especially indigenous rights, and broader economic justice.

Polly Carr

Trustee

Polly is an experienced family office and finance executive. She has extensive knowledge of the management of a family office, including governance, finance, technology, people, philanthropy and sustainability as well as direct emerging market investing and indirect global endowment investing. She is a seasoned board member, both from an executive and non-executive perspective, having sat on a wide range of commercial and non-profit boards. 

From 2017 to 2023 Polly was CEO of Oppenheimer Generations Custodian, and for the previous 12 years was CFO of its predecessor entity. The Oppenheimer Generations family office represented the global commercial, philanthropic, and family interests of the Nicky Oppenheimer family.  In this capacity, Polly represented Oppenheimer Generations on the boards of portfolio companies and non-profit organisations.  This included 18 years as a Trustee of the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, an education focused non-profit, and 4 years as a member of the De Beers audit committee.

Prior to joining the Oppenheimer family, Polly was the finance director, and a member of the executive and investment committees of Brait Private Equity, a leading private equity firm in South Africa. She qualified as a chartered accountant at Deloitte in London and became a partner in the financial institutions team at Deloitte in Johannesburg, specialising in private equity. Polly holds a BA in History from the University of Exeter.

Ludovic Phalippou

Trustee

Ludovic likes to ride road bikes, routinely taste great wines and works (a bit) on food-waste reduction, forests (carbon capture) and diversity/inclusion initiatives. In his spare time, he is a Faculty member of the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, and heads the Finance Accounting and Management Economics group. He is also a Fellow at The Queen’s College.

Over the last twenty years, Ludovic has been actively researching the private equity industry. He has published about ten articles in leading academic journals on the subject, which have been downloaded nearly 100,000 times and cited more than 3000 times. His work has been featured in the media internationally (including The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times). He has been fortunate to work directly with a number of large institutional investors regarding their private equity investment decisions as well as benchmarking systems. He has been teaching private equity for ten years to MBA/EMBA students, and developed a variety of executive education courses, including customized programs for leading consulting companies and asset managers.

Dr Ellie Murtagh

Trustee

Dr Ellie Murtagh is the UK Climate Adaptation Lead at the British Red Cross. Since starting the position in September 2022, she has been assessing the humanitarian climate related risks individuals and communities face, and will face, in the UK. The aim of the project is to identify where the British Red Cross can add the most value by supporting communities to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from the impacts of climate change. 

Prior to this Ellie worked for the Scottish sustainability charity, Sniffer, from 2017 – 2022 leading projects on public sector capacity building and climate finance, as part of the Adaptation Scotland programme. She holds a PhD from the University of Strathclyde, where her research explored decision-making tools and approaches for climate adaptation. 

In her spare time, she is an avid reader of second-hand paperbacks, enjoys lino printmaking, walks with her dog and spending time in her off-grid cabin in the South West of Scotland.

Peter Morley

Trustee

Peter Morley is a senior leader in the Centre of Excellence at the active travel charity Sustrans. He is especially motivated by helping people choose travel methods that reduce private car usage. This includes the leadership of a portfolio of programmes that encourage societal behaviour change and deliver improvements in cycling and walking infrastructure. He is an experienced project, programme and portfolio manager and has a particular interest and experience in charity governance and risk management.

Before working at Sustrans, Peter led the commissioning social care services at a unitary authority. This was for diverse client groups such as women and children fleeing domestic violence, disabled and older people who need support to stay at home, child victims of sexual abuse and disabled children.

Peter also chairs the Board of Base 51, a charity that supports some of the most vulnerable young people in Nottingham through counselling, youth work, music, an LGBTQ+ support group and targeted work to minimise the risk from gang culture and knife crime.

In his spare time, Peter is a keen road cyclist and mountain biker, and he plays a variety of musical instruments in several groups.

Salka Sigurðardóttir

Trustee

Salka Sigurðardóttir is a dual UK-Icelandic national specialised in Government policy and international diplomacy. She leads the International Zero Emission Vehicles transition team in the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and has extensive experience leading teams in climate negotiations, strategy and communications.

Salka drove the COP26 vision on inclusivity, gender, indigenous peoples, youth and public engagement, including leading the Action for Climate Empowerment workstream for COP26 and chairing UNFCCC gender negotiations at COP27. She’s a diplomacy nerd and unapologetic believer in using people centred international collaboration across governments, businesses and civil society to build bridges through empathy, humility and inclusion. Salka also led EU Exit and trade teams in the UK Government, and has experience as a journalist. She set up a youth charity for UN Women Iceland and was a member of the Icelandic youth council.

Dr Halima Sacranie

Trustee

Dr Halima Sacranie is a housing researcher and completed her PhD in Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2012. Halima has undertaken research around housing models, tenant engagement and wellbeing, sustainability in social housing, community investment and community-led housing. She has most recently been working at the University of Birmingham on a 4-year EU project applying the principles of the circular economy to social housing demonstration examples in the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Her work within the project has focused on tenant engagement and moving towards a socially inclusive circular economy. Halima is also a Research Fellow at Aston University, undertaking research around the impact of housing quality and neighbourhood conditions on wellbeing, and the impacts of harmful gambling on housing security. 

Halima has chaired the Housing and Communities Leadership Board at the think-tank Centre for New Midlands since July 2021. She believes in housing as a fundamental human right, and in the critical importance of sustainable, affordable and good quality homes on wellbeing, and providing the foundation for children to thrive. When not juggling research work around her 3 children and their busy schedules, Halima enjoys boxing and pilates, and loves visiting new places, especially with interesting architecture.

Daniel Hale

Trustee

Daniel is Senior Campaigns Director at creative social impact agency Purpose and co-lead of the Purpose Climate Lab with responsibility for the organisation’s climate work across the globe.

Previously, Daniel led campaigning at Catholic development agency CAFOD, driving action on net zero and refugee rights by reaching a younger and more diverse audience. He ran ActionAid UK’s successful women’s rights campaign. Daniel also co-founded a youth empowerment non-profit.

Daniel holds a PhD in geography from the University of Leeds and an MBA from the Open University. He’s a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was once met by Pope Francis at the Vatican. Despite living in Central London, Daniel is surprisingly outdoorsy.

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