Our Team

As Director of Cool Earth, Matthew’s dynamic leadership has led our organisation from strength to strength in the last fifteen years, from one community partnership in Peru to forty projects in tropical rainforest across the globe.

With a background in development and financial analysis, Matthew is passionate about working with rainforest communities to combat climate change. His experience makes him uniquely positioned to inspire and guide the Cool Earth team.

With expertise in ecology, conservation, and rural community development, Hannah leads on policy and research at Cool Earth, alongside her role as Deputy Director. Working directly with communities and our in-country teams, she is the Safeguarding lead for our organisation.

Specialising in environmental issues, biodiversity, and conservation, Hannah has a PhD in Ecology-Zoology from Imperial College London.

Lauren leads the Fundraising and Engagement team at Cool Earth, and raising money for good causes has been her favourite thing to do ever since she can remember.

Over the last fifteen years, she has worked across pretty much every fundraising stream in the charity sector, from mass participation to major gifts, to not-for-profit retail and special events – from Cornwall to Hong Kong.

Building and leading teams, developing brands, and growing new income streams are Lauren’s core focus. When she gets the time, Lauren enjoys writing creative copy and developing new fundraising products.

Sophie is responsible for Cool Earth’s UK operations, and plays a key role in our global operations strategy.

Her role focuses on organisational efficiency, developing workplace culture and talent recruitment, as well as leading on wellbeing and productivity in the workplace.

With eight years of experience working alongside senior leaders in the Royal Household and NGO sector, Sophie has held several posts as a Project Manager, Executive Assistant and has worked in Events Management, delivering complex programmes for international events.

As a Head of Programmes at Cool Earth, Isabel lead’s the gobal programmes team on conservation projects with indigenous communities to protect the Amazon rainforest and support people’s wellbeing using her specialist knowledge across environmental policy and law,  gender and climate change.

With an MPhil in Environmental Policy from Cambridge University, Isabel has previously worked as a legal consultant for the Peruvian government on developing environmental policies. Other work experience includes consulting and developing technical-legal research for international organizations such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on issues related to gender and climate change and with the  UNEP WCMC and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) focusing on environmental impact assessment and biodiversity offsets reforms in Peru and Latin American countries.

Her interests include climate action and sustainable development, gender, and a community-led approach to conservation.

Ali works in programme management across Papua New Guinea and our rainforest partnerships with a range of NGOs. Her environmental interests lie in species conservation for healthy ecosystems, with a specialism in birds.

With a background in practical conservation and lab and field research, Ali’s experience ranges from delivering teaching support for university students on conservation to behavioural ecology and consultant support for international NGOs.

With a background in community-based environmental management and an MSc in Environment and Development, Ellie is perfectly placed to work with our network of rainforest partnerships with NGOs on the ground.

Ellie has a keen interest in the overlap between environmental management and human rights and justice.

Emily is a digital designer with over seven years of industry experience creating and designing for brands, charities, and creative agencies.

Passionate about using her design skills for good and fighting climate change, Emily leads on design at Cool Earth.

Lewis manages the creative team at Cool Earth alongside creating photography and film and works closely with our Designer to drive digital content for our organisation.

A self-shooting content producer, including specialist camera skills such as drone operation and timelapse photography, Lewis thrives on creating story-driven content through multiple language barriers in line with the highest ethical standards, and bringing it all together in the edit.

With a degree in Marine & Natural History Photography, Lewis can often be found on location with a camera in hand or drone up above – whether that be on the beaches of Cornwall or the rainforests of Papua New Guinea.

Clifford’s love of conservation and wildlife and working with people to protect the environment started in his previous career in ecotourism.

With a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology and a background in teaching, Clifford enjoys working with local communities to mitigate climate change and forest degradation through conservation, and addressing socio-economic problems in society through basic livelihoods development from sustainable conservation and ecotourism projects.

With a background in marketing and customer service, Louise is a digital marketer with a focus on social media, digital fundraising, and not-for-profit retail.

Growing up in Oceania, Louise experienced the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise first hand and has seen the effect it has on people and the planet, which drew her to working in the climate sector.

Magda joined Cool Earth with a background in publishing in the commercial sector and a keen sense of social justice. She looks after a diverse range of businesses partners at Cool Earth, including national companies, independent start-ups, and certified B Corporations using business as a force for good.

She has a passion for driving inclusivity within the climate change discourse, believing that true climate justice means engaging everyone, not only the powerful and privileged.

As Digital Project Coordinator, Catherine stays busy managing all digitally-led projects from websites to rebrands and is responsible for Cool Earth’s data protection.

Catherine has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science and previously managed reforestation and mitigation projects alongside New York City’s Natural Resource Department.

Lelebo worked for eight years as a business development officer in the public sector, and in policy and advocacy in the private sector developing her skills and experiences in business development, project management, financial literacy training, research, public policy & advocacy.

As an Eco-enterprise Coordinator in our Papua New Guinea team, Lelebo works alongside communities to be financially literate and independent and is dedicated to the growth and development of her people, community, and province, ensuring rainforest communities are at the heart of all that she does.

Martin works in programme management across many of our projects with NGOs and rainforest communities. Working with marginalised people drives him to research participatory approaches to conservation, development and aid to design equal working relationships between NGOs and the people they back.

Having been privileged enough to have seen the rainforests of Central and South America and its peoples, his background includes working in fair trade and community-led conservation and development.

Martin’s interests span from environmental and climate justice; the diversity (and complexity) of human cultures; indigenous rights; climate activism and current affairs.

With a background in International Relations and Media and a decade of fundraising experience, Nog Sawdon heads up Cool Earth’s Trust & Foundation relationships, and works on a a range of grant and donor proposals including Universities and major gifts.

She is adept at understanding each organisation’s unique criteria, aligning those with our specific projects and then developing them into mutually beneficial long-term partnerships.

As our Individual Giving and Engagement Manager, Shannon is responsible for developing Cool Earth’s individual giving programmes.

Shannon has a background in digital communications, editorial copywriting and a degree in English Literature from Goldsmiths University. When she isn’t looking after our donors, she is writing digital strategies and compelling fundraising copy.

Living by the coast, Shannon has a passion for protecting our oceans, as well as rainforest.

With a background in management accountancy, operations management and insurance across the commercial sector, Sophie brings a wealth of experience to Cool Earth.

When she’s not delivering financial reporting and analysis to the leadership team to help drive future strategy, Sophie works closely with our fundraising and programmes teams on data-driven financial insights to maximise both our income and our impact on the ground.

With a love for all things satellites and coding, Matt works closely with local and indigenous communities to combine traditional knowledge with technology and big data, so we can do the best job possible to decolonise data and protect rainforest.

With experience both out in the field and strategic work developing monitoring software, a background as an analyst in the commercial sector and a degree in Maths from Exeter, Matt is perfectly positioned to lead on our forest monitoring work.

As Cool Earth’s Copywriter, Tom is a creative thinker specialising in copywriting, disruptive thinking, and articulating big ideas.

When he’s not working on our latest campaigns, Tom supports our wider team with content creation and writing killer taglines.

His environmental interests include food waste and food poverty, activist communications and making brands do good.

Tory is a senior environment specialist and has over 19 years experience working for government, industry and private organizations in Papua New Guinea.

As a Conservation Coordinator for our Milne Bay projects, Tory works with rainforest communities to protect the remaining rainforest from emerging land-use pressures including palm oil plantation development and logging operations.

His expertise includes Forest Landscape Restoration, Conservation and Management of Threatened Ecosystem, Community Engagement, Livelihood Improvement, Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), Biodiversity Assessment, Environmental Compliance Management, Invasive species Management and Botanical Exploration and study.

Over the last five years, Tory has worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) as a Forest Ecologist on a variety of projects, including establishing eight permanent community forest nurseries throughout the four provinces in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and restoring over 60 hectares of montane degraded forest to significantly and demonstrably reduce deforestation in the Bismarck Mountains of Papua New Guinea to strengthen local livelihoods and conserve biological and cultural diversity.

Tory has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Forestry and is currently a deferred MSc student in Plant Taxonomy with the Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the National Taiwan University.

Ricky is Cool Earth’s Livelihood Programme Coordinator in our Papua New Guinea office in Milne Bay province.
With a background in agriculture,Ricky has worked in the private, government and third sector (including Flora & Fauna International) and is dedicated to environmental conservation.
Ricky is committed to working alongside indigenous villages to halt rainforest destruction, through coordinating and implementing livelihood projects; helping communities to become self-sustainable while protecting their rainforest.

As our Operations Coordinator in the Lima office, Fabiola leads on administration for Cool Earth Peru.

Her environmental interests include support the mitigation of climate change to preserve the species of flora and fauna of our Amazon.

Since 2016, Alix has been an integral part of the Peru team. As the Project Coordinator for Peru, she specialises in the design, management and evaluation of programme activity across multiple projects.

Originally from an education background, Alix has a degree in Communication for Development, and has practised as a textile consultant with expertise in sustainable fashion and teaching methodologies.
Her environmental interests include the support of rural and indigenous rights, biodiversity protection, decolonisation, environmental justice, women’s rights, and ecological debt.

Renee looks after all the administration for the Lima office, with a background in accounting and tax management for service organisations including IVAF Contadores and JC Asesores. His interests include environmental conservation and reforestation.

With over a decade of experience as a project manager in the private sector, Josue’s knowledge of cocoa, coffee, inga, and fish farming is unsurpassed.

Josue’s role as a Local Coordinator of our Asháninka Programme enables him to use a broad range of expertise to execute project delivery, and monitoring and evaluation of these projects.

His environmental interest is centred around caring for the forest and how migratory agriculture is influencing change in communities and communal reserves across the Amazon.

Deylar has been part of the Cool Earth team since 2016. As the Development and Liaison Officer for the Asháninka programme, Deylar has a background in accounting and finance.

Previously, Deylar worked with the Central Asháninka del Río Ene (CARE) who collaborate with Cool Earth on multiple projects in the region.

Deylar feels strongly about her contribution to environmental conservation and how this can not only support indigenous communities, but also ensure a future for the next generation surrounded by trees, plants, animals and beautiful natural landscapes.

As the Local Coordinator of the Awajún programme, Wilson is experienced in innovative projects in the agroforestry and aquaculture sectors. Current projects he is collaborating on with Awajún communities include cocoa, fish, inga and agricultural college projects. He works closely with the Peru team to contribute to the wider development of support for communities working in environmental conservation.

Nelson works with Awajún communities as a Local Officer, with a focus on community support and agroforestry.

With a background in construction management in reforestation projects, his areas of expertise include project management, and providing training to boards of directors in rainforest community associations.

Nelson believes strongly in people-powered conservation, and that strengthening resilience and capacity can enable communities to make informed decisions about their forest.

Delia looks after all administration within our Awajún programme in the Peru team at Cool Earth.

Delia’s background is in foreign trade and logistics administration as well as supporting marketing and business leadership.

Delia is passionate about caring for our global environment and this inspires her work at Cool Earth.

Lionel is from the indigenous community of Churingaveni in the District of Perené, Province of Chanchamayo in Peru, and speaks both Asháninka and Spanish fluently. As a Local Officer for our Asháninka programme, his lived experience enables him to work very closely with communities.

Having worked in both the public and private sector, Lional has a technical degree in Computing and Informatics and has studied accounting and finance.

Lionel’s work centres on the development of sustainable environmental, social – cultural and economic empowerment of indigenous organisations and communities in the central Peruvian Amazon.

Mirian looks after all administration within our Asháninka programme in the Peru team at Cool Earth and has done since 2018.

Experienced in business administration, financial accounting and logistics, she is qualified in SAP HR project management.

With an interest in the environment and in indigenous communities, Mirian is continually learning and developing her role at Cool Earth.

As our Supporter Care Assistant, Kirsty looks after our donors and supporters and is responsible for managing enquiries on a range of topics including fundraising, events and donations.

With a background in administration, Kirsty supports our Business, Trusts and Individual Giving teams with a broad portfolio of projects.

With a BSc (Hons) in Applied Zoology, Kirsty has spent time in the Bornean rainforest at wildlife rehabilitation centres. The impacts of forest loss on people and wildlife there impassioned her to pursue a career in the NGO sector.

Patricia joins Cool Earth as our Cash Transfers Manager in Peru.

As a consultant in the sector, Patricia’s previous work has tackled social and economic inequalities and promoted sustainable development in rural areas with significant indigenous populations, mainly in Peru’s Andean and Amazon regions.

With a BA in Anthropology and MSc in Environmental Sustainability, Patricia has specialist knowledge in sustainable development and local conservation, rural governance, interculturality, gender and intersectionality and decolonisation of knowledge and participatory methodologies.

Patricia’s interests include environmental and climate justice, locally-led environmental conservation projects with gender and intersectional approaches, sustainable development and circular economy, agroecology, biodiversity conservation and indigenous knowledge, and indigenous rights.