Meet The Team
Programmes Team
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Caroline Barber
Chief Executive
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Sam Clark
Head of Programmes
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Edward O’Connor
Programmes Support Manager
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Thelma Ayisi
Project Manager
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Dennis Simuyuni
Project Manager
Caroline Barber
Chief Executive
Caroline is Chief Executive at Transaid. Previously she was Head of Programmes for six years. Caroline has also worked in Zambia as a Project Manager for Transaid’s Professional Driver Training Project and has also undertaken work for Transaid in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Madagascar, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. Caroline joined Transaid from Wincanton, a leading supply chain and logistics company, where she previously held roles in project management and business development.
Sam Clark
Head of Programmes
Sam is a road safety and transport systems specialist with over 25 years’ experience in international development, including more than 15 years supporting governments, private-sector operators and development partners to strengthen road safety systems and access to healthcare across Africa.
He holds an MA in Environment and International Development and has lived and worked in several African countries.
As Transaid’s Head of Programmes, Sam oversees programme development and design, while providing technical expertise across the organisation’s road safety and access to healthcare projects. His particular interests include improving motorcycle helmet safety and strengthening professional driver training and access to essential health services.
His recent work includes supporting the establishment of the Kenya National Helmet Wearing Coalition, developing a roadmap for enforcing Ghana’s motorcycle helmet standard, and working with the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) Women’s Desk to improve women’s safety on public transport.
Sam has also shared his expertise at international forums, including the fourth Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety and an FIA Foundation roundtable exploring challenges in implementing Ethiopia’s national motorcycle helmet standard.
Edward O’Connor
Programmes Support Manager
Edward joined Transaid in July 2009 as a Project Manager and was appointed Programmes Support Manager in October 2017. Edward has 20 years of experience working in both the private and development sectors relating to transport and logistics. Having worked on many Patient Referral Systems, Fleet Management and Medical Supply Chain projects, Edward has worked across a range of sub-Saharan countries such as Ghana, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Thelma Ayisi
Project Manager
Thelma joined Transaid in November 2021. She holds a degree in Civil Engineering and prior to joining Transaid had worked as a Traffic/Transport Engineer, contributing to the development of Road Infrastructure in Ghana. Thelma is based in Accra, Ghana and is the Project Coordinator for our programme to enhance HGV driver training standards in the country. Her favourite things to do are volunteering, gardening and enjoying the beauty of nature.
Dennis Simuyuni
Project Manager
Dennis joined Transaid as a fulltime member of staff in November 2024 after working with Transaid as a consultant. Dennis is from Zambia with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Finance and over 15 years of work experience in business and entrepreneurship and social human development projects. Dennis has worked on developmental projects in Zambia which aimed to increase access to primary health for rural communities, and in Uganda on access to fast, quality COVID-19 screening for truck drivers. Dennis’ project experience spans operations management, financial and management accounting, grant management, training and development, project management, staff recruitment, procurement and inventory management and strategic planning.
Associates
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Hans Mwaipopo
Consultant
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Roger Salmon
Consultant
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Cathy Green
Consultant
Hans Mwaipopo
Consultant
Hans has more than 30 years experience as an automobile and road safety specialist. He has an MSc in Automotive Engineering and Road Safety, as well as qualifications in auto-electric and electronics, accident investigation, road and traffic management and vehicle inspection. Hans has lectured at and been the Head of the Automobile Engineering Department at the National Institute of Transport, Tanzania. He has developed and contributed to training manuals and competency-based curriculum for tricycle and motorcycle riders and large commercial vehicles, as well as training both trainers and Master trainers (trainers of trainers) whilst working in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
Roger Salmon
Consultant
Roger is an ex UK Police Traffic Division driving and riding instructor, with a host of qualifications and courses on driving, motorcycles, instruction, training and examination from the UK Home Office, Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the UK Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. Roger has trained riders and trainers in Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia, on projects from post Ebola health service programmes and education to working with national institutes.
Cathy Green
Consultant
Cathy Green is a community health systems, rural access, and gender and social inclusion specialist. She has worked with Transaid since 2003 on maternal, new born and child health and human trafficking projects in Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda. Cathy’s main interest is finding ways to ensure that vulnerable populations living in remote areas can access essential health services and that no-one is left behind. Cathy has specialist expertise in project and programme design, monitoring and evaluation and research design and implementation.
Finance Team
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Mwiza Mkandawire
Head of Finance
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Kafayat Ayinde
Finance and Administration Officer
Mwiza Mkandawire
Head of Finance
Mwiza joined Transaid in December 2019. Prior to that she worked as the Head of Finance at Artsadmin Ltd, an Arts Charity based in London. Mwiza is a qualified chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience. Mwiza began her finance career in Malawi where she worked for various organisations in both the commercial and public sectors. Mwiza has excellent knowledge and understanding of charity finance.
Kafayat Ayinde
Finance and Administration Officer
Kafayat joined Transaid in February 2021. She qualified as a chartered accountant with over 3 years’ experience in accounting and finance. Kafayat began her finance career in Nigeria where she worked in a start-up digital marketing agency. Prior to joining Transaid, she worked as a Finance and Business Officer in Southwark Pensioner’s Centre, a local charity based in London. She loves volunteering as she has always volunteered as a treasurer and has been part of the fundraising team in the university and in few community associations/charity organisations both in Nigeria and UK.
Fundraising Team
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Maddy Matheson
Head of Fundraising
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Anna Giavedoni
Events Manager
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Kohei Ohno
Corporate Partnerships Officer
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Georgia Ryan
Communications and Fundraising Officer
Maddy Matheson
Head of Fundraising
Maddy is Head of Fundraising at Transaid, having joined the organisation in November 2021. She was appointed to the role in April 2024, where she leads Transaid’s fundraising strategy and works closely with partners across the transport and logistics sector to grow support for the charity’s work. Prior to Transaid Maddy worked for a public relations agency specialising in freight and logistics. Outside of work, Maddy enjoys travelling whenever she can and is a keen sportswoman, often found running long distances in the countryside.
Anna Giavedoni
Events Manager
Anna joined Transaid in March 2022. After graduating in Italy she moved to Southeast Asia where she lived and worked for the next seven years. She has international volunteering experience and more than six years of experience in the hospitality industry, with a focus on events and people management. International development and human rights have always been her passion and her ambition is to create positive change in the world. Anna loves travelling, immersing herself in different cultures, eating (everything and anything!) and practising Muay Thai.
Kohei Ohno
Corporate Partnerships Officer
Kohei joined Transaid as the Corporate Partnerships Officer in September 2024. After moving from Japan to the UK in 2004, he worked in a PR agency as the Senior Project Manager, in charge of organising B2B and B2C events, sponsor/exhibitor sales and management, and also as the Tokyo Tourism Representative in the UK. He then worked in Formula 1 (Honda F1 and Red Bull Racing/Powertrains) as the Marketing Manager, building strong relationships with their corporate partners. He has a master’s degree in sustainable development from the University of Sussex, and is passionate about making a better world through international development, sustainability, and climate actions.
Georgia Ryan
Communications and Fundraising Officer
Georgia supports Transaid’s fundraising activities and leads on the organisation’s communications alongside the Head of Fundraising, including social media, digital content and design. She particularly enjoys the creative side of her role, overseeing Transaid’s visual communications and producing materials that bring its work and impact to life.
Georgia graduated in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, with knowledge of Spanish and Arabic, and spent her year abroad in Egypt. From 2024-2025, she supported a research project, funded by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF), exploring young men’s experiences of mobility in Mossel Bay, South Africa, and Worthing, UK.
She has visited Transaid’s programmes in Zambia and South Africa, working with local partners and learning firsthand about their impact. Highlights include meeting Ministry of Health workers and community members supporting the MAMaZ projects in Serenje and Chitambo districts, visiting the Industrial Training Centre in Zambia, and learning about the South African minibus taxi industry from the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) Women’s Desk in the Western Cape.
Trustees
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Joan Aitken OBE FCILT
Chairperson
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Bill Howie
Trustee
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James Keeler
Trustee
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Phideliah Mwaba
Trustee
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Dr. Olive Kobusingye
Trustee
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Gavin Williams
Trustee
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Julia Bunting
Trustee
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Paul Milner
Trustee
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Phillip Kamutenga
Trustee
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Astrid van der Burgt
Trustee
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Phil Roe
Trustee
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Sharn Samra
Trustee
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Christine Mellor
Company Secretary
Joan Aitken OBE FCILT
Chairperson
Joan was Scotland’s Traffic Commissioner between 2003 and 2019, working to raise the safety standards of those operating goods vehicles and buses and coaches in Scotland. Her background is in law – she qualified as a solicitor in 1979 and has had a varied career including local government, private practice, legal journalism, mediation and as Scottish Prisons Complaints Commissioner (“the prisoners’ ombudsman”). Joan joined the Transaid board in March 2019.
Bill Howie
Trustee
Bill has over thirty years experience in Logistics and Supply Chain management. After several years operational experience Bill moved into consultancy with Coopers and Lybrand and from there joined Grand Met, ending his time there as VP Worldwide Purchasing and Supply for Burger King. Next, as Group Logistics Director of The Burton Group, he was responsible for the de- merger of the Logistics function and creation of Spectrum. Bill later moved on to become a founding director of Reality Group, the direct to home delivery business within GUS plc, best known for the White Arrow brand and the largest business of its kind in the UK.
Before starting his own business in 2004 Bill was Managing Director Fashion and Lifestyle for Tibbett & Britten Group plc, responsible for all contracts in that sector in the UK and the development of Fashion Logistics worldwide. Bill is currently CEO and joint owner, with Graham Williams, of Variation Holdings Limited and they have recently set up Acqsys Supply Chain Solutions Limited, an asset recovery, management and financing company which identifies and repossesses lost and stolen transit equipment for manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
James Keeler
Trustee
James is Managing Director of Garnett Keeler PR, a business-to-business PR agency specialising in the agriculture, automotive, aviation, pharmaceutical and transport/logistics sectors, with clients throughout the UK, Europe and North America. The company has provided pro-bono PR support to Transaid since 2001, and James has been on the board of trustees since 2015. A former transport industry journalist, he joined Garnett Keeler PR in 1999 and is the third generation within his family business.
Phideliah Mwaba
Trustee
Phideliah S Mwaba, Past President of the CILT Zambia, is a self-motivated female executive who possesses a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Maastricht School of Management MsM, Netherlands, through the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute (ESAMI) in 2008; a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Zambia in1986; a Diploma in Strategic Business Management from SIPU of Sweden 2015; a Diploma in Insurance Studies 1990, and a Post-grad Dip in International Transport and Logistics from the Norwegian Shipping Academy through the Arab Academy for Maritime Studies in Alexandria, Egypt 2002. She is a Chartered Fellow of Institute of Logistics and Transport International- FCILT, a Certified Trainer and Fellow of the Institute of Directors Zambia- IoDZ. She is passionate about matters of development and Road safety.
Phideliah is the CEO at Hokma Risk Management Solutions Limited, where she coordinates Insurance Broking and Knowledge Transfer Seminars in portfolios of Risk Management, Vehicle Fleet Management and Corporate governance. She worked in Non-Life Insurance for over 28 years, where she got exposed to various business dynamics which motivated her to set up her own consultancy in 2014. Phideliah has held various leadership positions in many entities: at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Zambia, [the first female President, 2014-16] and founder of the Women in Logistics and Transport Zambia, 2013. She also has vast experience on various Boards as a Director Road Transport and Safety Agency 2010-12 and Vice Chairperson of the Road Development Agency, 2013-16, ACSZ Board Member. She is a Past Chairperson of the COMESA Yellow Card Scheme Council of Bureaux as well as Past President of the Rotary Club of Lusaka Central.
Dr. Olive Kobusingye
Trustee
Education qualifications: M.B.Ch.B., MSc. M.Med (Surg), MPH
Fellow, COSECSA (College of Surgeons of East, Central, & Southern Africa).
Current Employer – Makerere University School of Public Health, Uganda – Senior Research Fellow.
Olive has been working for 10 years at Makerere University School of Public Health in the Head, Trauma, Injury and Disability Unit. She has worked on various projects including investigating risk and protective factors for motorcycle injuries in Kampala, improving the evidence for pedestrian safety in Uganda, a national survey of Emergency Medical Services in Uganda, and setting up an electronic database for traumatic brain injuries in Mulago Hospital. Olives’ experience includes team leadership, injury surveillance systems in low income countries, injury epidemiology, acute trauma care and road safety in Africa.
Between 2010 and 2016 Olive was Board Chair and Head of Secretariat at the Road Traffic Injury Network. This involved leading a global road safety research agency to reduce the burden of road traffic injuries.
Olive also worked for the WHO between 2003 and 2008 as African Regional Advisor for violence and injury prevention. Between 1999 and 2003 Olive worked as an A&E surgeon and deputy head of the A&E at Makerene University/Mulago Hospital. Whilst she was here Olive set up the first trauma registry in sub-Saharan Africa.
Olive has been engaged with Transaid for approximately five years. Makerere University received a small grant from Transaid’s innovation fund and delivered excellent work on post-crash response.
Olive brings considerable expertise in road safety and access to health care research and programming in SSA. She is highly respected in her field and extremely well networked.
Gavin Williams
Trustee
Gavin Williams leads the supply chain business of GXO in the United Kingdom and Ireland as part of the company’s global logistics network. He previously managed the business unit responsible for providing consumer services to large retailers in the UK and Ireland, with a focus on e-commerce fulfilment, reverse solutions and integrated transportation. Gavin joined XPO in 2014 following 20 years at Wincanton plc, where his management roles advanced to the position of business unit director. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Middlesex University.
Gavin first encountered Transaid in 2008, taking part in Cycle Zambia as part of a Wincanton team. In his current role of Managing Director at GXO, he has been instrumental in maintaining the excellent relationship between the two organisations, including ensuring the continuation of an annual GXO graduate secondment to Transaid’s programmes.
Julia Bunting
Trustee
Having qualified as a CIMA accountant working in the private sector, Julia started her career in charities in 2002, as part of a humanitarian response mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then she has remained in the sector, mostly in development, as a finance professional supporting both finance operations overseas and fundraising teams within the UK. Having left WaterAid once in 2006, Julia returned in 2015 as the Head of UK Finance and has been Finance Director since January 2021.
Paul Milner
Trustee
Paul’s background in food manufacturing has taken him around the world, and involved establishing and managing global supply chains within the fresh produce sector; through which he experienced first-hand the challenges involved in both transport safety and access to healthcare services in sub-Saharan Africa.
Through his consultancy business, Paul has provided strategic board-level leadership to many major projects including new ventures/start-ups, major capital investments, business transformations and performance turnarounds/restructures.
Paul is now focused on Board Advisory and Non-Exec Director roles and joined Transaid as a Trustee in 2023.
A keen cyclist, Paul is already signed up for the London – Paris fundraiser ride.
Phillip Kamutenga
Trustee
Phillip Kamutenga is a logistician, global health leader and certified executive coach. He is holder of a Logistics & Transport Economics degree and Masters in Logistics from Molde University College, Norway. He has worked in transportation (3PL and 4PL) and global public health spaces for about 20 years.
He has advised national governments, global donor agencies and international development companies on how to build robust public health supply chains that deliver results and impact at scale. This included managing large and diverse projects in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
He has worked at director level at John Snow, Inc., Chemonics International, and Management Sciences for Health for over 10 years.
He sat on the board of SOS Children’s Villages Zimbabwe for close to four years.
Phillip currently works for John Snow, Inc., and has been a Transaid trustee since April 2023.
Astrid van der Burgt
Trustee
Astrid van der Burgt, Head of Road Safety for Holcim, is responsible for the strategic direction of the Group Road Safety Program.
Astrid has nearly three decades of experience in the logistics sector. She started her career as a freight forwarder, tanker driver, transport manager and dangerous goods safety advisor and was both employed and self employed. After working for the UK’s Freight Transport Association, she won the ‘Brake, the Road Safety Charity’ award whilst at Kuehne + Nagel in the UK in 2015. Following a role as Global Dangerous Goods Manager for Kuehne + Nagel in Switzerland, she joined Holcim in 2019 as HSE Country Controller, supporting Sub-Saharan Countries. She became Group Head of Road Safety in early 2021.
Astrid holds a degree in European Studies from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Phil Roe
Trustee
Phil joined Logistics UK as President in April 2022 after 5 years as a non-executive Director. Prior to joining he was a board Director at DHL Supply Chain which was the culmination of his 35 year career with DHL and XPO. He is also a non-executive Director and trustee at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
Phil has substantial experience of supply chain leadership across multiple customers, sectors and geographies, with 35 years’ experience in a variety of senior leadership roles within operations and functional areas. These include Managing Director, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Customer Officer and Strategy Director.
Phil loves leading within the logistics industry and values the variety and challenge that the sector provides. He also loves helping people develop their careers as a coach and mentor. Finally, he is leading the Generation Logistics programme which is a sector wide collaboration with twenty companies, fourteen trade associations and the Department of Transport which seeks to showcase the huge variety of careers that are available and bring the next generation to the logistics sector.
Sharn Samra
Trustee
Sharn has more than two decades of global business experience across marketing, business development and digital innovation, having worked for Yale, Michelin, Shell and now BP. During this time, she has established entirely new marketing functions, developed global brand strategies, launched new digital services, driven business growth strategies, and closed large customer acquisitions working with global boards.
She also has extensive experience in the road transport industry and fleet business having led global teams to build brands in the truck and bus sector, led global marketing communications campaigns, developing decarbonization strategies and delivering new innovative digital fleet services and products to help the sector decarbonize. She has been part of various leadership teams during her career. She has also been Shareholder representative on the board of a German digital startup. She holds her Certificate in company direction from the Institute of Directors. Having earned her MBA from Aston University in 2009, she now acts as a mentor for current MBA students.
Sharn has been a Transaid Trustee since June 2023.
Christine Mellor
Company Secretary
Christine is Governance Officer at WaterAid, an international non-governmental organisation focused on water, sanitation and hygiene. She has over 20 years’ experience in the charity sector, starting her career in museum’s before moving into international development in 2011. Prior to working in governance, Christine worked in the Strategic Partnerships Team at WaterAid, leading on varied and complex partnerships.
Programme Partners
Corporate Partners
