Our Team

Leopold Buhendwa

Country Director, Niger

Leopold has over twenty -five years of management and senior level technical advisement working in the field of humanitarian, international development and public health.

He joined GOAL in 2016, initially as chief of party of a USAID-funded project in Malawi and currently as country director in Niger.

Gabriella Prandini

Country Director, Zimbabwe

Gabriella has worked with GOAL for over seven years and has a strong background in humanitarian response, long term development programming and senior partner engagement.

Gabriella led GOAL Zimbabwe’s Cyclone Idai response, with reached tens of thousands of people in the immediate aftermath of the devastating storm. Prior to leading the GOAL Zimbabwe team, Gabriella managed GOAL Ethiopia’s humanitarian response programs across multiple districts, reaching hundreds of thousands of people each year.

Before joining GOAL, Gabriella worked across a number of different contexts with other organisations, including CAFOD and Concern Worldwide.

Luigi Loddo

Country Director, Honduras

Luigi Loddo is a forestry Engineer with over 20 years of experience working in fragile contexts on business development, climate change adaptation, sustainable natural resources management, humanitarian aid, and disaster risk reduction fields.

With more than 13 years working with GOAL, as Assistant Country Director Programmes and as Area Coordinator for GOALs programmes in Northern Honduras, Luigi has played strategic roles in GOAL´s Green and Blue Economy and disaster preparedness programmes in Central America.

Luigi previously worked with UNDP in Honduras managing a large GEF funded Climate Change Adaptation programme and with Italian NGOs Alesei (as Country Director) and GVC in the LAC region. Experienced in developing solutions for sustainable natural resources management in multicultural and indigenous contexts, Luigi is an advocate for the implementation of inclusive and sustainable blue and green economy.

Alphonsus Martyn

Director of Investigations

Philippa Sackett

Country Director, Malawi

Philippa joined GOAL in July 2016, initially as Assistant Country Director of Programmes in Malawi. She took on her current role as Country Director in 2018.

Philippa holds Post-graduate qualifications in Human Rights (MA) and NGO management (diploma).

She has over twenty years of professional experience in the international humanitarian/development sector, working primarily with international NGOs. She also spent six years with a public health institute and two with a consulting firm.

Philippa’s geographical focus of experience spans Asia and Africa, including such diverse contexts as Afghanistan, Lao PDR and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lorraine Marriott

Regional Director, Middle East

Lorraine Marriott joined GOAL in 2019 and has worked for 15 years in leadership roles in conflict and post-conflict environments in the Middle East Region, developing, leading and managing teams in complex development and emergency response challenges.

She has been responsible for operations management, project management and resource acquisition for US and EU multi-lateral donors in various country offices in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. She is also experienced in programme implementation in Education, Gender, Child Protection and WASH. She has been involved in building not-for-profit start-up enterprises from concept phase to establishment and growth.

Lorraine enjoys building strategic partnerships, supervising and mentoring staff and building organizational capacity in all aspects of multi-sectoral programme development and planning. As well as the Middle East and Eastern Europe she has worked in Africa and Asia. Lorraine holds an MBA in International Management.

Dawit Beyene

Country Director, Sudan

Dawit Beyene has worked with GOAL for over four  years  in Sudan where he has lead the expansion of GOAL’s programme in North Darfur and South Kordofan.

Dawit has over 17 years experience in humanitarian, recovery and development programming in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Yemen.

Jennifer Williams

Country Director, Uganda

Jennifer has worked with GOAL for over 8 years at a senior management level in Zimbabwe, South Sudan and Sudan. She joined the GOAL Uganda country program in 2018.

A qualified charted accountant (ACA), Jennifer has a strong background in operations and financial management, applied in both a humanitarian and development context. Prior to joining GOAL, Jennifer spent over 6 years auditing clients in the banking and financial services industry.

Jeannie Zielinski

Country Director, Syria

Jeannie Zielinski has worked with GOAL since January 2019 and has overall responsibility for the planning, management and development of GOAL’s work in Syria. She leads a team of more than 500, most based in Northwest Syria but with support staff in Turkey and Jordan.

She has extensive experience in the international humanitarian and development sector. A results and value-driven leader, manager, and adviser she has overseen complex multi-million dollar budgets, and has led on designing, building and implementing programmes.

Before joining GOAL Jeannie worked for over 25 years with CARE holding senior positions in Africa and Latin America. In more recent years she worked with CARE in the USA in change management, overseeing key projects during transition and leading on global strategic partner mapping.

David Kilcline

Interim Director of People and Organisational Development

David has 15 years experience across the areas of resourcing & talent, workforce development, and HR operations. He has experience in HR delivery at both field and corporate level. Before joining GOAL David worked with Irish INGO Concern Worldwide and in professional services in the UK and Asia.

David holds a BA (UCD), MA Human Resource Management (National College of Ireland), MPhil Peace Studies (Trinity College, Dublin), and Graduate Diploma IR (London School of Economics and Political Science).

David is committed to placing people development at the heart of GOAL’s work and believes that innovative Humanitarian HR approaches will continue to have a key strategic role in enabling change for the most vulnerable communities.

Ian Dawes

Roving Country Director

Ian Dawes has worked in the humanitarian sector for 25 years across a number of regions including South and South East Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. Before joining GOAL in 2019 he was Country Director for the Danish Refugee Council and prior to that he held several Operations and Programme Manager roles for World Vision in Afghanistan, Laos, and Palestine/Gaza. He was also Country Director for World Vision in Iraq.

As roving Country Director for GOAL he spent most of 2020 in South Sudan and is currently deployed to Iraq. A librarian by training he is interested in cross function/organisational learning, process development and fragile context programming.

Luis Zimmerman

Country Director, Haiti

Luis Sanchez Zimmerman is French-Salvadoran and has 26 year’s experience working in the development and humanitarian sector, mainly in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. He has worked for national and international NGOs, donor agencies, the Red Cross movement and international consulting firms.

His connection with Haiti dates back to 2004, when he was deployed there after Hurricane Jeanne hit the city of Gonaives. The following year he accepted a two-year contract to work in Haiti, and has been working mostly in the country ever since including in the emergency response to the catastrophic earthquake in January 2010 which claimed approximately 250,000 lives. Luis has been living in Haiti since 2016 and started working for GOAL in October 2019.