Our Team

Khatuna Margulia

Ukraine Response Director

Khatuna Murgulia joined GOAL as Ukraine Response Director at end April 2022. Khatuna has 28 years of local and international humanitarian and development experience. She has spent the last eight years managing diverse teams and complex programs in Ukraine. Most recently she served as the Country Director for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Office in Ukraine.

Kathuna’s experience includes creating and supporting alliances between civil society actors, strategic communications, development of monitoring and evaluation plans, public-private dialogue and partnerships, project management, and carrying out trend and development analysis of the security situation in Ukraine. She has her Diploma in Jurisprudence. Khatuna speaks Georgian, English, Russian, and Ukrainian.

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

Chris McElhinney

Regional Director, West and Southern Africa

Chris has worked for GOAL for the last 8 years and worked for over 10 years in various roles implementing both emergency and development multi-sector programmes across Sub-Saharan Africa. This included working in various countries including Tanzania, Mozambique and South Sudan with shorter work in Turkey, Sudan and Kenya. Chris worked and subsequently led GOALs operation in South Sudan from 2013 – 2020.

Chris is interested in working in fragile contexts and conflict affected areas and holds a Masters Degree in International Security and Conflict from DCU and a Bachelors degree in Business and Politics from Trinity College Dublin. Prior to his current work, Chris worked for 5 years in retail management in Ireland.

Jessica Cope

Country Director, Malawi

Joining GOAL as Country Director for Malawi in July 2021, Jessica has extensive experience working in complex and challenging humanitarian environments.

Having spent significant periods in roles across the Middle East, she has held senior roles in Oxfam, Mercy Corp and Medair.

Jessica holds qualifications in Public Health, Community Development and Geo-Political Analysis which help all help to underpin a sophisticated understanding of delivering impactful programmes that support vulnerbale and under-served communities.

Jim Costello

Director of Corporate Services

Jim Costello joined GOAL in May 2022 as Director of Corporate Services. In that role, Jim will be responsible for IT, Facilities, Procurement and Logistics in GOAL.

Jim is an experienced business Leader with over 30 years spent in the IT and IT Services sector Internationally.

A qualified accountant with a Master’s Degree in Executive Leadership from Ulster University, Jim completed the Executive Leadership Program in Stanford University and has a PhD in Data Governance from University College Cork. Jim started his career in Unisys Corporation, an international specialist IT company where he worked in International Logistics for Europe Middle East and Africa and IT Services in France and Globally in partnership with Dell Corporation.

Jim returned to Ireland to become CEO of Southwestern Services (SWS), where he developed the Company from a small Data processing provider to government to an International Data Processing Company. Jim went on to set up his own company, Rosemont Data Business where he has provided Consulting and Advisory services to Compliance and Risks Ltd, a Regulatory Compliance Technology Company, and to the Health Service Executive (HSE) for design of its new ERP systems and Shared Services structures.

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.

Blerina Lako

Country Director, Sudan

Blerina Lako has been working with GOAL since July 2020. She has extensive experience in the international humanitarian and development sector, leading teams through change to improve efficiency and effectiveness in delivering impactful programmes that support vulnerable and under-served communities.

Blerina is a result and value-driven leader and is passionate about mobilizing people and resources to achieve organizational excellence.

Prior to joining GOAL, she worked for 12 years with World Vision, overseeing the programme from planning to accomplishment. As part of her long experience in the development sector, Blerina is skilled in budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring impact and quality of programming. Blerina holds a Master Degree on Management and Business Administration.

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.

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.