Founder and Principal

Sara founded SVT Group in 2001 with a vision of a world in which it pays to do good. Since then she has worked with hundreds of clients internationally, taught over 7000 individuals about impact management in person, and exposed at least 35,000 more to the concepts via writings and remote trainings. She is founding board member of Social Value United States and a director and co-chair of the methodology subcommittee of Social Value International; has taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and others; and is the author of several publications on impact management. Sara earned her MBA from UC Berkeley and MSW from the University of Chicago. She lives with her daughter and Aussiedoodle in Silicon Valley.

Principal

David specializes in providing the information non-profits, social enterprises, foundations, and public sector organizations need to assess and increase their social impact. His work builds on twenty five years of experience in the UK, the U.S., the European Union, and Australia. He was an economist for New York City government before joining consulting firms in Washington, DC and then London, prior to heading up New Philanthropy Capital’s measurement and evaluation team. David returned to the U.S. in 2014 where, alongside consulting, he has taught Master’s level courses in non-profit planning and evaluation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Oxford University, a Master’s in Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and an MBA from Yale School of Management. David is also the President of Social Value US. He and his family are based in Milwaukee.

Principal

With more than 25 years of leadership experience in the private, public and social sectors, James Dudfield has developed strong capabilities in strategy, social innovation, impact management, seeding new enterprises, business transformation and change management. He is an accomplished people leader and a highly effective consultant, knowing how to focus on what matters and how to engage others to realize better outcomes. James is focused on impact management and strategy for organizations who recognize the importance of sustainably maximizing value for all stakeholders and challenging the inequitable distribution of opportunity, income and wealth. He’s also a seasoned fisher, and is enjoying finding good spots back with his wife in his home of Sydney, Australia after a 4-year sojourn in the US.

Associate

Aaron specializes in helping non-profits, social enterprises, and community-based organizations prove and improve their impact. He specializes in the development of Impact Measurement and Management Frameworks and Impact Evaluation, with an emphasis on Social Return on Investment Analysis. Aaron has is also a certified Level 1 Social Value Practitioner (Social Value International) and Project Management Professional (Project Management Institute). He has worked across North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Aaron’s background is in Public Health and Health Policy, holding a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Southern California and a Postgraduate Diploma in Global Health Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He lives with his partner just outside of Toronto, Canada.

Impact Analyst

Nouhaila is a researcher, organizer, and systems thinker committed to the advancement of a just green transition. Her professional experience spans the public, private, and NGO sectors both in the US and abroad (Africa, Europe, South America). She has enjoyed working in the fields of academia, international diplomacy, consulting, and more. She is passionate about the ideas and economic paradigms that center and optimize for the wellbeing of people and the environment. Nouhaila has a Master’s in Climate Science & Policy from Columbia University and a BA in Economics, Political Science & History from Connecticut College. She is based in New York City where she enjoys urban gardening and exploring museums and historical landmarks.

Shubha’s professional experience and research focus on strategic planning, management, and evaluation. She possesses an educational background in healthcare management and policy and years of practice and innovation in social impact industries, including healthcare, higher education, and international development. She is one of the first scholars worldwide to specialize in Social Return on Investment (SROI) Analysis, a framework that can be used to measure and improve social impact, and she frequently consults and speaks on this subject.

Yau is co-founder and managing director of SVT’s collaborator Rural Senses, whose mission is to couple social benefits with financial sustainability in low-resource settings. To do this, Rural Senses combines robust academic methods with vast field experience and local knowledge. Yau has over 11 years of experience leading multidisciplinary teams in multinational projects. Previously, he worked as a project manager for MobileODT to improve global health and co-founded SolarChange to promote renewable energies. Yau holds an MPhil in Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge.

A specialist in off-grid energy access, Stephi is co-founder and technical director of Rural Senses. She has also consulted on the implementation of small-scale hydropower projects and the development of upscaling strategies for solar energy; employment generation of water and sanitation infrastructure projects in informal settlements; resilience of infrastructure projects; capacity building of policymakers; energy efficiency and hosting numerous workshops with multiple partners. In addition Stephi is a researcher at the Energy & Power Group at the University of Oxford.

Karina brings expertise in research methods, impact evaluation, strategy development and social movements. Over the past decade, Karina has worked across a number of issue-areas, including evaluation and strategy development for women's rights, youth and education initiatives, and research and advocacy for global movements around land rights, indigenous rights and women’s empowerment, and their intersection in relation to climate change and climate solutions. She is also co-author of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Post-War America, offering perspective on social movements and racial, political and economic inequality in the U.S. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Stanford University and an MA in International Relations from the American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy in Paris.

Josephine applies her engineering skills to better understand what is important to local communities and to help design projects and businesses that are both financially and socially sustainable. As Uganda country manager with Rural Senses and an SVT collaborator, her expertise ranges from project design and management, data analysis and interpretation, and the development and implementation of research tools, to planning, operations, and maintenance of digital networks, and developing digital solutions. Driven, resourceful, positive, and proactive when faced with adversity, she thrives on generating new ideas and solutions for broadly relevant problems.

Brion is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt at Business Performance Improvement. He teaches Lean and Six Sigma classes, facilitates workshops and events, performs statistical analysis, and mentors corporate leaders and employees through improvement efforts. He is the author of “Lean Six Sigma for Good: How improvement experts can help people in need, and help improve the environment.”