HelpAge International | Our leadership group | Who we are

Our leadership group is made up of our UK-based directors and our six regional representatives.

Richard Blewitt, Chief Executive Officer

Richard became HelpAge International's Chief Executive Officer in November 2006. Previously, he worked for the International Federation of the Red Cross in Geneva, first as Director of Movement Coordination and then as Acting Director of Communications.

Before this, Richard was Director of Strategy, Planning and Coordination for the British Red Cross. Between 1991 and 1996 he worked for Save the Children UK on emergency and food security issues in East Africa, and in their Ethiopia and Sudan programmes. He has also worked for ActionAid as Emergency Operations Manager and been on secondment with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Silvia Stefanoni, Director of Programmes and Policy and Deputy Chief Executive

Silvia joined HelpAge as Director of Programmes in January 2005, after holding a number of senior positions in Save the Children UK, including Regional Director, Asia, and Director of International Operations.

Before joining Save the Children UK in 1993, Silvia spent about eight years in Australia, first as a research consultant with the Ethnic Affairs Commission in Perth, and then as a lecturer in the Department of Italian and Multicultural Studies at the Victoria University of Technology in Melbourne.

Silvia is an anthropologist who has conducted research into cross-cultural communication and migration in Latin America, Australia and Southern Europe.

Alex Bush, Assistant Director of Programmes and Policy

Alex takes responsibility for our six regional offices in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and for cross-organisational monitoring and evaluation. He joined HelpAge in 1998 and was responsible for our Africa programmes for ten years.

Alex previously spent 12 years in a variety of posts at ITDG (now Practical Action), following a stint in the oil and gas industry. He was a VSO teacher in Sierra Leone in the early 1980s.

Mark Gorman, Director of Strategic Development

Mark is responsible for developing strategic approaches in both existing and new areas of HelpAge International's work. He joined HelpAge in 1988 as Development Officer with the task of developing the network. He became Director of Policy and Programmes in 1992 and Director of Policy Development in 1997.

Before joining HelpAge, Mark was Director of the primary healthcare agency, Health Unlimited. He has also worked for ActionAid as Desk Officer for Central Africa, and for VSO, first as Programme Coordinator in Nigeria and then in VSO's training department in the UK. Mark started his career as an education officer for the North-Eastern State Government of Nigeria. Mark received an MBE in the 2008 New Year's honours list.

Alison Gordon, Director of Resource Development

Alison joined HelpAge in 2007 to oversee the implementation of our organisation-wide resource development strategy and our fundraising relationship with our major donor, Age UK.

Previously, Alison was Head of Programme Funding for Practical Action (formerly ITDG). Earlier posts included Programme Funding Adviser for ITDG and Deputy Manager of IT Consultants, an international development consultancy.

Alison works with a team in London and fundraising staff in our country offices to secure funding from donors including multilaterals, bilaterals, trusts and foundations. More recently, the London-based team has led an exciting initiative to establish HelpAge International España, which will raise funds from the Spanish public for our work.

Valerie Stevens, Director of Finance and Corporate Services

Valerie trained as a chartered accountant with Deloitte Haskins & Sells and then worked for 17 years as Finance Director of several international specialist manufacturing companies.

She spent a year working for the Disaster Management Team of Tearfund in Indonesia and Kenya/South Sudan before joining HelpAge International as Director of Finance and Corporate Services in January 2007.

Jane Scobie, Director of Communications and Advocacy

Jane has been instrumental in positioning HelpAge as a global player in development and humanitarian relief and the leading source of information and expertise relating to older people in developing countries since she joined the organisation in 1999. 

Jane has led on communications initiatives including our State of the World's Older People report, Age Demands Action campaign, rebranding of the organisation, developing our online presence and overseeing our range of publications.

Before joining HelpAge, Jane developed and delivered strategic communication and advocacy strategies and training for a number of organisations, including ITDG (now Practical Action), BOND and Stop Disasters Campaign.

James Blackburn, Regional Representative, Latin America

James joined HelpAge International as Latin America Regional Representative in August 2004. He spent the previous five years as a development consultant in Bolivia, working for DFID-Bolivia and DFID-Peru, a range of NGOs, the World Bank, IADB, GTZ, British Council, DANIDA and Spanish Cooperation.

Before that James held research posts at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University and the Dirección de Programas de Investigación y Desarrollo and Colegio de Postgrado, Universidad Nur, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

Nesta Hatendi, Regional Representative, Africa

Nesta joined HelpAge as Africa Regional Representative in October 2008. She has worked extensively in development for a number of organisations including as Country Director of VSO, Education Programme Director with Peace Corps and Country Coordinator with Progressio (formerly the Catholic Institute for International Relations - CIIR).

Her work in Southern Africa, West Africa and Tajikistan focused on education, HIV and AIDS and capacity building of civil society organisations. She started working as an English teacher with the Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe, before pursuing a career in management.

Jeff James, Regional Representative, Caribbean

Jeff joined HelpAge as Regional Representative for the Caribbean in 1997. Before this he worked for seven years as Country Director for Save the Children - Canada (SCC) in Jamaica where he focused on child rights, micro-credit and community development programmes in poor urban and rural communities. He was also actively involved in the Association of Development Agencies (ADA) and the Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child.

Jeff started his career with SCC in his native St Vincent as Child Sponsorship Officer before heading up the SCC programme in St Vincent in 1983.

Eduardo Klien, Regional Representative, East Asia and Pacific

Eduardo joined HelpAge as Asia/Pacific Regional Representative in September 2004. He has worked in Asia for the last 12 years. Previous posts included working for Oxfam GB as Regional Manager for the Horn of Africa and Regional Director for Mexico/Central America.

Eduardo has extensive experience of working in social and economic development with both governments and international organisations. He is an economist by profession and has been a lecturer in Economics in the Universities of Mexico and Nicaragua. He has also been a Visiting Research Fellow in the Queen Elizabeth House of the University of Oxford. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Ageing of the University of Oxford.

Dave Mather, Regional Representative, South Asia

Dave joined HelpAge International in June 2009 to start up a regional development centre for South Asia. He has more than 25 years' international development experience and eight years' experience as a senior manager in the UK.

Before joining HelpAge Dave worked on emergency and recovery programmes in Afghanistan (Afghanaid) and Indonesia and the Turks and Caicos Islands (British Red Cross). He started his working life as a construction engineer, first in the UK and then in Saudi Arabia and Zambia. He moved into development as a VSO volunteer in Sri Lanka, before working in the UK for Intermediate Technology and then as Head of Overseas Operations for WaterAid.

Eppu Mikkonen-Jeanneret, Regional Representative, Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Eppu joined HelpAge International in 2005 as Regional Programme Manager for South-East Europe in Slovenia, where she supported a regional network of NGOs working with and for older people. In 2007 she became Regional Representative for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, based in Kyrgyzstan.

With a background in social anthropology, Eppu developed a deep interest in social protection and family support while working for EveryChild in Kosovo from 1999 to 2002. She then moved to their head office in the UK to manage the Eastern European programme, focusing on government-led reforms on child protection

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