Jen Van der Merwe joining AchieveGood as Executive Director

We’re delighted to announce that Jen Van der Merwe is joining AchieveGood as our Executive Director, starting on 4 January.

For the past five years Jen has led Kindred in Liverpool City Region. She helped build it from a start-up into a £10.5m fund investing in 100 socially trading organisations, and helped lay the groundwork for the region’s £50m Social Investment Pathfinder. More recently she has also worked as a Senior Advisor at the Office for the Impact Economy.

AchieveGood works with government, funders, investors and businesses to bring more non-governmental capital and capacity behind what places and the country need. Much of that means helping places build the partnerships, place-based investment vehicles and long-term infrastructure needed to make investment work, and helping government work in partnership with the impact economy. Jen brings deep experience of both.

Jen will lead our client work, working alongside our founder and CEO, Dominic Llewellyn OBE. She will also bring a practitioner’s view to the Impact Economy Collective, which we convene with organisations across philanthropy, impact investment and purpose-driven business.

Dom said: “I’m thrilled Jen is joining us. She has built and led a place-based social investment fund and knows what it takes to make partnerships between places, government and the impact economy work in practice. That experience will make a real difference to the work we do and the communities and people we serve.”

Jen said: “I’m excited to be joining AchieveGood at a pivotal moment for the UK’s impact economy. We have a real opportunity to change how government, philanthropy, investors, businesses and communities work together for places and the country.

“My experience at Kindred and the Office for the Impact Economy has shown me what’s possible when places are empowered to lead. I’m looking forward to working with Dom and the team to turn that potential into lasting change, building the partnerships, investment and infrastructure needed to deliver impact at scale.”