Brad Tirpak
Board Chair
Boards
HALO's board members provide their invaluable insight and expertise to keep us progressing our mission to protect lives and restore the livelihoods of those affected by conflict.
The HALO Trust is managed from our headquarters in the UK. The HALO Trust USA, Inc. is a separate legal entity directly managed by HALO USA's board and executive director.
Both HALO offices have respective boards that work together to support our staff, our donors, and the vulnerable communities we serve.
We are enormously grateful to our trustees and board members, who give their time so generously. They are a highly experienced group of professionals who share our commitment to protecting lives.
USA Board of Directors
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Jamie M Morin
Vice-Chair
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Susan Lylis
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Greta Lundeburg
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Andrew Lyons
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Rexon Ryu
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John Jameson
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Basak Yavuz
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Zaid Zaid
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Jessica Lewis
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Spencer Boyer
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Amb. Nina Maria Fite
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Greg Swenson
Brad Tirpak
Board Chair
Brad Tirpak is a managing director of Palm Active Partners, in charge of managing various investment partnerships. He has been a professional investor since 1996, with roles at Credit Suisse First Boston, Caxton Corporation and Sigma Capital Management.
Prior to his investing career, he founded a telecommunications company based in Mexico City. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Full House Resorts and sits on the board of Liberated Syndication Inc.
Brad has supported HALO's mission since he first encountered the organization while travelling through Cambodia in 2001.
Jamie M Morin
Vice-Chair
Jamie M Morin serves as Vice President of Defense Systems Operations at The Aerospace Corporation. He previously served as Assistant Secretary and Chief Management Officer of the US Air Force. Prior to his appointment to the Department of Defense, he served as a senior staff member on the Senate Budget Committee.
Susan Lylis
Susan Lylis is co-founder and EVP of the International Conservation Caucus Group (ICCF), which fosters political will for conservation governance across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Previously Susan was Executive Director of the ICCF Conservation Council, comprising over 40 NGO, corporate and multilateral organisations providing expertise to ICCF Group-supported caucuses around the globe. She also serves on the steering group of the Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime.
Greta Lundeburg
Greta is the Vice President and Head of Government and Policy Advocacy for the Americas at Ericsson. Previously, she served as Vice President of International Operations and Policy at The Boeing Company. Prior to joining Boeing, she served under two National Security Advisors as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Legislative Affairs on the White House National Security Council. Prior to her role at the White House, Greta held various positions at the US Department of State, the US Trade Representative's Office, and in the US Senate.
Andrew Lyons
Andrew worked for HALO from 2003 to 2012. He was Programme Finance Officer in Angola, Senior Operations Officer in Afghanistan, and Vice President of HALO USA, and he performed the initial fieldwork to establish HALO's programme in Colombia. Andrew now lives in Washington, DC and works at the Department of Justice as a finance director. He has a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MS in finance from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School.
Rexon Ryu
Rexon has nearly two decades of experience working in global diplomacy and national policymaking. He has worked at the highest levels of the US Government, including as chief of staff to secretary of defense Chuck Hagel, the deputy to US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, a director on the president's National Security Council staff, and extensive experience at the US State Department. Rexon is a currently partner at The Asia Group, a strategy and capital advisory group that works companies in markets across the trans-Pacific region, as well as a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
John Jameson
John Jameson founded Winning Connections in 1996, now the nation's leading telephone voter and constituent contact firm. Before founding Winning Connections, John managed US Senate campaigns, served as a congressional chief of staff, and sold waterless cookware in 44 states. He has held leadership roles with HALO, International Bridges to Justice, EcoPeace, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, and Christ Episcopal Church, and currently serves on the Harvard Business School Alumni Board.
John's commentary has appeared in The New Republic, The Hill, The Washington Monthly, and more. In 2025, HBS Alumni Magazine profiled his volunteer work in Ukraine and Winning Connections' role in securing the $60 billion Ukraine aid bill. A native of Eupora, Mississippi, he lives on Capitol Hill and holds degrees from Millsaps College (BA), Duke Law School (JD), and Harvard Business School (MBA).
Basak Yavuz
Basak is a partner in Fundamental Equity within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, serving as co-head of Emerging Markets Equities. She is also a portfolio manager for the Emerging Markets Equity Fund. Prior to assuming her current role, she was head of Latin America and EMEA Equities based in London. Basak joined Goldman Sachs as an executive director in 2011. She was named managing director in 2017 and partner in 2022. Before joining the firm, Basak worked at HSBC Asset Management in London as a portfolio manager for frontier markets, covering Asia and Eastern Europe. Earlier in her career, she was an emerging market equities research analyst at Alliance Bernstein for eight years working in various capacities.
Zaid Zaid
Zaid A Zaid is the Head of US Public Policy at Cloudflare, and was previously the head of North America for strategic response policy at Meta. Zaid has broad and diverse government service experience. Most recently, he served on the Biden/Harris transition team for the State Department and international development agencies. In the Barack Obama administration, he served as special assistant to President Obama and associate White House counsel. He also served as the senior attorney advisor to the general counsel at USAID. As a career foreign service officer, Zaid served in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, and at the US Mission to the United Nations. In addition to his legal experience in the government, Zaid worked in private practice at Wilmer Hale after three federal clerkships.
Jessica Lewis
Jessica is a leader in foreign policy and defense. Her senior-level experience in the State Department and nearly 20 years in the Senate and House built her extensive knowledge of the policy, political and legislative levers that determine national security policy, as well as government interactions with the defense industrial base. She employs wide-ranging strategies to help clients understand complicated foreign relations in recent conflict areas such as Ukraine and Israel, as well as US policy in the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan. With her extensive experience connecting executive agencies and the private sector, Jessica is uniquely equipped to navigate the complexities of today's national security challenges and to build partnerships.
As the Senate-confirmed assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, Jessica led the US State Department political-military response to unprecedented international crises and oversaw foreign military and commercial sales of defense articles. She also was the staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Foreign Policy and National Security Advisor to the late Senate Majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), advising senators on Russia and Iran, sanctions issues, COVID-19, response, as well as oversaw the national defense and intelligence authorisations bills on the Senate Floor. She was also a senior staffer on the House International Relations Committee.
Spencer Boyer
Spencer P Boyer is a Partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, a founding member of DGA Group, and is based in Washington, DC. He leads the firm's National Security, Defense and Aerospace practice, informed by more than 25 years' experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors in the United States and Europe.
Prior to joining DGA-ASG, Spencer served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy, where he was responsible for managing the day-to-day defence relationship between the United States and NATO, the EU and more than 40 European countries. He also served in both terms of the Obama administration. He was the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Europe in the National Intelligence Council, the centre for long-range strategic thinking within the US Intelligence Community. As NIO, he served as the senior analyst and subject matter expert on Europe for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and as the primary bridge between the intelligence and policy communities on European affairs. Before this, he served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
Amb. Nina Maria Fite
As a career diplomat with the US Department of State, Nina Maria Fite served as US Ambassador to Angola, Consul General in Montreal, Canada, and Consul General in Lahore, Pakistan. With a focus on post-war economic development, environmental issues and trade negotiations, Nina developed stronger economic conditions for US companies abroad. As the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Talent Management, she guided all facets of workforce policy in 279 locations worldwide and domestically. Prior to joining the State Department, Nina lived and worked in Brazil and advised small businesses in her native Pennsylvania on international business opportunities. She speaks Portuguese, French, Spanish and Hungarian.
Greg Swenson
Greg is Chairman of Republicans Overseas UK and Co-Founder of The Hamilton Society, an organisation that provides Anglo-Americans with a platform for free speech, discourse and debate. He regularly appears on BBC, Sky, Fox, CNBC, GB News, Talk TV, TRT and Al Jazeera, where he discusses economics and geopolitics.
Greg is a Founding Partner of Brigg Macadam Ltd, an emerging market investment banking firm in London. He has over 20 years' experience in international banking and alternative investments.
Greg graduated from Boston College and has an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
UK Board of Trustees
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Lord Evans of Weardale
Board Chair
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Patrick Beeley
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John Deans
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Lucía V Halpern
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John Raine
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Emma Sky
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Barney White-Spunner
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Pippa Wicks
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Faeth Birch
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Farzana Baduel
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Lord Michael Hintze
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Stephen Teal
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Brad Tirpak
Lord Evans of Weardale
Board Chair
Jonathan Evans brings a wealth of experience from the public and private sectors. Following a career in the UK Security Service, including six years as Director General of M15 from 2007 to 2013, he was a non-executive director of HSBC Holdings from 2013 to 2019. He chaired the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) from 2018 to 2023 and is now Chair of the Public Interest Committee at KPMG UK and a Non-Executive Director or adviser to several high-growth tech companies.
Jonathan sits on the House of Lords as a cross-bencher. He is Chair of Kent Search and Rescue, a member of the Council of Reference of the Westminster Abbey Institute, and a Visiting Professor at King's College London.
Patrick Beeley
Patrick Beeley was an Army Officer and then worked in emerging markets at J P Morgan and Morgan Stanley for 18 years. He left in 2004 to set up his own emerging market fixed-income consultancy. In 2009 to 2010 he worked part-time as a volunteer for HALO, training in Cambodia and Angola and then working in Afghanistan. He has a good working knowledge of mine clearance.
Paddy has a degree in Classics from Trinity College, Cambridge and lives on a remote hill farm on Exmoor.
John Deans
John is UK Chairman of Rothschild & Co, where he has been a corporate financier for over 35 years. He has been a Governor of Bow Boys School in Tower Hamlets and was the Founding Chairman of the Rothschild & Co Bursary, which provides financial support to academically gifted students from challenging backgrounds to enable them to attend university outside London. John has a BA (Hons) in Business Law from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
Lucía V Halpern
Lucía is a consultant to business and charity executives. She was Chair of the Friends of The Courtauld Institute for 15 years and served as a member of The Courtauld's investment committee. She is a Trustee of the literacy charity Worldreader, Governor of a central London primary school, and was previously a member of the International Advisory Board of the University of North Carolina. Earlier in her career, as an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs, she advised telecom, media and utility companies in Europe and Latin America. Lucía was a Morehead Scholar at UNC and has an MBA from Harvard University.
John Raine
John served 33 years with the Foreign Office, where his overseas postings included Syria, Baghdad and Islamabad. He worked extensively with UK Armed Forces on deployed operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was a senior member of the national security community in the UK, contributing to the design and implementation of UK defence and security strategy.
John retired from Government service in 2017 and set up international risk advisory company Palmer & Paling Ltd, which advises clients including the International Institute for Strategic Studies and HSBC on geopolitical due diligence. He has a number of charitable interests, from supporting former service personnel to education. His interests include the Scottish Highlands, classical literature and the outdoor life.
Emma Sky
Emma Sky is the founding Director of Yale's International Leadership Centre. She is an acclaimed author, consultant, and member of the Wilton Park Advisory Council. Emma has served as political advisor in key roles including to the Commanding General of US Forces in Iraq, to the Commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and to the US Security Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. Prior to that, Emma worked in the Palestinian territories for a decade, managing projects to develop Palestinian institutions and promoting co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Barney White-Spunner
Barney is a former British soldier whose career culminated in 2012 as Commander of the Field Army. He has widespread experience of both military and humanitarian operations in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia, including running the British contribution to the Tsunami Relief effort in 2004. Since leaving the Army he has been Executive Chairman of the Countryside Alliance and chaired CAFOD's Development Board. He is now a director of Burstock, the international consultancy he established in 2015, and Chairman of UK Fisheries Advisory Board. He also writes history, his most recent book (Berlin: The Story of a City) being published in 2020. Knighted in 2010, he also holds awards from France, the United States and Hungary.
Pippa Wicks
Pippa has spent 40 years focusing on large-scale transformations and turnarounds across a wide range of industries, with a particular focus on retail and consumer-goods businesses. She was a founding Partner of AlixPartners in Europe in 2003 and remains a Senior Adviser. Pippa has led significant transformations including Courtaulds Textiles plc as Chief Financial Officer, MFI plc as Chief Restructuring Officer, Co-op Group as Deputy CEO, and most recently Executive Director of John Lewis, part of the John Lewis Partnership. Pippa is also currently a non-executive Director of the Metropolitan Police. Previous roles include Arcadia plc, Hilton International, Ladbrokes plc, Hays plc and the Foreign Office. Pippa has a Zoology MA from Oxford University.
Faeth Birch
Since 2022, Faeth Birch has been the UKMEA CEO of FGS Global – a leading stakeholder strategy firm – and a member of the Global Board and Executive Committee. Based in London, Faeth advises business leaders on integrated communication strategies encompassing political and regulatory audiences, investor relations, employee engagement, and campaigns and reputation management.
Farzana Baduel
Farzana Baduel is President-elect of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and CEO of Curzon PR, a London-based strategic communications firm working with governments, corporations, and development organisations. She is the Resident PR Expert at the University of Oxford's Said Business School, advising executives on global communications and reputation management. A Chartered PR Practitioner and Honorary Fellow of the CIPR, Farzana also serves as a trustee of the Soho Theatre.
She believes in the power of storytelling as a force for good and a bridge for connection across cultures, sectors, and communities.
Lord Michael Hintze
Lord Hintze Kt, AM, GCSG is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Deltroit Asset Management, which he set up in 2024. He has had a distinguished career as a financier and businessman.
He was formerly the founder, Executive Chairman and Senior Investment Officer at CQS, which he established in 1999 and sold in 2024. Prior to establishing CQS, Lord Hintze held positions as the European head of derivatives at CSFB, the head of convertible bonds and equities at Goldman Sachs UK, and on the credit side of Salomon Brothers in New York.
Before entering the world of finance, he served as an officer in the Australian Army with the Royal Corps of Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
Lord Hintze holds a BSc in Physics and Pure Mathematics and a BEng in Electrical Engineering from the University of Sydney, and an MSc in Acoustics from the University of New South Wales. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School, received a DBA (honoris) from the University of New South Wales and a DEng (honoris causa) from the University of Sydney.
In 2005, Lord Hintze was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI and was subsequently elevated to the rank of Knight Grand Cross. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2008 and was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II for his philanthropic services to the arts. In 2022 he was granted a life peerage by King Charles III and sits in the House of Lords as Baron Hintze.
Stephen Teal
After a degree in history Stephen has accumulated over 30 years of fundraising experience, largely in the higher education sector but also within the broader non-profit sector.
He was a Fellow and Development Director at St John’s College, University of Cambridge for 19 years, where he successfully completed capital campaigns for £50m and £100m. He stepped down from this role in January 2026 and is now focusing on advising both philanthropists and charities.
Brad Tirpak
Brad is a managing director of Palm Active Partners, in charge of managing various investment partnerships. He has been a professional investor since 1996, with roles at Credit Suisse First Boston, Caxton Corporation and Sigma Capital Management.
Prior to his investing career, he founded a telecommunications company based in Mexico City. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Full House Resorts and sits on the board of Liberated Syndication Inc.
Brad has supported HALO's mission since he first encountered the organisation while travelling through Cambodia in 2001.
Trustee committees
Board of Directors
Lord Evans of Weardale – Chair
Audit Committee
John Deans – Chair
Lord Evans of Weardale – Ex Officio
Patrick Beeley
Lucía Halpern
Barney White-Spunner
Pippa Wicks
Nominations Committee
Pippa Wicks – Chair
Lord Evans of Weardale
Emma Sky
John Raine
John Deans
Risk Committee
John Raine – Chair
Lord Evans of Weardale
Paddy Beeley
Jane Davis
Lucía Halpern
Emma Sky
Farzana Baduel
Faeth Birch
Remuneration Committee
Pippa Wicks – Chair
Lord Evans of Weardale
Lucía Halpern
Emma Sky
Medical Board
Lord Evans of Weardale
Europe Supervisory Board
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Tim Church
Board Chair
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Patrick Beeley
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James Cowan
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Tim Church
Board Chair
Tim retired in December 2016 as president of MIO Partners Inc., which manages investment programmes for McKinsey's current and former partners, as well as the firm's retirement plans. Tim joined McKinsey in 1991, to start and head up the European investment activity for the firm, taking over the running of the global activity in 1997. Prior to that, he was a director of Advent Ltd, a UK based venture capital firm. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse in London and has an honours degree in Engineering Science from the University of Durham.
Patrick Beeley
Patrick Beeley was an Army Officer and then worked in emerging markets at J P Morgan and Morgan Stanley for 18 years. He left in 2004 to set up his own emerging market fixed-income consultancy. In 2009 to 2010 he worked part-time as a volunteer for HALO, training in Cambodia and Angola and then working in Afghanistan. He has a good working knowledge of mine clearance.
Paddy has a degree in Classics from Trinity College, Cambridge and lives on a remote hill farm on Exmoor.
James Cowan
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
James Cowan was a soldier.
He joined The Black Watch from Oxford in 1986, serving in Berlin, Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Hong Kong. He helped plan the Kosovo operation in 1999, and he commanded in Iraq in 2004 and 2006. He planned the military Olympic security operation of 2012.
In 2015 he become HALO's CEO.
Europe Management Board
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Simon Tiller
Head of Europe Office (Chairperson)
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Mick Darby
Chief Finance Officer
Simon Tiller
Head of Europe Office (Chairperson)
Simon has been working for HALO since 2022 as the Head of Europe and the Director of the HALO Trust Europe Foundation, following eight years working in OSCE field missions in Ukraine as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Previously, he worked as a regional director in a peacebuilding NGO and as a UK diplomat. A specialist in security issues and conflict resolution, he was nominated by the UK Government as an independent human rights expert, and is on the roster of OSCE mediation experts.
Mick Darby
Chief Finance Officer
Mick joined HALO as Director of Finance in April 2017, and became Chief Finance Officer in 2025.
He brings a wealth of public, private and not-for-profit experience to HALO, including finance, project management and logistics.
Mick is a keen weekend golfer and enjoys spending time with his family.
HALO Europe remuneration
HALO Europe is governed by a Supervisory Board, with a Management Board overseeing the daily management of the organisation. Supervisory Board positions are not remunerated other than for the reimbursement of reasonable travel and subsistence expenses. Management Board and staff positions are remunerated and are compensated in accordance with the Dutch Labour Law and HALO's internal personnel policies and procedures.
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