#170 'First CEO role', leading for impact, Maria English CEO of Impact Lab

Meet Maria English, the CEO of Impact Lab, a New Zealand-based organisation on a mission to make a positive impact in the lives of New Zealanders through their work with charities doing good work as well as funders. 

Ostensibly their work is focused on making investments work for communities and enabling people to lead the lives they choose. We explore Maria's remarkable career journey, to her first CEO role as boss of Impact Lab, and their unique approach to social value measurement.

 

Maria’s early career focused on academic achievement, earning a politics and philosophy degree at the renowned University of Cambridge and later an MBA at Stanford University. Utilising her studies Maria then joined Boston Consulting and experienced the pressures of being a business consultant and delivering value in the corporate world.

 

Maria’s move to the purpose led work she does now was activated by an experience she had helping ‘first nation’ communities in Australia. A life changing experienced which eventually led her back to New Zealand, her home, and the birthplace of Impact Lab.

 

Impact Lab is a family business of sorts, co-founded by Maria's father, Bill English, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and respected policy maker Emily Mason.

 

In 2019, Maria and her co-founders identified the need to understand, grow, and demonstrate the impact of frontline impact organisations and strategic funders. This realisation led to the development of Impact Lab's unique methodology and tools that connect social value measurement with decision-making. Their goal is to equip decision-makers with actionable information to enhance social impact.

 

Impact Lab employs the Social Return on Investment (SROI) model to measure impact. SROI compares the estimated social value of a program to its cost, quantifying the social impact in dollar terms that a program achieves for its participants over their lifetime.

 

As the CEO of Impact Lab, Maria faces daily challenges and continues to learn and adapt. Leading a small but impactful team and guiding the organisation toward growth has been a transformative experience for her especially considering her age and relative lack of experience.

 

Maria reflects on her passion for the work and points to the power of collaborating with remarkable charities and organisations and finding meaning and purpose in the work they do.

 

We talk about the challenges and benefits of working with her father within the same organisation its unique dynamics and she acknowledges the challenge of separating work from personal life and the importance of finding a balance.

 

Maria looks to the future of Impact Lab, with an aim of deepening its impact and building more connections within the sector to make data-driven decision-making a standard practice. Their goal is to see all investments in the community sector in New Zealand guided by data, leading to greater social impact and positive change.