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Meet the Board!

Our board oversees the operations of IO, using their insight, knowledge and expertise to provide strategic guidance.

Read more information below about our board members:

Richard Lloyd

Tech and Systems Lead

Richard graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford where he read Oriental Studies – Chinese with Tibetan as his subsidiary language. Upon graduating, Richard founded Gotoco with two friends. As a social enterprise, Gotoco has arranged for over 1,500 North American and European students to visit China to join their fun, funded and free work-travel and cultural exchange projects. Gotoco offers this free and funded to university students as part of their social mission to make people-to-people cultural exchange more accessible than it has ever been, and help students advance their careers while going on an adventure. 
 
Richard is passionate about ensuring everyone has the resources at their disposal to fulfil their potential and achieve their goals. As a new member of the Insight Outreach board in 2020, he will lead on developing partnerships for the charity, aiming to attract more mentors, support more students, and provide internships and career guidance for mentees once they enter university.

Zainab Zorokong

Strategy Lead

Zainab is currently a chief of staff in central government where she is responsible for corporate governance, business planning and risk management. She has experience in delivering government policy and strategy and has previously done so in education justice and business regulation. She also serves as an employability advisor for a university and is a school governor of St. Joseph’s School in Croydon. She has a passion for helping young people succeed in education and to that end, enjoys coaching and mentoring those at GCSE and A Level and currently does so for the organisation The Girl’s Network.

Zainab has experience in developing and delivering organisation strategy and business plans, regulatory compliance, policy analysis, and leadership and career development.

Hannah Okorafor

Mentee Safeguarding Lead

Hannah graduated from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge where she read History. At university, she was active in both her college’s and university target and access schemes. She believes that the resources provided by Insight Outreach can help students from underrepresented backgrounds, access Oxford and Cambridge. Upon graduating, she was awarded the Tsuzuki Scholarship to study Japanese in Fukuoka, Japan for 10 months. Following this, she spent a further year in Japan to work as an English Tutor/Teacher for Japanese students of all ages in English conversation schools. 
 
Hannah benefited from the precursor programme to the Oxbridge Mentoring Scheme (OMS). She was also a mentor on Insight Outreach’s pilot year and now supports Insight Outreach with its child safeguarding and as the OMS Mentee Lead. She currently works in the banking and finance sector and is pursuing a career as a commercial solicitor.

Vijaya Govindan

Careers Lead

Vijaya Govindan is a member of the Client Relationship team at the leading impact investment manager, WHEB Asset Management. She was previously the founding Executive Director of the AQR Asset Management Institute, a research centre at London Business School. Jaya has a background in sustainability and finance gained at firms including JP Morgan and UBS, where she was a Client Portfolio Manager for global and emerging markets equities and sustainable investments. She represented the firm within the UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative, among other initiatives.
 
Jaya has a BSc from Bristol University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where she was founder of the Net Impact chapter. She holds the IMC and the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing.
 
In addition to her role as a board member for Insight Outreach, Jaya is engaged in a number of voluntary activities including serving as a trustee for the Thelma Matilda Alves Foundation and Contemporary Music for All (CoMA).
 
Her interests include education, inclusion and social mobility.

Alicia McDonnell

Mentee Safeguarding Lead

Alicia McDonnell is a passionate senior inclusion leader at Co-op, who thrives on making change happen. Pushing boundaries inside and outside of the organisation, Alicia embeds and matures innovative programmes, to enhance DEI standards, operations, and behaviours, across the industry. As passionate about people, as she is about performance, Alicia’s purpose is to fuse both social and organisation value, into everything they do.

 Outside of the office Alicia is a board advisor and trustee, fanatic book lover, sun chaser and mother to three wonderfully diverse children.

Alicia is really excited to be part of IO. As the first person in her own family to enter higher education, she understands the importance of enabling equitable pathways which allow for meaningful representation in all aspects of education.