Meet the Team

KANDY SISYA

ChEW Co-chair & Trustee

Kandy Sisya is a researcher and evaluator who is passionate about the role of evidence in driving social change. She started her career in consultancy, working alongside civil society organisations to embed learning and support systems change.

Since then, Kandy has worked across a range of social issues, including children and families and health. Most recently, her work has centred on place-based evaluation and prevention, drawing on public health approaches to understand what works in complex, real-world settings.

She is especially passionate about championing equitable and relational practice in evaluation. Kandy is excited to join as Chairperson and contribute to advocating for knowledge sharing and professional development across the sector.

NINA VAFEA

ChEW Trustee

Nina first became involved with ChEW as a Trustee after attending the Festival of Evaluation in June 2025, where she was inspired by the energy of the community and the chance to connect with fellow evaluators committed to strengthening practice across the charity sector. As an Evaluation Manager at ImpactEd Group, Nina works closely with a wide range of organisations – from small, emerging charities to larger, more established ones – supporting them to build capacity and conduct robust, pragmatic evaluations.

With over five years of experience in research and evaluation across the UK, Greece, and the U.S., Nina brings extensive experience designing and delivering national and local research projects in the education sector. Her background includes academic roles at the University of Pennsylvania and the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, as well as evaluating psychoeducational and behavioural interventions.

Having witnessed organisational growth first-hand at ImpactEd Group and serving on its Employee Voice Board, Nina also offers insight into governance and organisational development to ChEW’s board.

KERRY MCCARTHY

ChEW Trustee

Kerry has been a strong supporter of ChEW since the very beginning, attending some of the first, informal meetings. Over the years she has contributed as a member, through blogs and webinars, and as a volunteer for the 2024 Festival of Impact and Evaluation.

She is excited to formalise her support as a trustee because of the important role ChEW plays in the UK eco-system of evaluation. ChEW is a bridge between the ‘big ideas’, often located in academia or larger organisations, and the day to day working realities of the many people in evaluation roles supporting charities. This bridging role will become even more important as evaluation continues to evolve in response to challenges and opportunities.

Kerry has had a long career as an evaluation practitioner, in a wide range of roles, including as a commissioner, a private sector provider, an independent consultant, and as a mentor. She is committed her own professional development, to maintaining a ‘beginners mind’, and sharing her journey through a reflective practice approach.

JAMES NOBLE

ChEW Trustee

James is a social researcher with nearly 30 years of experience, and for more than a decade he has supported charities and funders with evaluation projects. He enjoys the diversity of the UK charity sector, having worked with organisations focused on everything from early years and older people to environmental protection and animal welfare. Alongside evaluation, he has a particular interest in approaches such as theory of change, which help charities articulate how they hope to make a difference.

He recognises that understanding the difference charities make is rarely straightforward. Many challenges remain — and many are still not fully understood or resolved. This is why James sees an organisation like ChEW as so valuable: it enables people to learn from one another’s experience, strengthen collective approaches to evaluation and build a more robust evidence base across a wide range of issues.

As a Trustee, James looks forward to connecting with as many people as possible working in charity evaluation roles and contributing wherever he can to improving evaluation practice across the sector.

LISA MULLER

ChEW Trustee

RAMYA NADIG

ChEW Trustee

Ramya decided to become a Trustee at ChEW because she wants to help charities understand what is genuinely making a difference in people’s lives. She believes that when organisations collect information, it should lead to real improvements rather than sit unused in a report. That’s what drew her to ChEW’s focus on turning evidence into meaningful change.

Having grown up and studied in Singapore and India before moving to the UK, Ramya has seen how fairness, community and communication can look very different depending on where you are. She has tried a range of roles — from mentoring students to supporting public health projects and writing about social and science topics — and in each one she has learned how essential it is to listen carefully and ensure everyone feels included.

She also noticed that organisations often gather data without truly using what they learn, which strengthened her interest in people-centred evaluation that encourages learning rather than blame.

ChEW’s values resonated with her immediately: listening, integrity, inclusion and a belief that learning should never stop. As a Trustee, Ramya hopes to support more people who want to strengthen the way charities understand and improve their impact.

Michelle Man

Head of ChEW

ANAGHAA WAGH

ChEW Trustee

Anaghaa first engaged with ChEW through the Peer Learning Programme. Having gained valuable knowledge and a community of evaluation experts, she is now looking forward to working on the programme as a trustee.

Anaghaa believes in the power of evidence and specialises in making it practical and feasible for organisations to measure their impact effectively. She has worked with multiple organisations in the UK on their impact evaluation strategy and implementation.

Since her career pivot from the finance sector to education ten years ago, Anaghaa has worked as a teacher, school leader, mentor, and researcher. Her works spans schools, government, and education non-profits in India, Sweden, and the UK.

Anaghaa is currently the Impact Data and Reporting Lead at the King’s Trust International and a Trustee at the Winch, a youth charity.

Lisa first came across ChEW in 2018 while freelancing, and quickly found that being part of the community helped her expand her network and opened up new opportunities to learn. As she moved into team leadership roles, she discovered just how much ChEW offers evaluators at different stages of their careers. Now, she’s excited to join ChEW as a Trustee and to give back to a community that has supported her so much over the years.

Over the past 20 years, Lisa has worked in evaluation across the charity and wider not-for-profit sector. Her experience includes roles at Sustrans (now the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust), where she monitored and evaluated traffic flow, travel behaviour, and the health and wellbeing benefits of active travel. She has also worked with organisations such as Rethink Mental Illness, Power to Change and Centre for Thriving Places. In her current role, she leads the Monitoring & Evaluation team at Connected Places Catapult.

With a degree in statistics and mathematics, Lisa often contributes to data analysis, data governance and, more recently, the use of large language models — alongside more traditional evaluation work.

Michelle provides strategic and operational leadership for ChEW.

Her experience spans the public, private, and third sectors, with roles including Principal Consultant for Evaluation and Learning at NPC, Global Head of Impact and Learning at ClientEarth, and Head of Programme Evaluation at Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation.

Michelle also holds advisory and board roles at organisations working to strengthen democracy globally, such as Luminate and The Politics Project.