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

<p>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. </p> <p>Ostensibly their work is focused on making investments work for communities and enabling people to lead the lives they choose. We explore Maria&#39;s remarkable career journey, to her first CEO role as boss of Impact Lab, and their unique approach to social value measurement.</p> <p> </p> <p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>Impact Lab is a family business of sorts, co-founded by Maria&#39;s father, Bill English, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and respected policy maker Emily Mason.</p> <p> </p> <p>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&#39;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.</p> <p> </p> <p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>As the CEO of Impa