The HALO Trust and The HALO Trust USA, Inc. are managed from HALO’s global headquarters in the UK. Each has its own board of trustees  but they work together to ensure that the charity’s strategy and decisions meet the needs of the vulnerable communities we serve, as well as our donors and staff.

We are enormously grateful to our trustees, all of whom are highly experienced professionals who share our commitment to protecting lives and give their time so generously.

“The work of HALO goes beyond saving lives; it restores hope, transforms communities, and lays the groundwork for sustainable peace and prosperity. I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to help advance HALO’s work clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance. America’s support for HALO is more important today than ever and I look forward to elevating this urgent work in the United States.”

Rexon Ryu, HALO USA Board Chair

US Board

Rexon Ryu

Board Chair

Rexon has nearly two decades of experience working in global diplomacy and national policymaking. He has worked at the highest levels of the U.S. government, including as chief of staff to secretary of defense Chuck Hagel, the deputy to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, a director on the president’s National Security Council staff, and extensive experience at the U.S. 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.

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.

Anastasia Staten the HALO Trust USA Board

Anastasia Staten

Anastasia joined The HALO Trust with nearly 20 years of experience spanning non-profit management, fundraising, communications, and politics. She is currently serving as the Executive Director of the ESA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the video game industry. Previously, she served in leadership positions with distinguished organizations such as American Humane Association and Foundation Fighting Blindness. Prior to her career in non-profit philanthropy, Anastasia worked in politics in her home state of Ohio.

Andrew Lyons HALO USA Trustee

Andrew Lyons

Andrew worked for HALO from 2003 to 2012. He was Program 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 program 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.

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 of 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.

Nigel Robinson

Nigel spent his early career as an officer in the British Army and has since gone to lead a variety of ventures around the world. He joined HALO in 2002 as chief fundraiser based in New York and spent many months each year working on programmes in Afghanistan, Cambodia, South Sudan and Angola. He went on to work at the United Nations in a variety of roles including business development advisor for Africa at UNOPS and is now a management consultant. Nigel is a chartered engineer, has an MBA in strategic planning and lives with his family near Toronto, spending any spare time outdoors enjoying the Canadian countryside.

Greta Lundeberg

Greta Lundeberg is Vice President of International Operations and Policy at The Boeing Company. Since joining the company in 2014, Lundeberg has served as Vice President for Strategy and Advocacy and as Senior Director for International Government Operations, where she supported Boeing’s Chairman and CEO in his capacity as Chairman of the President’s Export Council. Prior to joining Boeing, Lundeberg 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, Lundeberg held various positions at the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, and in the U.S. Senate.

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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

Brad Tirpak, Halo Trust USA

Brad Tirpak

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.

TRUSTEE COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS

Board of Directors 

Lord Evans of Weardale - Chair

John Raine - Chair
Lord Evans of Weardale - Ex officio
Jane Davis
John Raine
Emma Sky

Mark Aedy - Chair
Lord Evans of Weardale - Ex officio
Anthony Bird
Patrick Beeley
Barney White-Spunner

Jane Davis
Lord Evans of Weardale - Ex officio

Learn more about our Medical Governance. 

UK Board

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 – 2013, he became a non-executive director of HSBC Holdings from 2013 - 2019. He chaired the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) from 2018 – 2023 and is now Chair of the Public Interest Committee at KPMG UK and a Non-Executive Director or advisor 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 Kings College London.

Mark Aedy The HALO Trust

Mark Aedy

Mark Aedy is a Managing Director and Head of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Investment Banking and on the Management Committee at Moelis & Company, the global independent investment bank. He has over 35 years experience, building and managing investment banking franchises and advising clients on a range of strategic merger, acquisition and capital markets transactions. Previously, Mark served as Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa Corporate and Investment Banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and was a member of the Global Corporate and Investment Banking Executive Committee. He is the Senior Independent Director of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. Mark holds a B.A. (Honours) degree from Durham University.

José Pedro Agostinho (Zeca)

Jose Agostinho, known as Zeca, joined HALO's board of Trustees in February 2021 after a long career with HALO in Angola. He joined HALO Angola in 1995 and had been the Deputy Programme Manager since 1999 until he departed HALO in 2018. Zeca had a wide reaching role in the programme and oversaw personnel, legal matters, finance, reporting, logistics, and donor and Angolan government liaison. He also visited hundreds of minefields and destroyed hundreds of landmines and other explosives items.

Patrick Beeley

Paddy 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 2009-10 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.

Jane Davis

Jane is a nurse, most recently sitting as a Registrant Chair on panels of conduct and competence hearings for the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council. Her last NHS post was on the board of NHS Camden Clinical Commissioning Group. She spent 34 years as an officer in the Army Reserve, retiring in 2015 as a Colonel. Jane has visited most HALO programmes since she joined us in 1993 as a medical advisor. Jane remains involved in developing training and validation programmes for the minefield paramedics and procuring medical equipment. She is the Vice Lord-Lieutenant for Greater London and previously the Colonel Commandant of the QARANC.

Ruth Davidson

Ruth Davidson is the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives and former MSP for Edinburgh Central. Before politics, Ruth worked as journalist across television, radio and newspapers. The majority of her time was spent at the BBC operating in news and current affairs as a presenter, reporter and documentary maker. She continues to write for a number of national titles. A former signaller in the Territorial Army, Ruth currently serves as the Honorary Colonel of her former regiment. Ruth has been a long-time supporter of HALO, most recently visiting our Afghanistan programme. In 2021 Ruth Became a life Peer in the House of Lords becoming Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links.

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.

Lucia V. Halpern

Trustee

Lucía is a consultant to business and charity executives. For 15 years, she Chaired the Friends of The Courtauld Institute 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 previously was 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 geo-political 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 to promote co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Anastasia Staten the HALO Trust USA Board

Anastasia Staten

Anastasia joined the HALO Trust with nearly 20 years of experience spanning nonprofit management, fundraising, communications, and politics. She is currently serving as the Executive Director of the ESA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the video game industry. Previously, she served in leadership positions with distinguished organizations such as American Humane Association and Foundation Fighting Blindness. Prior to her career in nonprofit philanthropy, Anastasia worked in politics in her home state of Ohio.

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 and South East 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.