Our team...
Dr. Holly A Ritchie
Founder of THRIVE, Holly is a consultant and academic (PhD) with over 17 years of experience in development. She takes a special focus on gender, norms and change in fragile environments.
Dr. Holly Ritchie has a background in finance, community development, value chain analysis and women’s economic empowerment with experience in Afghanistan (10 years), Kenya (7 years), Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, the Middle East and Brazil. Recent assignments (2018-2020) include the development of Gender Profiles for Somalia and Sudan under the African Development Bank and UN Women (Lead Consultant). She further acts as a Gender and Enterprise Advisor for the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) across the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.
In addition to her consulting work, Holly is a Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), part of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), and a Research Associate at the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA). Her PhD (ISS 2013, Cum Laude) focused on (grassroots) women’s enterprise in Afghanistan and cultural change (published with Routledge 2016). In 2014-15, she designed and conducted a BA course at Leiden University, The Hague, NL entitled Gender in Fragile Environments, and has conducted short professional training on the ‘Institutional/cultural context’ for Women’s Entrepreneurship Promotion at Maastricht School of Management (2014-15).
Holly has a strong interest in cultural norms, gender and women’s empowerment, enterprise, ICTs, social change, inclusion, and innovation in ‘fragile’ economic development. Her research and work has looked in particular at (poorer) women’s enterprise participation in marginalized, conflict and refugee settings. She focuses on social inclusion/integration in business, value chains and technology, and looks ahead to social outcomes from economic and technological empowerment.
To relax, Holly is passionate about yoga and meditation, and traveling (although not so much during the current pandemic!) to remote ‘off-the-grid’ places!
Yvonne Wangũi Machira
Co-founder of THRIVE, Yvonne has an MSc inPublic Health (MPH) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and is a consultant/trainer with over 15 years of experience in East Africa. She takes a special focus on qualitative research and community health.
Yvonne is a consultant, trainer and published researcher in Public Health with a particular interest in qualitative research. Yvonne has fifteen years’ multi-country experience conducting qualitative research on a variety of social and public health subjects including malaria, nutrition, maternal and child health and health systems. Yvonne has worked in Kenya, Botswana, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. To relax, Yvonne belts out notes with the Nairobi Music Society (NMS) choir with whom she has been singing for 15 years; she also serves as the Society’s Treasurer. She is an avid squash player and is the Squash Captain of Nairobi Club. She is also the Founding President of the LSHTM Nairobi Alumni Chapter.
Founder's story...
Originally an investment banker (1999-2002), Holly re-trained in International Development (MA) and started working with an NGO in Afghanistan in 2004 (Afghanaid). Driven by a strong technical and intellectual interest to better understand processes of social change, particularly in more 'complex' contexts, she went on to pursue her PhD in 2009-2013 (ISS, Erasmus University), with fieldwork in Afghanistan (grassroots women's enterprise and cultural change in economic development), alongside similar work as an independent consultant.
After her PhD, and juggling post-doctorate research and international consulting - with a focus on gender and change in 'fragile environments' - Holly was motivated to engage further in grassroots action and collaboration, alongside her ongoing assignments. In 2016, she set up an online network ‘Women Engendering Change’ (WEC) in Kenya, East Africa to facilitate active exchange, solidarity and cooperation amongst women researchers and consultants to promote best practices and scale in inclusive development, particularly in marginalized areas. With this network, she co-facilitated meetings and (free) thematic training related to research techniques in Nairobi - and in this process, met a brilliant and equally driven fellow development consultant, Yvonne Wangui Machira.
In 2017, Holly and Yvonne both felt that the 'WEC' women's network could be used more productively for local development training and exchange, drawing on our own expertise, as well as that of other women consultants. Such sessions could then be used to support practical action and capacity-building in low-income areas. This led to the idea of the establishment of a women's social enterprise in Kenya - with the training of female development workers for pro-bono training of refugee women leaders! With crowdfunding support, we embarked on market research in late 2017-early 2018 in Nairobi. Our subsequent analysis indicated that there was indeed strong interest amongst female aid workers, researchers and consultants in front-line development and researcher training. Our research also re-explored the context of Eastleigh (Ritchie 2018) for 'pro-bono' work, with a small (self-funded) project initiated in March 2018 to support refugee women's leadership through 'well-being'.
As passionate ‘change makers’, Holly and Yvonne are keen to be involved in the evolution and promotion of best practices in the fields of social and technical innovation in community development. In so doing, they are strongly motivated to support the dissemination of new ideas to foster and strengthen pathways of change in socio-economic development - both locally, with grassroots women's leaders, as well as more broadly through networks in East Africa and beyond.