JustGiving: Anne-Marie Huby, Always Guided by a Deep Sense of Purpose
From a business desk at the Birmingham Post to the world’s fastest-growing tech-for-good platform, Belgium-born Anne-Marie Huby is one of UK’s most innovative entrepreneurs, creating the first online fundraising platform in the UK in 2000.
She started her career in journalism in Belgium, and later joined the UK arm of Doctors Without Borders (aka Médecins Sans Frontières), where she worked for ten years.
In 1994, Anne-Marie was in Congo with MSF, not long after the genocide which saw Rwandan soldiers and Hutu gangs claim the lives of more than half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. MSF received a Nobel prize just one year before Anne-Marie transformed the humanitarian landscape by launching JustGiving with co-founder Zarine Kharas.
The company became profitable in just five years. Defying the odds, JustGiving has helped raise over £3.5 billion to date and has improved the lives of over 28 million people in 164 countries.
We chat about:
- Meeting Zarine Kharas and creating a sustainable business model
- For-profit vs not-for-profit charities
- Their unusual first pitch and fundraising story
- What a typical day looks like for Anne-Marie
- Taking a break, reconnecting with what’s important for her, and reading voraciously
- Corporate responsibility in modern times
Links:
--
Sponsors
Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders
Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders
Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders
--
Newsletter
Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/
You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes