Our team

The CanDo team is a tight-knit group of diverse talents and experience, united by a can do attitude and a belief that everyone has the capacity to be a humanitarian - so we’re working to give them the means to unleash it! Collectively we have over 100 years of hands-on experience of healthcare in war-devastated communities, thousands of hours of business experience and roots all over the world.

Some of us have lived and worked in war-torn Syria. Some have launched and grown successful start-ups. Others have crowdfunded millions of pounds. All of us are determined to help save more lives. Join us?

Dr Rola Hallam

Dr Does-a-lot. Incurably curious adventurer. Avid talker.

Role: CEO & Founder.

Rola is a strategic thinker with an original mind. She’s a consultant anaesthetist and has worked for 14 years in global health in both Africa and the Middle East. She loves the diversity of humankind and has a deep sense of interconnectedness - with that rare ability to connect with, and accept all people. Oh... and she’s CanDo’s founder and CEO.

What makes her tick?

The idea that we are all one big family

Email Rola Connect on LinkedIn

Jemima Williams

Enthusiastic. Slightly outside the box. Almost ambidextrous.

Role: Executive Assistant

Having trained as a language teacher, Jemima started working with refugees and displaced people and learned so much from them that she realised the system was the wrong way round. She began looking for a way that she could help empower people like her brilliant students and luckily discovered CanDo. She can normally be found hunting for obscure documents that no one remembers the title of.

What makes her tick?

Witnessing ordinary, passionate people achieve extraordinary things.

Email Jemima

The Board

John Plastow

John has worked in international development for about 30 years. He started as a VSO teacher in Western Kenya after which he has worked for a series of international organisations including Oxfam, CARE International and ACORD with time spent based in Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania and Iraq. His last position was as CARE International UK’s Programme and Policy Director. Since 2016 he has worked as an independent consultant. He has focused much of his work around locally led humanitarian action an area about which he is passionate and which brought him to CanDo.

Ning Wong

Director. Change guru. Connector of dots.

Energetic yet focused. Optimistic but objective. Determined while flexible, and serious and at the same time humorous. Above all though, Ning gets a buzz out of what she’s really good at - rallying people together towards a common big idea. She has worked with clients like LEGO, Microsoft and Cisco, helping them transform ethos and performance, stakeholders' mindsets and end-customers' experiences. What about CanDo? Ning knows it will succeed because: when you have a clear inspiring vision to get people behind you, magic happens.

Steve Katelman

Director. Curious Person. Advertising Professional.

Steve has been working in the world of marketing and advertising for 30 years. From Madison Avenue to Silicon Valley, he has brought his special magnetism to clients in order to try new things which will ultimately separate them from the pack. He is passionate about learning new technologies and truly enjoys exposing his quirks. What makes Steve tick? Ideas and thoughts that go against the grain.