People
Advisors
Emma Belcher
President, Ploughshares Fund
Emma is the President of Ploughshares Fund. Prior to that, Emma spent nearly a decade leading the MacArthur Foundation’s Nuclear Challenges grantmaking program. There, she developed foundation’s Nuclear Challenge Big Bet team—from ideation to management of a nearly million budget. She also served as an advisor in Australia’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on national security and international affairs.
Yordanos Eyoel
Founder and CEO, Keseb
Yordanos is an Ethiopian-American democracy entrepreneur who is the Founder and CEO of Keseb. Keseb is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization building an ecosystem for cross-country innovation to turn the tide against authoritarianism and advance inclusive and resilient democracies. She was previously a Managing Partner at New Profit, where she launched the Civic lab, a venture philanthropy initiative to invest in innovative solutions building civic trust and a strong civic culture in America.
Lewis Bollard
Program Director, Farm Animal Welfare, Open Philanthropy
Lewis leads Open Philanthropy’s strategy for Farm Animal Welfare. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, he worked as Policy Advisor & International Liaison to the CEO at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), was a litigation fellow at HSUS, and an associate consultant at Bain & Company. He has a B.A. from Harvard University in Social Studies and a JD from Yale Law School.
Nancy Hey
Director, Evidence and Insight; Lloyd’s Register Foundation
Nancy Hey is the Director of Evidence & Insight at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, where she is establishing the organization’s Global Safety Evidence Centre. She previously worked as the Executive Director of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, the UK’s national body for wellbeing evidence and practice, aiming to understand what governments, businesses, communities, and people can do to improve wellbeing.
John Lavis
Director, McMaster Health Forum
John is a Professor at McMaster University and directs the McMaster Health Forum, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy. He works with policymakers globally to harness research evidence and stakeholder insights to strengthen health and social systems. He is Co-Lead of the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges and the COVID-19 Evidence Network to support Decision-making.
Nitin Pai
Co-Founder and Director, Takshashila Institution
Nitin Pai is the co-founder and director of the Takshashila Institution, a think tank and school of public policy in Bangalore. He is an expert on the intersection of technology and geopolitics and spent over a decade as a technology sector policymaker with the Singapore government. Nitin is on the boards of Jal Seva Foundation (WaterAid India) and the Government of Karnataka’s Vision Group on Higher Education.
Jaan Tallinn
Founding Engineer, Skype
Jaan is a founding engineer of Skype and Kazaa. He co-founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the the Future of Life Institute and philanthropically supports other existential risk research organizations. Jaan is a partner at Ambient Sound Investments, an active angel investor, and has served on the Estonian President’s Academic Advisory Board.
Jenny Xiao
Partner, Leonis Capital
Jenny is a Partner at Leonis Capital, a research-driven venture capital fund backing early-stage AI companies. Jenny is also a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI) and previously worked as a researcher at OpenAI and the Future of Humanity Institute. Her PhD work at Columbia University drew on the fields of AI, economics, and policy and focused on the global AI landscape and national AI capabilities.
Team
Ian David Moss
CEO
Ian David Moss is CEO and founder of the Effective Institutions Project. Over the course of more than two decades, he has partnered with dozens of grantmaking foundations and philanthropic families to design impactful programs, allocate resources effectively, and collaborate productively toward a thriving future. All told, his work has guided the distribution of more than $250 million in grants and spending to improve people’s lives worldwide.
Ella McIntosh
Chief of Staff
Ella is the Chief of Staff at EIP. She works closely with Ian on strategic initiatives and external relations, and ensures that the organization’s systems run effectively. She was one of EIP’s first employees and holds a MSc in International Social and Public Policy from the London School of Economics.
Jakob Graabak
Managing Director
Jakob Graabak is EIP’s Managing Director. He leads strategic projects, oversees the team, culture and operations, and drives forward our growing global impact. Previously, he directed the technology foresight program at the Brussels-based think tank Centre for Future Generations, co-founded the Norwegian Center for Long-Term Policy, and acted as a project lead at SecureBio. He is a former fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute.
Tyler John
Senior Program Officer, Artificial Intelligence
Tyler is a Senior Program Officer, leading EIP’s artificial intelligence initiatives. A seasoned grantmaker and researcher, Tyler has advised philanthropists on over $60 million in grants across AI safety, biosecurity, and peace and security. He helped to set up the only international body with a mandate to consider transformative impacts of advanced AI, at the OECD, and established the first research institute dedicated to AI welfare, at NYU. He’s co-authored two books and over a dozen published papers, and held fellowships at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Oxford. Tyler holds a PhD in political philosophy from Rutgers University; he is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and most recently led on research, communications, donor education, and AI governance grantmaking at Longview Philanthropy.
Conrad Helminger
Senior Associate
Conrad is a Senior Associate at EIP supporting research, monitoring, and prioritization across institutions and issues. He holds a MA in International Political Economy and is also a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, researching global shifts in power, norms, and institutions.
Spencer Orenstein
Senior Strategist
J.T. Stanley
Senior Program Officer
J.T. Stanley is a senior program officer leading EIP’s Democracy initiatives. In May 2025, J.T. founded Stealth Startup, a six-figure venture studio at the frontier of the health of the US political system. He has experience as a grantmaker on an eight-figure portfolio addressing near-term threats to American stability, and an advisor on philanthropic priorities in the US and Sub-Saharan African policy landscapes. J.T. brings global hands-on experience working as a founder in the US and Congo.
Faye Crawford
Fellow
Faye is a research fellow at EIP. She is an undergraduate Economics student at Minerva University interested in global development, with experience in journalism and research.
Joseph Goldblatt
Intern
Joseph is an intern at the Effective Institutions Project. He is a completing his Honours in Computer Science at the The University of Cape Town. Joseph is interested in theoretical Computer Science and the ethics of AI.
Board of Directors
John Abodeely
President and CEO, Oolite Arts
John Abodeely is President and CEO, Oolite Arts where he oversees an $15M annual grantmaking portfolio, $5M in public art and design projects, and the nation’s only local disaster resilience and recovery program for the cultural sector. He previously worked for the US federal government as Acting Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. For two years, John served on the board of the nonprofit that operated EIP during its incubation phase.
Gaia Dempsey
Special Advisor, Metaculus
Gaia Dempsey is an accomplished entrepreneur and technology executive with a passion for driving innovation and social impact. As the founder of 7th Future, she leads a research consultancy dedicated to building scalable innovation models. Gaia also mentors aspiring charity founders through Charity Entrepreneurship, was a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow, and served as a Special Advisor to Metaculus.
Nadia Gomes
Strategy Director, Bloomberg Cities Insights Unit at Freedman Consulting
Nadia Gomes is a social impact strategist with two decades of experience in global philanthropy. For nearly eight years Nadia led, mentored, and supported the Strategic Planning team at a major foundation, serving the entire $1b+ organization working across a global network in 100+ countries. She currently serves as Strategy Director for the Bloomberg Cities Insights Unit at Freedman Consulting, after several years as a strategy consultant to leaders at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Leslie Gross
Principal, Advantage Insights Group
Leslie Gross is a principal with the Advantage Insights Group, working to incubate high-profile government affairs and civic innovation initiatives and advise a private HNWI donor community worth $50 million + in annual giving. She has spent her career crafting solutions for high-profile and high-stakes challenges at the intersection of public policy, the private sector, and philanthropy, including as President Obama’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Lukas Haynes
Founder, Leveraged Philanthropy
Lukas Haynes brings over two decades of philanthropic leadership, advising major donors on strategy and investments to maximize the impact of their giving. From 2015 to 2022, he served as CEO of the David Rockefeller Fund, working with 15 family trustees to guide the foundation’s grantmaking. Earlier, he spent 20 years shaping and evaluating foundation strategies at the MacArthur Foundation, and from 2022 to 2024 was a Visiting Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy.
Samuel Härgestam
AI Safety Strategist
Samuel Härgestam brings experience in entrepreneurship, strategy and AI governance. He has co-founded and incubated a number of organizations, including EnginZyme, Supertext, Instabridge and Animasher. Since 2023, Sam has transitioned his focus to AI safety.
Andrea Ordóñez Llanos
Senior Research Fellow and former Director, Southern Voice
Andrea Ordóñez Llanos is a senior research fellow and former director of Southern Voice, a network of over sixty think tanks from across the Global South. She oversees and contributes to the production of evidence-based research authored by Global South experts.
Ian David Moss
CEO, Effective Institutions Project
Ian David Moss is CEO and founder of the Effective Institutions Project. Over the course of more than two decades, he has partnered with dozens of grantmaking foundations and philanthropic families to design impactful programs, allocate resources effectively, and collaborate productively toward a thriving future. All told, his work has guided the distribution of more than $250 million in grants and spending to improve people’s lives worldwide.
Dave Orr
Head of Safeguards, Anthropic
Dave Orr is a board member and past chair of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the United States. He worked at Google for more than a decade, including leading an alignment team at Google DeepMind. He is currently the Head of Safeguards at Anthropic.