Paula Laird

Paula is the Director of Finance and IT at WaterAid.  Her academic and career history has been completely finance focused. She studied Economics at Cardiff University, worked in banking from a local bank (William&Glyns) through to international banks (such as First National Boston Limited), trained as an auditor with Sayer Vincent and then joined WaterAid in 2006 where she has been ever since. Paula leads the Finance and IT teams globally, ensuring they have the right finance, technology and systems environment to get the best from their people. She has been fortunate to work for some wonderful organisations and through them be influenced by great leaders. This has led to a strong focus on developing people and trusting in them to deliver excellence. Paula is passionate about finance and technology and the influence it can have for achieving the most positive impact. She can think of no greater privilege than to be a finance professional leading finance and technology professionals in trying to make a difference in some of the world’s greatest human development challenges.

From 2008-to 2013 Paula was a Trustee on the Board of Mango (now called Humentum). Mango’s mission is to strengthen the financial management and accountability of development and humanitarian NGOs and their partners.

In 2017 Paula joined the Operations Advisory Committee of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) at Imperial College London. The mission of SCI is to help those who suffer from and are at risk of Neglected Tropical Diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.