Meet the Team
Get to know the Founder and our Board Members
Founder
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Jaime Dias is a conservationist and founder of Wings for Conservation. He is passionate about wildlife and nature, and he believes that he is responsible for their protection. Jaime was born in 1989 in Lisbon, Portugal. He has lived and worked in Africa for over a decade. At the age of nine, he followed in his father's footsteps and attended military school. After graduating from military school, he earned his commercial pilot’s license and in 2012 he ventured to Africa to look for a job. His first job in conservation was in Zakouma National Park in Chad, for African Parks. After Chad, Jaime worked as a pilot and technical assistant for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Gabon and South Sudan. In 2015, Jaime led a survey of the Gourma elephants in northern Mali, which was part of the Great Elephant Census. Between 2015 and 2016, he worked as a technical assistant for the National Parks Agency in Gabon. Jaime founded Wings for Conservation in 2016 and leads the foundation's operations and field projects in Africa. In the course of his work, he led the process to establish a new national park, discovered a new population of giraffes and had a direct impact on the protection of several species and ecosystems that are now recovering.
Board Members
Markéta Antonínová completed her PhD in tropical agriculture at the University of Life Sciences in Prague (CULSP) with a special emphasis on wildlife management and population dynamics. Her career on the African continent began with research in Senegal followed by work in Ethiopia on during her tenure as an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Tropics and Subtropics. After her academic experience, Markéta worked extensively in DR Congo (Garamba NP) and Chad (Zakouma NP) where she focused mainly on wildlife research and monitoring, especially elephants, protected area management and law enforcement implementation. She also worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society in South Sudan and African Parks Network in Benin. She is currently the CEO of Friends of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, a Kenyan organization.
Minke Hahn graduated with honours from Utrecht Law College in 2012 and obtained a master´s degree in Dutch law at Utrecht University in 2014. She worked for almost eight years as a candidate civil-law notary at NautaDutilh, a prestigious Dutch law firm. There, she met Jaime in 2016, who introduced her to the ambitious and passionate plans for Wings for Conservation. Since then, she has been involved with the Stichting, together with other former colleagues of NautaDutilh, to assist on legal and corporate matters. She is eager to learn about conservation projects and to connect with each other to raise awareness for the importance of it. In 2022, she joined Wings for Conservation as a Board Member, including the roles of secretary and treasurer.
Rian and Lorna Labuschagne both born in Africa, are married and have worked together as a team in conservation for much of the past 35 years. Rian worked for 10 years with South African National Parks (SANParks). From 1995 to 2000, Rian and Lorna worked as Technical Advisor’s in the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park, on behalf of the Frankfurt Zoological Society. Between 2002 and 2011 Rian and Lorna worked for Grumeti Reserves Ltd. in Kenya and Tanzania. From January 2011 to 2017 they worked for African Parks Network in Zakouma National Park in Chad, Rian as the Park Manager and Lorna as the Special Projects Manager. In February 2017, they returned to Tanzania and are currently working in the Serengeti National Park for the Frankfurt Zoological Society, Rian is the Programme Manager and Lorna is a Technical Advisor.
Brendan Godley is a Professor of Conservation Science and Director of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, UK. He obtained his undergraduate degrees in Zoology and Veterinary Medicine and his Doctorate from the University of Glasgow. He is author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has managed projects for DfID, Defra, EU, NERC as well as a range of commercial organizations and non-governmental organizations. He also teaches a conservation field course in Kenya every year and has been involved in conservation and research projects in Cape Verde, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Congo and Sao Tome and Principe. He is a member of the Veterinary and Marine Turtle Specialist Groups of the IUCN and is an advisor to the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative and a trustee of Fauna and Flora International.
Georg Krijgh completed his undergraduate studies, with a major in physics, at the University College Utrecht and at the University of California, Berkeley. This was followed by a Master’s degree in economics and finance from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In 2010, Georg founded Guardian Capital Management, an investment firm, to focus on investing in tech-driven businesses and supporting young entrepreneurs. Georg has a love for nature and has been involved in conservation through Kulinda, a foundation that supports wildlife conservation projects. In 2022, he joined Wings for Conservation as a Board Member.
Advisors
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