About Us
The Cycle is a nonprofit that has been working with communities in need for over 25 years. We unlock the power of women and girls to build gender equality. As an organisation we encourage and implement a cycle of empowerment.
Our work is split into three pillars: Water, Women and World.
Our Core Team
Our core team reaches from the UK to India. All our projects are driven by our on the ground, local workforce.
Tirukurungudi Santhanam Padmapriya
Chief Executive Officer, India
Priya leads our work in India, overseeing programmes that improve health, gender equity and climate resilience for vulnerable communities. With over 20 years' experience in international development, she has held leadership roles with CARE, Save the Children UK, the University of Washington I-TECH, the British Council and the Lebara Foundation.
Georgina Harding
Chief Executive Officer, UK
Georgina leads The Cycle's UK team, driving partnerships, fundraising and communications to grow our global impact. A brand strategist and creative campaign designer, co-founded the media platform Semaine and was recognised in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2017.
Nisha Kesavan
Head of Projects, India
Nisha has a decade of experience in programme monitoring, data analysis, documentation and communications with both corporate and not for profit organisations. She is well versed in case study preparation, social media reporting, data ware-housing and IEC material design and development. She is passionate about social reporting and fundraising through impact stories.
Kumar Mohanasundaram
Head of Finance, India
Kumar leads our finance and administration team, ensuring the highest standards of financial management, transparency and accountability across the organisation. With over 20 years' experience, he has held senior finance roles with CARE, the University of Washington, the British Council and the USAID-funded REACH TB project, helping build trusted systems that give donors confidence in our work.
C. Sundara Manickam
WASH Specialist, India
Sundara leads the technical design and delivery of our WASH and climate resilience programmes. A construction engineer, hydrologist and WASH specialist with over 30 years' experience, he has worked with UNICEF, RedR India, the WASH Institute and ADRA, delivering sustainable infrastructure and disaster recovery programmes across India.
Velliangiri N
Training Specialist, India
Velliangiri has over eight years of experience as a WASH master trainer with NGOs including Save the Children and Hand in Hand, training teachers, student leaders and government officials across India. He holds a master's in social work from Bharathiyar University and has chaired the Department's Board of Studies since 2018.
Selvakumar Sukumaran
Project Officer – Waste to Wealth Project, India
Selvakumar has over eleven years of experience in the development sector, working on education, child labour, displaced communities, nutrition, health and safe drinking water projects. A native farmer himself, he brings ground-level experience to rolling out our Waste to Wealth project. He has previously worked with national and international organisations including SEA, REAL, ADRA India and Lebara Foundation.
Lily Adams
Head of Partnerships, UK
With a background in Neuroscience and Global Health, Lily now leads The Cycle’s partnerships across corporate, foundation, and fundraising campaigns, building strategic relationships and impactful fundraising initiatives that support the organisation's mission.
Our Trustees
Our trusted board keeping the The Cycle growing.
Andy Barrs
Co-Founder, Chairman
With a successful history in the property sector, Andy now utilises best practice and his knowledge of finance and marketing to assist The Cycle in becoming a world leader in ecological sanitation. His focus is always on ensuring that donor’s money is used as effectively as possible.
Manda Lakhani
Trustee
Manda served as acting CEO of The Hunger Project, navigating the Covid-19 pandemic (2020–2022) and leading the re-launch and growth of their Unleashed Women network, drawing on her career as a business consultant with organisations including UK Atomic Energy Authority, Prudential, Hill Samuel and Nomura Asset Management.
Ridhima Lulla
Trustee
Ridhima Lulla is Co-Founder & Co-President of Eros Innovation and CEO of Eros Brahmand Studios, working at the intersection of culture, creativity and artificial intelligence.
Dr Jane Galton
Trustee
Jane has 30 years' experience in business development and fundraising across the private, charity and international development sectors, including as Head of Business Development at Options Consultancy Services (Marie Stopes). As Trustee for Cheetah Conservation Fund UK, she built the charity into a sustainable organisation and now brings that expertise to The Cycle.
Mark Collins
Trustee
Mark spent over 30 years in technology and management consulting, including as a Senior Partner at IBM and PwC, advising major banks, airlines, utilities and government departments across Europe and Asia. Since retiring in 2020, he has provided pro bono consultancy to NGOs, and in 2021 rowed across the Atlantic to raise funds for The Cycle's project in Chennai.
Jules Peck
Trustee
Jules brings deep expertise in sustainability and inequality policy, built across Westminster, the UN and the EC in Brussels, advising major companies and charities including WWF. He is a social entrepreneur and Founding Director of Avon Mutual Bank, a Fellow of The Democracy Collaborative, and co-founder of Share Action.
Lynn Strongin-Dodds
Trustee
Lynn is an American-born financial journalist based in London, editor of Best Execution and a contributor to several leading finance and pensions publications. With politics increasingly driving economics and finance, she has rediscovered her passion for political journalism.
Our Advisory Council
Our incredible advisory council keeping the The Cycle whirling.
Ayesha Shand
Advisory Council
Ayesha is a Brand Director (Partnerships and Relationships) who is an endometriosis sufferer and advisor of The Cycle. Away from the charity, she oversees special projects and relationships at Hauser and Wirth and is an ambassador and fundraiser for her family's charity, The Elephant Family.
Chelsea Leyland
Advisory Council
Chelsea is the co-founder of menstrual wellbeing brand; Looni. Chelsea cut her cloth in the fashion industry as an acclaimed DJ. She is a well known activist raising awareness for conditions that affect her personally; endometriosis and epilepsy.
Smita Lasrado
Advisory Council
Smita is a creative director and co-founder of Feat.Artists, a leading talent and casting consultancy. She has led campaigns for brands like Dior, Vogue and Jimmy Choo, and now brings that reach and vision to Cycle's biggest creative campaigns.
Maksmilian Kallhed
Advisory Council
Maksimilian is an award-winning innovation consultant and entrepreneur who has developed creative processes and agile strategies for global brands and institutions. In 2018 he was named one of the top 50 male advocates for equality in marketing and media, and he now serves as a board member at The World Woman Foundation and strategic advisor to The Cycle.
Pia Stanchina
Advisory Council
Pia is a creative, entrepreneur and transformational business coach who has coached leaders at companies like VFCorp, Mastercard and IKEA. Pia’s mother is Indian and always role modelled volunteering, fundraising and educating, having helped at Mother Theresa's charity in Calcutta as a child. Pia is honoured to follow in her footsteps as an advisor for The Cycle.
Shreya Lakhani
Advisory Council
Shreya is a Regional Governance Associate at Dalberg Asia. She is on the ground in India connecting us with powerful women and activists in the menstrual space. Over the past 14 years she has undergone multiple surgeries for chronic menorrhagia and dysmenorrhea and is passionate about helping women who are unable to seek the medical help they need.
Noyonika Sircar
Advisory Council
Noyonika is a fashion leader with a global perspective, shaped by her roots in Calcutta, upbringing in Delhi, and work in Mumbai and Paris. With experience at brands like Estée Lauder and YSL Beauty, she now works at digital media platform Style Not Com. Living with endometriosis herself has driven her to advocate for women's health and amplify conversations around often-silenced struggles.
Paul-Anthony Smith
Advisory Council
Gemma Phillips
Advisory Council
Dilan Davé
Advisory Council
Matthew Earnest
Advisory Council
Matthew is a luxury brand strategist and digital marketing consultant. He has led strategy for global brands like American Express, Airbnb and Adidas, and now brings his expertise in community-led brand building to Cycle’s creative initiatives.
Our Story
In 1998, three friends: Andrew Barrs, David Crosweller and Bhavesh Radia; co-founded Wherever the Need, a non-profit with the single focus of helping people. They wanted to make sure that projects were sustainable, effective and the maximum amount of donation reached people in need. The original work supported children suffering from radiation-derived illnesses in and around Chernobyl, expanded to refugees of the Balkans war and helping children in southern Africa impacted by HIV/Aids. Following the Asian tsunami in 2004, they turned their attention to Tamil Nadu in south-east India. Under the guidance of Dr Shanmugasundaram Pillai Paramasivan, PhD, one of the world's leading experts in ecological sanitation and sustainable water systems, they quickly realised that the linchpin of any development work was, in fact, sanitation. In next to no time, The Cycle (then called Sanitation First) was born, rapidly becoming a leader in ecological sanitation.
Building toilets changes peoples’ lives, but the construction of toilets in schools resulted in our team witnessing their next social challenge. As children were reaching the age of puberty, as many as one in five girls were finding it difficult to stay in education due to the lack of sanitation facilities and suitable period products. Pioneered by our CEO in India Padmapriya, our award-winning, gender-inclusive period education programme was developed, and we discovered the ideal solution to keep girls in school: safe toilets and period education, which became another of our core areas of work.
Our work was founded on a core value of partnership with nature and everything we do considers our effect on the planet. We never stop pushing ourselves in the development of solutions to fight the climate crisis.
Today, after more than 25 years of impact we are known as The Cycle in order to represent the full spectrum of work we do. What began with sanitation has grown into a much wider cycle: clean water, women's opportunities and lasting community change.
You've heard our history, now be part of our future!
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Partners & Supporters
Thank you to all our generous supporters. Thank you for being a part of our journey and for your support and investment. We can’t wait to see what we will achieve together in the coming years.
Awards
Awards won by The Cycle or our implementation partner, Sanitation First India
- Best CSR Project in WASH – Sanitation Workers Category, Indian Chamber of Commerce, 2024
- Best CSR Project in WASH, Indian Chamber of Commerce, 2023
- Imagine Award Of Excellence, Rotary club of Madras North, 2023
- Menstrual Health Management (MHM) Champions Award, Gramalaya MHM Summit, Chennai, 2022
- Social Impact Award, Indian Chamber of Commerce, 2022
- Tamil Nadu's Women Leaders Award, World Women Leadership Congress & Awards, 2022
- Best CSR Project in WASH / Social Impact Award, Indian Chamber of Commerce, 2020
- Social Change Maker Award – Best Service Provider for Government Schools, TN, 2019
- Unsung Heroes Award, National MHM Summit, New Delhi, 2019
- Swachh Bharat Excellence Award, Government of Puducherry, 2018
- Top-3 finalist, All-India Swacchovation Contest, Ministry of Water & Sanitation, Government of India, 2018
Our Values
Built to last
We invest in solutions that will outlive us. Sustainability is at the core of every project.
Locally-led
Our projects are designed by on the ground teams who work with the communities to create practical solutions.
Honest
Our work and how we spend your donations is transparent and accountable.
Inclusive
We seek to serve everyone in a community, especially those most vulnerable through a lack of gender equality: women, girls, non-binary and transgender people.
