The founder and executive director, Sasha Chanoff, has worked for over a decade in refugee rescue, relief and resettlement operations in Africa and the US. Before launching Mapendo he consulted with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kenya and worked with the International Organization for Migration throughout Africa, identifying refugees in danger, undertaking rescue missions and working on refugee protection issues with the US, Canadian, Australian and other governments. Sasha has appeared on 60 Minutes as well as in other national and international TV, radio and print media outlets, has lectured, presented and given keynote speeches at universities and international refugee conferences and has published extensively on refugee issues.

Sasha holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. in Humanitarian Assistance from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy, a joint degree program implemented through the Tufts Feinstein International Famine Center. At the Fletcher and Nutrition schools his focus was on NGO management, ethics and humanitarianism, humanitarian aid in complex emergencies, nutrition in complex emergencies and forced migration.

Sasha is a 2006 Echoing Green Foundation Fellow and a 2007 Draper Richards Foundation Fellow. Both foundations have identified Mapendo as one of the most significant emerging social change organizations in the world.