Our Advisors
Charlie Bresler, Co-Founder & Board Member
After careers as a graduate professor of psychology and as President of a large, public international retailer, Charlie actualized a long-standing goal of doing something socially impactful. He co-founded The Life You Can Save with Peter Singer in 2013 and provided seed money to jump start its growth. He served as volunteer Executive Director for eight years prior to turning the position over to Rickard Vikstrom.
Charlie lives in Washington State with his wife Diana, a family physician, who partners in supporting The Life You Can Save. His two children and grandchildren live nearby.
Rickard Vikstrom, Executive Director
After working as a nonprofit consultant, including global roles with the United Nations in Switzerland, India and Thailand as well as consulting assignments for a number of well-regarded nonprofits in Australia, Rickard joined The Life You Can Save as a volunteer. He quickly transitioned into a full-time staff position, working primarily on fundraising and partnerships. He was promoted to Managing Director in 2020 and to Executive Director in 2021.
Rickard is a citizen of Sweden and Australia and is currently based in Sydney where he lives with his long-term partner.
Bilal Siddiqi, Strategic Advisor for Research and Growth
Bilal joined the Team in 2021 and leads in-house research and helps set strategy for charity selection, fundraising, and partnerships. He is currently developing our internal charity evaluation framework, overseeing due diligence of recommended charities, helping identify new priority cause areas, and building collaborations with the wider EA ecosystem.
Bilal comes to The Life You Can Save via the Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley, where he served as Director of Research and continues to play an advisory role, and the World Bank’s research department, where he worked with governments to embed impact evaluation in their operations. He brings with him nearly two decades of primary research experience in using experimental methods to identify effective responses to poverty and conflict in low- and middle-income countries.
Bilal lives with his wife, who is a writer, and divides his time between Pakistan and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Anam Vadgama, Executive Business Partner
Anam has been with The Life You Can Save in a variety of roles since she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2018. She currently works with Bilal on nonprofit evaluation and supports Rickard in all his work.
Anam lives with her husband and divides her time between Mumbai, India (her family’s home) and Hamburg, Germany.
Leslie Limpert, Fundraising Manager
Leslie joined the Team in 2021 and brings her vast experience in data management and direct marketing from both the for profit and nonprofit sectors. She currently leads direct marketing and supports our database management system. She works with the Team in customer relationship management (CRM).
She lives in Marin County, California with her husband, who works in commercial real estate, and nearby her grown daughter.
Mary Waite, Director of Partnerships
After working in the media industry for the majority of her career, Mary transitioned into the non-profit sector managing some of the biggest and well known corporate and non-profit partnerships globally to create mutually beneficial programs. She joined The Life You Can Save initially to support the launch of the anniversary edition of the book in 2019 and has stayed on to further the organisations mission through identifying and nurturing key partnerships.
Mary is Australian based in the UK where she and her husband love exploring the city of London and attending live sport.
