Anne-Marie was born and raised in bilingual French/German Belgium, and trained in journalism at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Communications Sociales (IHECS), Brussels.
After university, Anne-Marie secured a spot on national radio – a one-hour daily show of culture and politics – where she spent a year before relocating to Britain to go freelance and improve her English.
After a year, she turned her sights towards humanitarian aid and became employee No2 at the newly formed international secretariat of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Brussels. Within a month, she was sent to Zagreb to support MSF’s attempt to evacuate the hospital in Vukovar, the Croatian town besieged by Serbian troops.
Though the operation went wrong – the MSF convoy came under fire and several MSF colleagues were wounded – it proved to MSF the value of press relations in high-profile emergencies. Anne-Marie was given free rein from then on, opening a press and campaigning office in Nairobi in 92 and relocating MSF’s international press office from Brussels to London in 93.
She became MSF’s UK Executive Director within a year, raising the organisation’s public profile and turning it into a major contributor of both funds and medical talent to the MSF movement. In 1999, MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.
This is when she met Zarine Kharas, who came to MSF to present her fledgling idea for JustGiving. Immediately bowled over by the power of the idea, Anne-Marie decided to leave MSF and partner with Zarine to develop the company. What’s happened since is history.
Anne-Marie lives in London with her husband and young son.