Our Team

Founder, President, Board Member

Jo-Anne is an award-winning photojournalist, sought-after speaker, photo editor, and the founder of We Animals. She has visited over sixty countries to document our complex relationship with animals. She is the author of three books: We Animals (2014), Captive (2017), and HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene (2020), and is the subject of Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s acclaimed Canadian documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine. Jo-Anne’s photographs have received accolades from Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Nature Photographer of the Year, Big Picture, AEFONA, Picture of the Year International, the Global Peace Award, and others. In 2020, Jo-Anne was thrilled to be a member of the jury for World Press Photo. She hails from Toronto, Canada.

Managing Director

As Managing Director of We Animals, Lisa leads the implementation of the organization’s strategic activities and oversees We Animals’ people operations. Lisa has worked in the nonprofit sector for over a decade, holding leadership roles in communications, marketing, and organizational strategy and operations at a variety of for-purpose organizations. Lisa holds a master’s degree in Leadership and Community Engagement from York University and an MBA from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Lisa is based in Toronto, Canada.

Director of Global Fieldwork and Visual Content

Victoria is a photographer, business consultant, active animal rights activist and a part-time cat wrangler to the plethora of rescue cats who share her Montreal home with her and her husband. She brings more than a decade of experience leading large multi-national corporations through start-up, accelerated growth, acquisition, change and revitalization. Having run her own successful photography business for 12 years, Victoria also possesses an excellent understanding of photography and a proficiency for photographic archiving. She is passionate about the mission of We Animals and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important work that both connects us with our fellow earthlings and inspires lasting change.

Communications Manager

Sally is a UK-based animal advocate with a passion for communication. She studied environmental and physical geography at the University of Worcester and has been involved in activism for 15 years now—her work has spanned from grassroots community organizing to online campaigning and content creation. Before joining the We Animals team in 2017, Sally worked in marketing and communications at Veganuary and VegFund. A great believer in the power of collaboration, she is very grateful to be part of such a thoughtful and dedicated team.

Digital Marketing Manager

Eva is a passionate vegan and animal rights advocate. She holds a degree from McGill University and brings over five years of non-profit and marketing experience to the team. Eva is elated to be a part of the We Animals team, as she credits animal photojournalism and investigative journalism for catalyzing her vegan journey many years ago.

Donor Engagement Specialist

Jennifer is passionate about the power of storytelling to inspire change. Over more than twenty years in the nonprofit sector, she’s had the privilege of sharing incredible stories of courage and resilience. Following her Communications studies at Simon Fraser University, Jennifer took on various paid and volunteer roles with human rights and environmental organizations. Prior to We Animals, Jennifer worked in communications and fundraising at Amnesty International Canada. Jennifer is grateful to be part of We Animals’ mission to connect more people with hidden animal stories, as her own path to veganism was sparked by the vital work of animal photojournalists. Jennifer lives with her family in Ottawa, where she loves to travel by peddle or paddle.

Metadata Manager

Liisa has over ten years of experience in keywording and managing controlled vocabularies for stock photography sites and the cultural heritage sector. She has a degree in photography and she studied Art History and Aesthetics at Master’s level. Liisa is originally from Finland (hence the slightly odd spelling of her name!) but is now living in The Highlands of Scotland near Loch Ness, enjoying the wildlife and wilderness of this beautiful part of the world. She is a keen cyclist and has bikepacked through Europe and South America. It was on her last trip that she decided she wanted to do more for the plight of animals worldwide and found We Animals to be the perfect match for her beliefs and background.

Metadata Editor

Suzanne is an animal advocate and documentary, fine art, and stock photographer on Canada’s west coast who has run her own photography business for over 15 years. In 2017, after reading an article about the dog meat industry and, on the very same day, happening upon a sighting of dairy cows locked in a barn with no access to the outdoors, Suzanne began to question society’s use of animals and our attitudes towards them. After viewing investigative visuals of farmed animals, Suzanne immediately became vegan and also an animal rights activist, eventually becoming a farmed animal rescuer and board member with PEACE Canada. Suzanne is a passionate believer in the power of the visual medium to create positive shifts in society’s norms and she is thrilled for the opportunity to help further the mission of We Animals and be part of its dedicated and talented team.

Operations Coordinator

Vinyse is passionate about making a difference in the world and inspiring others to turn compassion into action. She has worked in the non-profit sector for over 15 years, has been an active volunteer for the past 30, and holds a master’s degree specializing in non-profit management. When not working at We Animals, she and her husband teach people how to grow veggies, enjoy Toronto’s amazing vegan restaurants with friends, and spend time with their senior dog and cat. Vinyse was impacted by animal photojournalism when she watched a video on factory farming a couple of decades ago, and is thrilled to be able to contribute her skills and experience to We Animals’ mission.

Brand and Content Specialist

Six-year-old Cindy was known as Constable Earthworm because she wouldn’t let the other kids on her street play with bugs because it was “really mean.” Over the years she’s rescued a plethora of quirky creatures large and small. She’s a travel junkie and has spent many winters off-grid on a remote island in Southeast Asia. Cindy’s professional career has spanned both the publishing and non-profit sectors. She’s a sucker for a good story and if she’s not working you’ll probably find her with a horse, messing around with her camera, lost in a novel or floating in the ocean.

Fundraising Campaign Specialist

Sarah is a long-time vegan and animal advocate. She has a degree in photography and a Master’s in photographic preservation and collections management. Before joining We Animals, Sarah worked for many years at VegTO, inspiring people to go vegan. She is a Director at Farmhouse Garden Animal Home; a cattle ranch turned farmed animal sanctuary, so she has more cow friends than human friends. She lives in Toronto with her deaf senior cat, and an alarming number of craft projects.

Books and Events Coordinator

Sarah is a passionate and devoted advocate for animal rights. She founded her business Little by Little IC, which partners with individuals, as well as animal advocacy focused organizations to manage and support various projects, events, and fundraising initiatives. She is profoundly grateful to be working with the We Animals team, helping shed light on the hidden suffering of animals. In her free time, Sarah loves to be in nature with her wife, tiny human and two energetic dogs.

Web Developer

Steve has been a technology consultant and web application developer for more than two decades, helping teams of all sizes leverage technology to support their businesses and achieve their goals. A pragmatic technophile, Steve is also an avid science fiction writer, living just outside of Toronto.

Board Member

Nicole Fich has over 16 years of experience working in the financial industry, most recently as a Partner at Penfund, a middle market private credit firm. After seeing the documentary film Blackfish, Nicole couldn’t help but connect the injustice of using animals for human entertainment to the injustice of breeding and slaughtering animals for our food. This led her to becoming vegan. She is passionate about helping animals and has volunteered for several non-profit organizations working to change the food system. Nicole holds a Bachelor of Arts in Honors Business Administration from the Ivey School of Business at Western University. She lives in Toronto with her partner Steve and their foster fail Kali.

Board Member

Lisa Kramer is a behavioural economist and professor of finance at the University of Toronto. Her research, which has been published in leading scholarly journals, spans a wide range of topics including the role of human nature in shaping consumer decisions and the harms that arise from using non-human animals in medical research. Her work has been extensively profiled by the Canadian and international press, and she has written op-eds and columns for outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and The Globe and Mail. Lisa serves on the Board of Directors of University of Toronto Asset Management and on the Joint Sponsors of University Pension Plan Ontario. She holds the Institute for Corporate Directors ICD.D designation. In her spare time she enjoys photographing animals, both human and non-human, in their natural habitats.

Board Member

With a background in journalism and history, Kelly’s career in communications and community engagement is rooted in activism. Her short time as a meat packer in the 1990s inspired Kelly’s community focus to burst wide open to include animal justice and labour rights.  A chance meeting with Jo-Anne McArthur a decade later made a diehard supporter of Kelly and her connection to We Animals has remained a constant ever since. Kelly is a graduate of Carleton University, works as a community engagement manager at Metrolinx, and lives in Toronto with her partner and their three dogs.

Board Member

Award-winning broadcaster Ziya Tong anchored Daily Planet, Discovery Channel’s flagship science program, until its final season in 2018. Tong also hosted the CBC’s Emmy-nominated series ZeD, PBS’s national prime-time series, Wired Science, and worked as a correspondent for NOVA scienceNOW alongside Neil deGrasse Tyson on PBS. In the spring of 2019, she participated in CBC’s annual “battle of the books”. After a national four-day debate, she won Canada Reads. Tong’s first book, The Reality Bubble, was shortlisted for the RBC Charles Taylor prize. Tong received her Masters degree in communications from McGIll University and graduated with Dean’s Honors. She serves as a trustee at WWF International, and served as the Vice Chair of the World Wildlife Fund Canada.

Board Member

Adam is a labour and employment lawyer and musician based in Toronto. He was first introduced to animal rights causes through the punk music scene as a teenager and was heavily involved in student politics throughout his post-secondary education, with a highlight being an organizer during the 2012 Quebec student strike. In addition to his work as a Director on the board of We Animals, Adam helps independent musicians negotiate fair contracts and advocates on behalf of unionized and non-unionized workers in Canada.