Social impact startup Beam has hired GoCardless director of global partnerships Rachel Astall as its first chief of staff.
Since launching in 2017, Beam has supported more than 600 homeless people into stable jobs and homes through its crowdfunding platform.
The social enterprise currently operates across London and five other cities across the UK.
Astall will report in to founder and CEO Alex Stephany. Charged with scaling Beam’s team from 40 to over 100 people by the end of 2022, she will also work with Beam’s operations team to improve processes across the business and lead on special projects.
Astall joined leading FinTech brand GoCardless in 2017 as the first partner manager and quickly moved into senior leadership. In her latest role at the London company she led a global cross-functional team to build an ecosystem of 350 integrations with major software platforms.
This ecosystem is now used by close to half of GoCardless’s customer base and drives substantial revenue growth in the fast-growing business. During her five years there, the organisation grew from 80 to 800+ staff worldwide.
Prior to GoCardless, Astall held various partnership roles at major charities including British Heart Foundation, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Prince’s Trust.
‘Why my daughter will be getting a job for her 16th birthday’
“Beam combines the speed and scale of a tech company like GoCardless, with the added bonus of making huge progress on massively important social problems,” said Astall.
“Beam has an incredible startup culture and I’m excited to join such a smart and experienced team.”
Stephany added: “We’re delighted to welcome Rachel, a senior leader from one of the UK’s most impressive fintechs, to support Beam with our next phase of growth. Our goal is to become one of the most positively impactful companies in the world, and building an exceptional team is a huge part of that.”