Anne Toba founded Ripples in 2005 to address the societal, cultural, and economic difficulties impacting minority groups in the United Kingdom. During her visit to Africa, she realized the difficulties that women faced in feeding their families, sending their children to school, and gaining access to healthcare. She expanded the mission of Ripples to elevate the economic and social prosperity of African village women.
She began delivering projects to provide women in Nigeria, Ghana, and Madagascar with the business skills, land, seeds, equipment, and financial means to provide for themselves, their families, and their communities. Anne co-designed, co-developed and launched the Women Enterprise Program that has equipped 13,500+ women in the 3 countries to ensure prosperity and security for their communities, and provide food, medical care, and education for their children.
Anne implemented a highly successful model to deliver the long-standing sustainable improvements to families and communities. The profitable programs are co-designed with women by building on existing community practices, knowledge, and strengths. This allows women to take ownership, expand their independence, and maximize impact.
She built the support structure to drive the continued success of the Women Enterprise Program, Stakeholder Farming Program, and Medical Outreach Program. Anne established in-country registered charities with control boards and women as members, built Ripples offices in 3 countries with dedicated staff that live and work in the communities, and created strong auditing and reporting processes to monitor the success of projects.
Anne collaborated with African traditional, local and state governments, international partners, embassies, and businesses in the countries to deliver the projects. She built relationships with multiple European and American universities to launch Internship/Internship Programs to allow 20 college students yearly to live and work with women in their communities to solve problems.
Earlier as the Head of Tenants’ Consultation for the London Borough of Lambeth and Gravesham Council, she established and led the new business unit in strengthening communication, collaboration, and relationships between the Council and tenants living in subsidized housing that reduced maintenance delays, improved safety and health, and prevented issues.
During her role as Recruitment Manager for the London Underground, she was instrumental in attracting and recruiting critical engineers with various skills to support the transit systems’ maintenance schedule. Anne began her career with Sheraton Corporate in 1985. She held critical roles in opening up 3 multinational Sheraton Hotels in Guinea Bissau, Harare, and Abuja under challenging conditions, as well as creating and leading the new Human Resources and Training Department for the Sheraton Hotels in Africa.
She holds her Master of Science Degree from Strathclyde University in Scotland.