Kasia Smolinska

I build systems people can rely on and cultures where people feel safe and seen.

For the past 4+ years at Child Helpline International, I've held a broad portfolio across People Operations, finance, compliance, and admin for a distributed global team. In practice, that means employee lifecycle across jurisdictions, donor compliance, budget monitoring, EOR arrangements, audit prep, and occasionally coordinating logistics for international events.

My background is a bit of a patchwork: I started in finance operations, co-founded a stray aid initiative and a community free shop, then found my footing in People & Ops in the NGO sector, where all of it turns out to be useful. I bring financial rigour to HR and human-centred thinking to operational systems. I tend to be the person who names what others are stepping around- I'd rather have an uncomfortable conversation than let something important go unaddressed.

I care a lot about how resources get distributed across causes and decisions, and whether they're actually making a difference. I'm interested in AI safety and what that means for communities that have historically been marginalised or misrepresented.

What we build matters. How we build it matters just as much.