Meet the WTF team
Important: This blog post contains outdated information. For the latest details about our team, please visit our Meet the Team page here.
30 Second Summary
We The Free (WTF) operates with a unique leadership structure, prioritizing local volunteer teams. Our passionate organizers plan and promote events, while regional leads provide essential support. The media team creates impactful content, and the global support team ensures smooth operations. Key leaders include James Hattersley (Executive Director) and Zachary Champoux (Assistant Director), both bringing extensive experience and dedication to animal advocacy. We invite you to get involved and help drive our mission forward by participating in feedback surveys and local activism.
A common question we get is “who are the people behind We The Free activism?” - This blog post will give you a brief introduction to our passionate team.
You might already be aware that WTF takes a different approach to leadership, flipping the traditional leadership hierarchy on its head and viewing local teams of volunteers as the most important team members, with the supporting infrastructure built to work in service to the needs of the community. So starting with the most important members of our team, you. If you aren’t already active in a team, get involved now and take part in our regular feedback surveys to guide our direction moving forward.
Local Organizers
We The Free is fortunate to have lots of dedicated, talented, and inspiring Organizers.
Our organizers are those who plan, schedule, and promote activism events - they bring the community together and act in service to the needs of their local communities. They also share feedback with the global support team through regular organizer meetings.
The Regional Support Team
Regional Support Leads are involved with starting new WTF teams and supporting existing teams, they are people with a proven track record of leadership, mentoring, and professionalism, and the right skills to ensure that our local teams get the support they need to continue advocating for animals. Our Regional Support Leads take an active part in developing and refining our global strategy and act as a connecting link to our organizers and volunteers.
Jen Deighan-Schenk
Jen has been the Regional Support Lead for North America since November 2021, and in this time has proven herself an invaluable part of the central WTF team. She frequently travels to WTF events in Canada and helps new teams get started with their first WTF Diamond.
Jen has been involved in many different types of activism and has professional experience as both a trainer and community leader.
James Pearce
James has been a passionate vegan for a number of years and did his first ever street activism in the summer of 2021 as the organizer for WTF Canterbury. Since then he has travelled all around England supporting new WTF teams with equipment, setup, and inductions.
As well as fighting for animal liberation, James also supports other worthwhile causes, such as founding Educate To Liberate; an organization funding education opportunities for students in Liberia.
James is now responsible for inductions and supporting new WTF teams around Europe and Latin America, and in the future will be a coordinator for WTF training workshops.
Rebecca Owen
Rebecca Owen supports our teams across the United Kingdom, where she is an experienced and respected activist. She has organized Animal Rights Marches, protests, and other demonstrations - and also runs a YouTube channel called Vegan Pixie Warrior, where she amplifies the voices of hard working and inspirational activists from around the world and promotes the liberation pledge.
Rebecca is also an organizer for the WTF: Bristol and Bath teams in the south of England, and actually hosted one of the first ever WTF Diamonds in the UK as part of pilot testing in late 2020. She became a Regional Support Lead in September 2021.
WTF Media Team
Our WTF Media team consists of both part-time contracted staff and volunteers who work hard to create beautiful and engaging social media content to help us bring our strong animal-rights message to more non-vegans than ever before!
The Global Support Team
James Hattersley (Executive Director)
James has been vegan for 5 years and an activist for 4 years. In that time, he has been a chapter organizer for an animal rights organization, as well as taking part in vigils, marches, animal rescues, disruptions, earthlings experience, farm investigations, and volunteering at animal sanctuaries. James volunteered with an animal rights non-profit delivering vegan outreach communication workshops to activists for free, and has previously created vegan activism YouTube videos on his channel "Wholesome James".
James has 10 years’ experience working for charities in the social care field, most recently as an Operations Manager; responsible for the care of people with learning disabilities across multiple cities, and successfully leading a team of 4 managers and 115 front-line care staff through the height of the pandemic. This role included responsibility for quality, compliance, and the management of a multi-million dollar annual budget. In April 2021, after becoming interested in Effective Altruism, James left his leadership role in social care to focus his efforts 100% on animal advocacy where he believes that (due to the scale, tractability, and neglectedness of the animal rights cause) he can make the largest difference to make the world a more just place.
Zachary Champoux (Assistant Director)
A passionate vegan for 12 years and animal activist for 3 years, Zachary recognizes animal rights as the most pressing social justice issue of our time. He acted as local organizer with an animal rights organization, facilitating weekly activism events. He has attended vigils and protests, volunteered at an animal sanctuary, and shared examples of street outreach via his YouTube channel, Starchy Zach.
Zachary previously worked as Manager of Corporate and Community Development for the MS Society of Canada, where he acted as liaison for over 250 MS Walk team captains and 50 MS Bike team captains. He raised upwards of $140,000 for Enactus Mount Royal in a voluntary role as VP Fund Development over one year.
Zachary has worked as a director of We The Free since September 2021.
Q: Is anybody else involved at the leadership level?
A: no, nobody else is involved in WTF at a senior level.
Q: What about the original founders of WTF?
A: At the very beginning of this project, several other people were involved including James Hoot, Inbar Schütte-Perez, and Alex Bez. None of them are currently involved with We The Free in any capacity.
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