Celebrating Our Impact and Chair of Trustees
In this edition, we celebrate the publication of our 2025/26 Impact Report, share a farewell message from our outgoing Chair, Laura Adams, and continue our exploration and learning around AI.
Our Impact Report
We are delighted to share our Impact Report for April 2025 to March 2026. It captures a year of meaningful work with some remarkable individuals and organisations, and reflects the first year of our new three-year strategy in action.
Our year in numbers. We worked with 1,110 change makers across 23 organisations and 59 different countries. We delivered 131 sessions, coached 17 leaders, renewed 6 organisational strategies, and published 16 new Ripple Papers. Our newsletters continued to reach 2,000 people in over 30 countries, and our advisors contributed an extraordinary 300 volunteer days, valued at £180k in kind.
A message from our outgoing Chair – Laura Adams
We are also marking the end of an important chapter for Caplor Horizons, as Laura steps down as Chair after seven years in the role. We are enormously grateful for everything she has brought to Caplor Horizons and wanted to share her reflections in her own words.
"Spring is my favourite time of year, full of renewal and promise.
This spring also marks the end of an important period for me personally as I step down as Chair of Caplor Horizons, passing the baton to Shivani.
Shivani is a wonderful person and exceptional leader and I'm excited to see how she contributes to the evolution of Caplor Horizons over the coming years, working with the Board and the Co-Directors whom I have so much admiration and affection for.
Naturally, I feel a degree of sadness, but by far my strongest feeling is gratitude, for all the memorable times and the incredible work that we have delivered in partnership with some inspirational organisations.
As quite a 'hands on' Chair, I've worked directly with a number of our partner organisations. I remember delivering a workshop for Haygrove and being presented with a delicious crate of strawberries as a result – a very delicious outcome!
I was also part of the team that visited Jaipur Rugs in India, undertaking research and producing an Impact Report that gave a voice to many artisanal workers who hand crafted rugs across rural areas of Rajasthan. Connecting with these talented artists was a fascinating experience. It was eye-opening to see how the regularity of income had such a huge impact on family dynamics, whilst deeply entrenched ideas of gender and caste hierarchy still made their mark.
Most recently, I spent time in Ireland, working alongside EIL as they worked through their future strategy. A reminder that the organisations we work with are the real experts – they have all the know-how, creativity and vision to drive their future direction, and it's a pleasure to see how the tools and structures we can offer help draw this out.
As I step back, I'm certain that the thoughtful, tailored collaborative work that Caplor Horizons delivers is more important than ever. In uncertain times, in-person connection and focus is such an essential source of stabilisation and hope. Here's to a flourishing future for you all."
The two photographs below capture something of the passage of time that Laura's involvement has spanned. The first was taken at a Community Gathering in December 2017 – where Laura's recently born son, Arlo, made his Caplor Horizons debut in the role of Deputy Chair. The second was taken this morning, with Arlo now 8.5 years old and considerably more difficult to hold.
We are deeply grateful to Laura for her exceptional leadership, wisdom and warmth. She leaves us in strong hands, with Shivani Singhal stepping into the role of Chair – and we look forward to Laura continuing to be part of our People and Planet Committee and wider Caplor community.
What does it mean to be human in the age of AI?
In our Impact Report, we reflected on our ongoing efforts to navigate the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence – embracing its capacity for efficiency and pattern recognition, whilst protecting the deeply human qualities that underpin our work: empathy, curiosity, judgement and relationships.
This question was further explored at our recent People and Planet Committee session, led by our Advisor, Clive Hyland, whose work explores how insights from quantum physics and neuroscience can deepen our understanding of human experience.
His central insight is both clarifying and reassuring. AI can be a powerful tool for processing information and supporting rational analysis – the domain of the Library, in Caplor House terms. But the instinctive and emotional parts of the brain are rooted in bodily experience that AI simply does not possess. It cannot detect the subtle signals we use to read another person's intentions. It cannot truly imagine. And whilst its outputs may appear emotional, they are not. The conclusion is not to resist AI, but to use it wisely – so that we humans can make better judgements, not fewer of them.
For those curious to explore these ideas further, we recommend the podcast TIMELESS – The Human Experience through a Quantum Lens, hosted by Play Lab's Isabel Soden alongside Clive Hyland.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”
– Albert Einstein
Best wishes,
Kemal, Rosie, Lorna and Ian