We’ve assembled a kick-ass team of Urbanists, Climate Strategists, Designers, Community engagement professionals and Impact driven individuals who make change happen.

J Jean Darling

FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR

Jean Darling

FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR

Jean is a regenerative designer of the built environment, and unapologetically driven by issues of climate emergency and community resilience, closed loop food systems and collective strategies for social and environmental change. She has a trans-disciplinary background in Architecture, Placemaking and Social enterprise and has a whole systems approach to people, spaces, and spatial programming.

She sees the city as a "living laboratory" and loves creating deliberative, real human empowerment and connection through the design of urban interventions. She believes that reconnecting and regenerating the land we build on is one of the ways forward to solving our climate crisis, the core driving force that planted the seed for Cirque du Soil.  She spends her downtime taking her kids out on outdoor adventures, oscillating between beach or snow, or pottering around the house turning as many spaces as she can into mini urban farms.

S Stephen Mason

SOCIAL IMPACT AND OPERATIONS ADVISOR

Stephen Mason

SOCIAL IMPACT AND OPERATIONS ADVISOR

Stephen has an MBA in Global Sustainable Development and is passionate in leading social and environmental change. He works with co-operatives, social enterprises and the not-for-profit sector to assist organisations achieve their purpose. He is passionate about stakeholder led design, where all parties have agency.   If he had his way, the entire world would be a hybrid version of Mondragon (the world’s leading Co-operative society), and the principles of the circular economy would be taught to babies  He is supporting Cirque du Soil scale into a sustainable social enterprise because he is passionate about solving climate issues by shifting consumer behaviour. In his spare time when he isn’t supporting our operations he can be found building anything from houses to motorbikes, cooking food from his garden, or most likely playing with a financial model.

R Rachel Wilke

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Rachel Wilke

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Rachel is Cirque's graphic designer and originally from Michigan with a bachelors degree in landscape architecture, and as much as she loves design and drawing - her biggest passion is being on the ground and in the garden, come hail, rain or shine. She is passionate about plants and all the benefits they provide for a community. When she returns to the USA, she is interested in starting social enterprises and is currently absorbing as much as she can from Cirque Du Soil. She has already realized that there's lot of trial and error in order make a dream like this work!  Rachel arrived in Melbourne as lockdown was implemented, so now she is spreading her wings and exploring as much as the Ozzie landscape as she can! You can frequently find her at Princess Park playing games and picnicking with her housemates.

C Caitlin Phillips-Peddlesden

COMMUNITY AND PROJECTS COORDINATOR

Caitlin Phillips-Peddlesden

COMMUNITY AND PROJECTS COORDINATOR

Caitlin comes to Cirque du Soil from the International Development sector, where she has done a bit of everything, from partnerships coordination, to project design and management, monitoring evaluation and learning, and capacity development. She's also Circular Program Officer at Circular Economy Victoria and on the Board of Directors of an Australian health peak body. She has worked and lived in the Pacific and Central America, and worked with and for Australian First Nations communities and groups.

Caitlin supports Cirque du Soil with all things monitoring, evaluation and measurement, including across project design and research, partnerships and stakeholder management, grants development, and evaluation and learning. Growing up in the Tassie bush with hippie parents she learnt to Reduce, Re-use, Recycle from birth, and has a keen professional and personal interest in Placemaking, inclusive community building, and sustainable circular economies. When not subtly guilting family and friends into reducing their personal waste she can be found bike riding, dancing, reading, hugging trees, and (badly) crafting.

B Benny Mazzetti

OPERATIONS COORDINATOR

Benny Mazzetti

OPERATIONS COORDINATOR

Benny Mazzetti is born and raised in Melbourne, with a degree in Film and television which he pursues in his down time. He's always in the hospitality trenches in Fitzroy, and sees the amount of food and coffee waste that gets thrown in the bin on a daily basis, which has inspired him to repurpose food waste as reusable resources.


The most recent addition to the Cirque du soil operations team, Benny is one of the awesome faces you'll see during our ops runs, tracking residential and commercial food waste to where it needs to get to - getting composted! In his words "I've learn quickly it’s an indescribable feeling helping and doing something better for the environment". Currently Benny is working on a product start up utilising recycled coffee grounds and using them in ways never before seen in Australia. Outside of his busy 9-5 schedule, you can find him at the Red Triangle pool hall in Fitzroy or shredding the skate bowl at Edinburgh gardens.

N Nanon Karnchanachari

MARKETING COORDINATOR

Nanon Karnchanachari

MARKETING COORDINATOR

Nanon, affectionately otherwise known as Non, is Cirque’s marketing coordinator. Raised in Thailand, he moved to Melbourne to complete his Bachelor of Commerce and Marketing and fell in love with the city. Nanon is currently completing his Master of environment, focusing on sustainable business practices and food system transformation and has since discovered that he wants to use the skills gained in his undergraduate degree for positive social impact.

He is passionate about issues of inequity within the food system through the empowerment of local actors. He joined Cirque for the opportunity to put his studies into practice to create change. Nanon hopes to learn as much as he can to tackle the problem of food waste back home in Thailand. During his free time, Nanon is also a drummer with a band, and frequently visits farmers markets searching for unusual produce to experiment with in the kitchen.

B Benedict Aguirre

UX GRADUATE

Benedict Aguirre

UX GRADUATE

Benedict was born in the Philippines and moved to Melbourne in 2004. Benedict previously studied at ACU doing a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) degree but fell out of love with the subject. He found his passion moving into a Bachelor of Design specialising in Digital Media at RMIT, and utilizes his critical thinking skills from his previous course in order to make digital designs better for the audience. Benedict wants to use his skills in a more understanding way, wanting to teach others about the importance of humanity, social equality and empathy.  

Benedict joined Cirque Du Soil as he believes that the organisation shares his values, where his goals are to inspire society to do better in an increasingly digital world, where digital design comes at the forefront of expressing these values.

R Reanna Willis

CAMPAIGN ENGAGEMENT

Reanna Willis

CAMPAIGN ENGAGEMENT

Reanna is an undercover Queenslander who has landed in Melbourne after an extended detour living in Patagonia, where she crammed in all the hiking and tango she could. While this had little to do with her background in soil and agricultural science, she did learn a whole lot about diversity and connection. She has recently finished a Master of Environment, where she dug deep into regenerative sustainability, placemaking, circular economy, and urban food systems.

In her consulting work, she is pursuing global change through engaging businesses in sustainability and helping to find new opportunities in the low carbon transition. She complements this with a local focus at Cirque du Soil as part of the Engagement Team, connecting with other office dwellers and small businesses to find holistic organic waste solutions. She loves that Cirque keeps her grounded in her local community and constantly reimagining and creating better waste outcomes. Reanna is a passionate advocate for living better through living more sustainably, and when she’s not thinking about this or dancing tango, you’ll probably find her tending to her vegetable garden.

S Sally Harrison

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE - GROWGOOD R&D

Sally Harrison

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE - GROWGOOD R&D