President
Sonny is the legal representative of the Association, and its institutional relations manager. He directs the general administration of IHP. He supervises the daily management of the horses, in which he plays an active role, and selects and coordinates the volunteers. He liaises with the public prosecutors in relation to confiscated equines maintained by IHP, handles reports of possible mistreatment and organises the IHP investigations.
Sonny has been a LAV (Lega Anti Vivisezione - Italy's most important animal rights association) volunteer for many years up to the present, covering various offices starting from 1999. Among other things, he was a LAV National Directive Council member from 2002 to 2006, LAV President from 2004 to 2006, and the National Manager of the LAV Equine Sector from 2004 to 2008. He was Director of the Flaminia da Filicaja Foundation in 2009, before founding IHP.
Up to 2007 Sonny worked in a bank, rising to the position of Branch Manager, before the radical life-changing decision to work for his abiding passion, horse welfare.

Executive board and EIA horses management
She graduated in Natural Sciences, Nature Conservation (University Federico II, Naples) in 2005. Specialized in Ethology: animal welfare and management (University of Florence, prof. Dessì).
She approached IHP in 2017. She fine-tuned her knowledge about horses mainly through field work and the management of free-roaming horses at IHP, in particular by working with some horses who had suffered abuse and trauma in the past.
She has always been a great lover of nature and animals and has been committed to fighting against animal cruelty and environmental degradation for many years. At IHP, Anna looks after horses positive for equine infectious anaemia on a daily basis (see our in-depth discussion), which by law must be kept separate from other horses and are therefore in a separate Centre.

Executive board

With a passion for animals, especially horses, cultivated since she was a child, for many years she has been on a path of knowledge that began with the grey Asterix, to whom she dedicates herself body and soul: thanks to him she experimented with the concept of natural management, starting from the possibility of keeping horses free and in herds until she chose to keep him barefoot, initially meeting the criticism of those who still have a vision of horses linked to their use rather than their needs. In this search for new and more natural horizons for horses, she came across IHP, which promotes the idea of respect and protection and which strives every day to try to improve the life of these beautiful animals.

Since November 2020 IHP has been collaborating with Galli Torrini comunicazione, a communication agency that in recent years has established itself at a national level as one of the most powerful tools to give a voice to and communicate the strategies of organisations, companies, associations and events. An authoritative, varied, and numerous staff, made up of freelance and professional journalists, present throughout the country and in sectors ranging from politics to economics, from fashion to artisan crafts, from social welfare to health, from sport to food and wine.

Translations
She first encountered IHP a few years ago and initially followed their activities from afar without being an active part of the association. Later she had the opportunity to get to know the association from the inside as well as the world that pivots around horses. The deep respect for IHP and the people who work there led her to propose herself as a translator, to bring IHP's communication abroad and to strengthen international cooperation.

Translations
Susan has lived in Italy for over 30 years. Born in England, she caught the horse bug at a tender age and has never recovered! Susan uses her translation skills to contribute to the betterment of horses' lives, supporting IHP horse care information campaigns and the battle against equine abuse. She has a diploma in horse behaviour (Warwick College, GB).

Dr Emanuela Valle, DVM, PhD, is an Associate Professor of the Department of Veterinary Sciences of the University of Torino. She is European Specialist in Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition of the EBVS (European Board of Veterinary Specialisation®). She teaches equine welfare, equine nutrition for wellbeing, and animal nutrition. She is vice-coordinator of the School of Specialisation in Pathology and Healthcare of Companion Animals. She is the delegate of the Director as President of the ECM Commission (Continuous Learning in Medicine) of the Veterinary Sciences Department. She heads the equine nutrition for wellbeing section of the Specialised Teaching Unit of the Veterinary Sciences Department, and is on the teaching team for the doctorate. She has been a horse lover, and a keen observer of them from childhood, putting her passion into practice caring for her horses and her dogs.

Rachele Malavasi is a science popularizer and specialist in ethology for the School of Ethical Riding (SEE). She has conducted research in the field of inter-species cooperation between bird species and inter-species communication between man and horse, with the support of the CNR (National Research Council) and the collaboration with the Vienna Veterinary University (Messerli Institute). She currently collaborates with the Universities of Turin and Bologna on thesis projects related to equine ethology (cognitive bias, innovative thinking), which are carried out at EquiLuna A.S.D.  (MS), of which she is vice-president and where she helps with the natural management of paddocks with a group of about 20 domestic horses.  She will soon start working as one of the lecturers involved in the Master's degree course in "Horse Behaviour and Management of Horse Welfare" at the University of Bologna. She has been interviewed about her researches and the cognitive-relational approach to horses by National Geographic, Radio2, Radio24. Her desire for dialogue with people on concrete problems relating to their relationship with horses has inspired her to integrate scientific knowledge with practice, until she obtained the title of Basic Ethical Horse Riding Trainer in 2015. She currently holds theoretical and practical seminars throughout Italy and collaborates with L’Arca di Noè (Noah's Ark) with a monthly column in the paper magazine.