Rachel Gnagniko

As a Management Consultant, Rachel supports cultural, social, and educational projects in planning and implementing initiatives and creative solutions that answer members’, visitors’, and audiences’ expectations. With over 10 years of experience in the field, she is passionate about using creativity to change lives and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to participate in artistic activities. Rachel founded AMIOKAA LTD, a consultancy, to raise awareness of the framework within which organisations can take holistic steps to engage better and represent the communities they serve.

Rachel works with arts and voluntary organisations across the UK that firmly believe that diversity is a strategic advantage and that by valuing people, organisations can create more value for the communities they serve. Rachel facilitates discovery sessions, leads focus groups, makes sound recommendations, trains staff, and helps plan for crises or missteps. She also evaluates projects against strategic goals and helps identify existing strengths as a critical friend to contribute to continuous improvement. She has published multiple articles and papers on the topic.

Khairani Barokka

Khairani Barokka is a writer, poet and artist in London. She’s a practice-based researcher, whose work centres disability justice as anti-colonial praxis. Among her honours, she was Modern Poetry in Translation’s Inaugural Poet-in-Residence, the first non-British Associate Artist at the UK’s National Centre for Writing, and an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow, and is currently UK Associate Artist at Delfina Foundation and Research Fellow at University of the Arts London.

Okka has made a commitment to projects and events that are as accessible as possible, from venue to presentation, working within constraints. As the disability rights movement coined, “Nothing about us without us.” Khairani Barokka provides consultancy related to the arts and access, race, gender, and archives in particular.  

Kirsty Styles

Journalist, campaigner, researcher and performer, advocating for good information, ethical technology and diverse leadership. Career highlights include bringing civictech stories to millions through business and consumer media, including working as an editor for the New Statesman, creating a flagship public speaker training programme for women in tech in the North and launching a British Podcast Award-winning podcast for the New Economics Foundation.

Recent work includes creating the Standup For Journalism comedy training and performance night, offering journalists a new way to talk about the public interest, and acting as a selection advisor for Nesta’s government-backed Future News Fund in early 2020. In 2019, became the first PhD candidate supported by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, looking at the environmental sustainability of the media. Work as a journalism lecturer at the University of Huddersfield.

Laurentine Insonere Amaliza

Laurentine is a certified Intercultural Trainer & Facilitator. For over 15 years she has worked within international organisations, charities and institutions (e.g. the UNESCO), supporting multicultural teams to develop the tools. Laurentine continuously develop her curricula which combine Intercultural and Diversity Management and Relations, and language training (English).

Laurentine has worked in numerous multicultural environments in organisations and companies, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, the Head office of UNESCO in Paris, France, and the International Translation Agency in Sliema, Malta, etc.

Nafeesa Javed

Nafeesa is our clinical supervisor. She oversees our trauma informed approach through regular clinical supervision sessions with our founder. She holds us accountable for our consistent trauma informed approach in everything we do.

Nafeesa is a trained in Person Centred Theory, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), the Psychodynamic Approach and have recently completed training in Trauma Informed Therapy and working with Adverse Childhood Experiences in both adults and children.

Sandra Pollock OBE

Sandra is a multi-award-winning leadership and management consultant, who brings more than thirty years of experience and knowledge spanning a wide range of sectors. Her award-winning expertise includes Leadership, Management, People development, Organisational Change, DE&I and Membership growth.

Sandra currently holds a number of NED roles and has Chaired various regional and national organisations. Her work on equality has seen her speak at the EU Committee on issues of flexible working, equality in the workplace and the benefits of getting women back into work. She has conducted many local, regional, and national business growth and other projects across England, Scotland, and Wales, and in particular working to engage with underrepresented groups in the workplace and the community. Sandra has worked with senior teams in a number of sectors including Banking, Human Resources, Transport, Manufacturing, Engineering, Police, Social Care, Higher Education, NHS, Membership, and the Voluntary sector.

Sophie Lee

Communication and Engagement Consultant Sophie Lee is a communications expert and the founder of Electric Peach, a brand and marketing consultancy and social impact organisations. She’s passionate about the power of business to create positive change.

She is the founder of Electric Peach, the brand storytelling and impact agency for movers, shakers, and change-makers. Sophie works on systemic and social change campaigns and supports businesses and non-profits to turn their cause into a movement. They also work with for-profit organisations to create impossible-to-ignore stories and electrify new audiences. Sophie is also a non-executive director at the Organisation for Responsible Business and a trustee of a lived experience recovery charity based in the North East.