Grow your team
When you become an Inclusive Employers’ Member you grow your I&D team.
Your account manager works with you to understand your goals, your challenges and achievable next steps.
Do you need more support for your inclusive culture to thrive?
1) Can you tell us how you came to be in your role
I’ve always sought jobs that align with my values. I started my working life as a teacher in Further Education. I worked with young people who had left school without any qualifications, usually because of difficult home lives, substance use, being in care, undiagnosed or unsupported neurodivergence or disability, or time spent in the criminal justice system. I worked in teaching for 8 years, including training new teachers on the in-house PGCE programme. I left teaching because I was burnt out and quite unwell – unfortunately an all-too-common story in the sector!
Inspired by the interactions I’d had with homeless support services while working with sofa-surfing and precariously housed teenagers, I moved into the homelessness sector. Working for a homelessness charity opened my eyes to the world of staff networks. Staff networks didn’t exist in the FE sector when I worked there – there was a lot of silence around any area of diversity. So much so that I never felt able to be ‘out’ about being bi or trans. Thankfully the LGBTQ+ Network at St Mungo’s welcomed me with open arms, and as I got more involved in leading the network and influencing cultural change across the organisation I realised: I want to do this as a day job!
I did some freelance trans inclusion work alongside my day job to build my skills a little, and then stumbled across Inclusive Employers at an event in 2018. I kept an eye on their website, saw a Consultant vacancy and got the job. Since then I’ve moved from an I&D Consultant to a Head of Service and I’m now Director of Impact and Major Programmes.
2) Can you share an ‘inclusion moment’ with us – a time when you have felt included either at work or in your personal life?
I’m autistic, and being on video calls is particularly tiring for me as I need to process the visual and audio stimuli and consciously think about what my face should be doing. My colleagues know this, and will often start a video call with me by asking “would you like a cameras off call?” It’s a small gesture that makes a big difference.
Become an Inclusion Ally“Working on our reverse mentoring and Inclusion Allies programmes has been a real privilege – I’ve seen people genuinely transformed by taking part, and the wider ripple effect on the organisation from the individuals in each cohort.”
3) What do you love most about your role?
I feel very fortunate to be Director of Impact and Major Programmes. We know IE has been making a difference to the organisations we work with for 13 years: my job is to build our approach to evidence the impact we make. It’s so wonderful to see the difference we make: whether it’s an individual on a webinar having an ‘aha!’ moment or the slower, long term shifts in structures and cultures that drive inclusive cultures. I’m also responsible for the Inclusive Employers Standard and CMI Qualifications teams and it’s wonderful to see these areas continue to grow and develop.
4) What is a typical day like for you?
No two days are the same, which keeps me on my toes! As a Director I work very closely with the other Directors, CFO and CEO. On a typical day we could be strategy planning, developing budgets, reviewing performance data, or spending time with our leadership coach. I speak regularly to my team, getting updates and checking in. A lot of my job is connecting people and strands of work to our bigger picture, making sure nobody is working in siloes and our talented colleagues can contribute to internal projects.
5) What’s been your most memorable moment in your inclusion career?
I’ve been very fortunate to support many organisations to develop more inclusive cultures, and there have been several memorable moments for me. Working on our reverse mentoring and Inclusion Allies programmes has been a real privilege – I’ve seen people genuinely transformed by taking part, and the wider ripple effect on the organisation from the individuals in each cohort.
Grow your team
When you become an Inclusive Employers’ Member you grow your I&D team.
Your account manager works with you to understand your goals, your challenges and achievable next steps.
Do you need more support for your inclusive culture to thrive?
Get to know more of the Inclusive Employers team
5 minutes with… Kate Adams
5 minutes with… Amandeep Hothi
5 minutes with… Raquel Silvestre
5 minutes with… John Zafar
5 minutes with… Courtney Wright
5 minutes with… Nozomi Tolworthy
5 minutes with… Sean Childerley
5 minutes with… Amy Gibbons
5 minutes with… Tanisha Singla
5 minutes with… Ruth-Anne Eghan
5 minutes with… Garry Clarke-Strange