Meera Saravanan | Project Officer | Academics Against Assault
Meera is a second year Politics student at University in London.
Having grown up in Greater Manchester she has been involved in many different youth voice and youth activism projects since the age of 11. She first had the opportunity to make tangible change when she was elected as the Member of Youth Parliament of Trafford, this spurred her on to fight for young people to be brought into the forefront of issues that mattered to them. In addition, Meera was a member of the Greater Manchester Youth Combined Authority and aided in decision making county wide. This led Meera to actively campaigning for better mental health access for young people in GM, specifically, in conjunction with BeeWell, where she has been an Advisor since 2021. At university, Meera has been an active member of the Politics and International Relations Society and is currently acting as Careers Officer. In this role she is working to champion other young people of colour and ensure they have fair access to all opportunities. More recently, Meera was appointed to be the Project Officer of a new grassroots organisation, Academics Against Assault. Following many years of fighting for better mental health support, she is keen to help implement mandatory consent education within universities and change the narrative of this subject in higher education settings.
Hannah Kupoluyi | Lead Mentor | All Women's Network
Hannah Kupoluyi is the founder and CEO of All Women's Network and a multi-award-winning business coach, podcast host, and executive producer. She also leads community projects to empower women.
All Women's Network offers skills and entrepreneurship workshops to women who face barriers to resources and education in Barking and Dagenham. Hannah is committed to serving women in her community who face economic barriers to skills development and entrepreneurship.
Her outstanding work in empowering women in her community is commendable. Hannah has been a trailblazer in providing workshops, training, and resources to women who are looking to build up their skills and start a business.
Through All Women's Network projects Hannah has provided invaluable support and guidance to countless women, helping them to develop the skills and knowledge they need to start and grow their own businesses. She has also created a strong network of successful business owners who serve as role models and mentors to others.
Hannah has been particularly effective in helping women from underrepresented communities, providing them with the support and resources they need to overcome barriers and succeed in a life .
She is the current leader of the BD Women's Network and has been effective in bringing together women-led organisations to create partnerships and offer tools to support women in making
Godspromise Adeosun | CEO & Founder | Envision Changes
I am the CEO & Founder of a community enterprise.
I have won several awards in recognition for my vision of how to implement change in youth culture within London. These include; Mentoring and Advice Award from the University of Essex, as well as being honoured Youth Ambassador from The Good Samaritan Foundation.
During the wake of gun and knife violence in London, I decided to tackle this issue by mentoring gang members and reintegrating them into work/education with hope for a better future. I also created a redundancy programme at no costs during the pandemic to help people get back into the working world. As a result, I was celebrated at Times Square international women's day.
In addition to that, I was invited to speak at the University of Southampton and was amongst the speakers at the 'Keep Our Youths Safe' event alongside several mayors and councillors. Subsequently, due to her vision on how to implement change in London I was invited to the Lord Mayor’s Dragons Award. I was recognised for my work with my enterprise and the impact it has had on society amongst other companies such as NatWest, Metro Bank & Allen and Overy by Lord, Lady Mayoress Alderman Charles & Mrs Samantha bowman.
To top it all, I landed my first international podcast, a feature on USA’ very own iheartRadio. I am currently nominated for the Venus Award - Coined by Channel 4 as “the working women’s Oscars” and has recently been interviewed on BBC Radio for her impact.
Chandni Patel | Delivery Manager | Connectr
In high school, I wasn't always academically clever where I didn't achieve my GCSE English or Maths so I resat the year in A-levels, leaving me a year behind.
I ended up choosing 3 A-levels which wasn't my first choice giving me limited options when leaving POST-18. I applied for a childhood studies course at university which my parents weren't happy with coming from an Indian household they wanted me to go into nursing or healthcare. On the day of the results, I suddenly declined my offers. I wasn't ready for university. Told my parents who were absolutely disappointed and lost faith in me. The only option I had was an apprenticeship. I did this for 2 years as a teaching assistant. Applied to university again to become a teacher. After, graduation I went into charity work where my passion grew and grew after volunteering for 3 years while at university. volunteered in India twice and America 1 for mix projects. I started working with a local charity called Spark! where I was able to give back and inspire the next generation in their career options. I loved the sector and enjoyed helping YP discover different options for their careers as I had a tangent one. I'm now a project manager, enterprise volunteer, trustee, mental health blogger and mentor. I mentor a group of pupil premium girls as a alumni in my old high. I've always been a giver and love helping others become successful in their own light.
Celia Warrender | Scrum master | whg
I am passionate about the role that the public and third sector have to play in building stronger communities and have dedicated my career to date, to work across this sector in a variety of roles.
My early career started in offender rehabilitation at HMP, working in education and employment before moving into accredited programme delivery, first as a Psychological Assistant and later as Deputy Treatment Manager.
Following this, I worked for many years in community substance misuse and floating support services, again specialising in work related to offender rehabilitation, as well as working to form better partnerships between substance misuse and other public and third sector organisations to improve outcomes. During this time I also completed a secondment at Birmingham City Council as lead for Domestic Violence, within their new homeless gateway service.
On my return from the council to substance misuse services, I worked as a performance improvement and implementation manager, supporting the transfer and increase in performance of new services into our organisation, finishing as team leader of a new floating support service for people with life-long illnesses.
On deciding to move on from front-line services and progress into a career of project management and agile transformation, I still wanted to be able to contribute to these services, taking my first role as an associate project manager with West Midlands Police and then moving across to social and affordable housing first at Midland Heart and subsequently to my current role of Scrum Master in IT at whg.
Anita Marinelli | Founder & Trustee | My Shining Star Childrens Cancer Charity
In 2014, I raised 600,000 in 9 months for a child diagnosed with cancer.
As a result of this, I decided to start My Shining Star Childrens Cancer Charity in 2016 and have raised 1.5 million to day for children affected by the hardship of cancer along with their families.
The charity's purpose to support with financial stability for families during the worst time of their lives. It became clear that while there is help out there for treatment, no one is going to help the families when a child needs extra care or when a parent has to give up their job to do this and keep the family together.
I have helped to fulfil many wishes for cancer in my spare time, including those for dying children, sending Disney and Marvel to a terminal child's home for a private showing of an unfinished film (we later found out it was End Game), as well as wishes with Premier League football players, You Tubers and other famous stars.
Abimbola Ajala | Lead vol | Lahafrica
Abimbola is a Social Enterprenur with over Eight years experience, spanning Education, development, Non profit management and community engagement.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English language from Obafemi Awolowo University Ile ife Nigeria, she proceeded to Lagos business school for her Mini MBA in Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
Abimbola is currently the Executive Director of Lend a hand for the development of Africa, a Non profit organization in Lagos Nigeria dedicated to supporting families in underserved communities in Africa, starting with Nigeria her immediate community with Educational scholarships and a blend of supplementary initiatives which includes the food drive and padforagirl drive.
The various projects from the organization encourages children to go and stay in school thereby reducing poverty and illiteracy in local communities.
Through fund raising and partnerships she has promoted the Girl child Education, through her Pad for a girl drive over Fifteen thousand girls across Nigeria have gotten access to sanitary pads and counseling. Her documentary #ibleeddifferent on YouTube further discusses period poverty. Presently close to Fifty beneficiaries are on the Scholarship scheme fully funded.
Also monthly beneficiaries in various communities get access to food supplies thereby improving the learning outcomes of these beneficiaries.
Abbey Wong | Director | Voice ESEA
At 25, Abbey is a director at VoiceESEA, an alumni trustee at upReach, and an Associate Data Science consultant at Capgemini Invent.
Wherever she contributes, her drive to create top-down change is evident. Throughout her projects, she enjoys uplifting systems using her quantitative data and tech skills, and insight into social mobility.
At Voice ESEA, an educational non-profit organisation focussed on tackling racism against East and Southeast Asians (ESEAs), she leads a 10-person team, creating resources and events for the public to learn about the ESEA community.
At Capgemini Invent, she organises the Women in Analytics and AI team, enabling social change through community events and collaborative, educational networks.
Sheryl Agyemang | Senior Marketing Manager | SunLife
A dedicated T-shaped marketer with over 12 years of experience in agency and client-side roles across a plethora of sectors and in multiple positions.
This has given me a wide view of the industry and enhanced my experience and therefore output. Beyond this I am big believer in positive change, what I mean by this is making work and life more equitable for people bit by bit whether that’s through education, lending my skills to organisations making change or leveraging my network.
Sarah Painter | VP, Experience Marketing | Merkle
Sarah leads dentsu and Merkle’s Experience Marketing team, developing and executing the commercial and experiential marketing strategy to support the growth and innovation strategy.
She also chairs the Parents & Carer’s ERG and recently launched dentsu’s Women in Tech network. Sarah previously led Merkle’s UK Customer Experience practice, which included teams across digital experience, creative, merchandising, and search engine optimisation (SEO). Before her CX role, Sarah led the UK SEO practice, building the team from the ground up and growing the Merkle SEO presence across EMEA. Prior to joining Merkle, Sarah worked in legal marketing at Covington & Burling and in the Finance and Strategy practice at CEB (now Gartner).