OUR C.E.O.

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Lee has almost 20 years’ experience working with young people in a variety of educational, charitable and community settings. He has a first class honours degree in Education Studies, and continues to study and apply different educational philosophies and pedagogic techniques. Having spent much of his career working in the third sector, he has specialised in strategy, organisational efficiency, organisational finance, people management and problem solving, alongside working directly with young people or service users. 

As well as a keen interest in charitable and ethical pursuits and politics, Lee enjoys the great outdoors, especially gardening, and walking his dog with his wife Ellen and three children in the countryside around his home just south of Bath.

Sophia is an advocate of social mobility and has over 15 years’ experience working in higher education and the charity sector, with expertise and passion for enabling young people reach their potential. She has a wealth of experience in partnership building, boosting employability, widening participation, project management, and delivering workshops to young people predominantly across London and Essex.

Laura joins us with a wealth of experience in mentoring where she received the National Mentor of the Year award from Career Ready, a social mobility charity with 5,000 mentors. She is currently Education Coach with Innerscope and Programme Director of  the North Star Programme.

Her experience  working with students with needs relating to challenging behaviour makes her the perfect choice to develop and deliver our WizeUp with Jack Petchey programme for PRUs.

Earlier in her career Laura was COO of City University School of Arts and Social Sciences.

Mona is a social mobility advocate deeply committed to diversity, inclusion, and social impact.  She has a track record of driving change with innovative programmes and effective leadership.  She is a goal-driven entrepreneur, comfortable with generating and implementing long-term strategies to spur growth and maximise reach. Creative and passionate about building purpose-driven and impact-led programmes designed to bolster the confidence and employability prospects of young people from diverse backgrounds. 

Mona is an educational and skills policy expert and has experience with working with Boards of Trustees.  She has delivered senior-level partnerships across higher education, Government, and financial services.  She has created initiatives which have raised aspirations, driven employability prospects and increased confidence for young people, from low, socio-economic backgrounds. Mona believes that your background shouldn’t determine your life outcomes and so, there should be diversity, inclusion, and equity at progression. She has set up highly complex programmes that are purpose-driven and impact-led for many organisations such as the City of London Corporation, Department for Education and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. 

Currently, Mona is a Director for a Community Interest Company, LMP Action and sits on the Senior Executive Board for the LMP Group. Prior to joining LMP Action C.I.C., she set up the Government-commissioned taskforce (BEIS and HM Treasury), which seeks to boost and improve socio-economic diversity at senior levels within UK Financial and Professional Services and ran the secretariat. She has a strong knowledge of trends relating to the UK Skills Bill and Levelling Up agenda and experience of working with boards. Mona is Vice-Chair of Trustees at Birkbeck Student’s Union and Governor at the John Dewey Specialist College.  She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Ash helps big dreamers become high achievers. Using his background in Mechanical Engineering, Management and Business, he led the learning and development agenda at a people management firm and was quickly nominated as the youngest director in the company. Ash now runs his own business to help companies develop high performing teams by putting people and culture at the heart of all success.

Ash believes in short-cutting the journey to “success” by learning from those who have achieved what you want to achieve. This has allowed him to quickly gain a lot of experience, work with some of the world’s biggest companies and opened his eyes to the infinite opportunities this world has to offer.

He loves to bring his energy and enthusiasm to train others in developing confidence, communication and leadership skills in hopes that he can one day be the short-cut to someone else’s success.

Marie has 25 years experience of working in the financial sector. This involved being a financial specialist in advising and educating clients from Adults, Students and young children in supporting their future and putting them on the right path of life. She has also been a Branch Manager  for Nationwide Building Society, Barclays and most recently Market Harborough Building Society. In her most recent role, she was responsible for running 3 branches across Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. Marie has  a passion for capacity creation by engaging colleagues in change and enjoys training them to support this change. She is

happily married with 3 wonderful grown up children, enjoying holidays, weekends away and socialising. Marie enjoys watching football and supports Leicester City.

Samina is a  TV professional with a 30+ years career in media. She has honed her skills in live TV, news, current affairs, entertainment, documentaries, and live online events. Her natural ability to connect with people has made her a popular host, emcee, and moderator for various events, including awards ceremonies, a BAFTA members' film screening and panel sessions.

Samina runs a media consultancy delivering communication and broadcast skills to professionals, businesses and educational institutions, and supports young people with their future careers.
She is a passionate advocate for driving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion across the media industry and believes that we all have the opportunity to influence and lead real change.

   Katharine Matthews is an ex-English teacher with over 15 years’ experience at Secondary level, now running two successful businesses.  Following a long position as Second in Department, tracking progress and data and overseeing intervention, then a Whole School Literacy Coordinator role, she left teaching to start her own business as a Copywriter and Marketing Consultant. Two years later, she set up a local networking organisation, hosting an  range of events to support other professionals and boost her local economy.  She runs the two alongside parenting a young family with her husband, and enjoys walks with their cocker spaniel, yoga, watching psychological thrillers - and a lot of coffee!

"Luisa has over 20 years experience in mentoring, assisting in the training of professionals for jobs in the corporate and medical sector, facilitating workshops, and public speaking at educational institutions. Her experience as a public speaker in schools, highlights Luisa's ability to engage young minds on career path trajectories and post school options. She has worked as a teaching assistant, drama facilitator and workshop leader, enthusing people to find their voices and develop critical thinking to make informed choices.  
Luisa is also an actor with 20 + years experience on stage and screen productions, as well as computer games (voice over and motion capture), puppetry, and creature performance.  She studied at Royal Holloway, University of London and then went onto train at The Royal School of Speech and Drama. She has worked for companies including The National Theatre, Netflix, Legendary Entertainment, Disney, Guerrilla Games, Ubisoft, BBC3 Comedy, The Harold Pinter Theatre, and CBBC, to name a few. Her work as a performing arts professional supports her ability to connect to a wide demographic of people in an entertaining, humorous, inclusive and welcoming way; this makes Luisa an approachable and inviting speaker.
Luisa co-runs a production company called Old Lamp Entertainment with her partner, has a daughter and a ginger cat. She considers 'adulting' to be over-rated, finance to be important, and wisdom to be something earned through experience and not necessarily age. She is very much looking forward to working with WizeUp Financial Education to deliver presentations for the 'adulting-discerning' but 'vibrantly enthused' when it comes to financial know-how and confidence."

Emma is a retired Police Chief Inspector from Greater Manchester Police.  Throughout her career, she’s been a staunch campaigner for people’s rights and independence, particularly children and young people as well as those who are deaf or disabled. She became a specialist in safeguarding and protecting children and vulnerable adults and nationally developed the strategy for Deaf Access to Policing significantly improving access to justice for deaf individuals. Emma is delighted to be joining the team with her passion to continue her safeguarding plight by helping to improve financial wellbeing through the delivery of our courses.