Our team

Geethika has 25 years experience in the charity sector, including six years as a CEO at sector organisations such as Chance UK, which provides services, mentoring and family support to children aged 5 – 13 with a specific focus on providing tailored support to those who have faced childhood trauma. Geethika is a Trustee of the Jo Cox Foundation, has previously been on the Board of local and national charities Parenting UK and Hopscotch Asian Women’s Centre, and also brings experience as a local government leader, serving eight years as a Councillor in the London Borough of Camden as Cabinet member for Children, Schools and Families, and as a School Governor.   

As Interim Executive Director, Geethika will be supporting the College with the organisation's post merger ambitions for the next year.

Outside of work, Geethika loves reading, spending time with friends and family, and good food! 

Prior to joining the team to set up the Centre for Youth Impact, Bethia worked at the Dartington Social Research Unit, the Young Foundation, the National Youth Agency and NIACE (now the Learning and Work Institute), in a variety of policy and research roles. She has also worked in Further and Higher Education as a teacher and trainer.
 
Bethia leads the strategy for two of our centres of expertise - the Centre for Youth Impact and the Centre for Youth Voice - as well as overseeing our extensive research and evaluation portfolio. Bethia is particularly interested in the relationship between quality and impact in youth work and provision for young people, and in the theory and practice of measurement, especially within collaboratives. Bethia is a 2012 Clore Social Fellow and a Senior Visiting Fellow at Nottingham Trent University.
 
Outside of work, Bethia likes being close to water, wandering round historical buildings and re-reading the novels of Michael Connolly. She loves music and reading about new ideas. She is a Trustee at Datakind UK and a Non-Exec Director of Isledon.

Liz helps shape the College’s approach to research and evaluation, oversees a wide portfolio of projects, and supports the implementation of the College’s research and evaluation strategy. She also contributes to the design and development of research tools and methods, delivers training, and facilitates positive relationships with our partners and funders.

Liz has worked for a range of educational and social research organisations, including the National Foundation for Educational Research, Strategic Research and Insight, and Opinion Research Services. From this, she has accumulated a wealth of research, evaluation, and business development experience. She has successfully managed complex evaluations, evaluability assessments, and mixed method and qualitative research projects for many clients, spanning the fields of education, social justice, and health.

Outside of the College, Liz enjoys horse riding, roller skating, and reading (not all at once).

Anna is leading on our new Centre for Youth Voice, a strand of work which aims to improve the quality, impact and understandings around youth voice practice around the UK. She is also reviewing and developing the College’s approach to youth engagement in research and evaluation more broadly.

Alongside this work, Anna is a Principal of Qualitative research at Renaisi, where she is continuing to grow her specialism in research with young people and a particular interest in issues around young people’s safety and equity. In both roles, she loves thinking about using participatory methods to work more collaboratively with young people. As part of this role, Anna co-leads a team of evaluation and research consultants to delivery Renaisi’s evaluation and research portfolio, with a view to improving quality.

Outside of work, Anna enjoys dancing salsa, playing the saxophone and running around after her one-and-a-half-year-old, who is nearly faster than her.

Prior to this role, Simon worked for YMCA George Williams College for 20 years developing, managing, and delivering professional training, and working with students and organisations across the youth and community sector. Simon’s background in the philosophy of education and youth work has been a strong influence in his writing and research, and continues to drive his commitment to values-centric practice. In his role as Head of Education, Simon will be developing training programmes, resources and support packages, designed to support quality practice, with a particular focus on socio-emotional development in young people.

Outside of work, Simon is a keen tennis player whose aspirations far outweigh his natural ability. He is also a gigging keyboard player working with several local bands and recording artists.

Tim brings with him a range of knowledge and experience from across the education and voluntary sectors. ​​​​​​Passionate about positive change through youth work and non-formal/informal learning, Tim has over 20-years experience in senior management and leadership; including frontline detached work as well as Alternative, Post-16 and Primary education, crediting much of his success to the benefits that come from collaborative networks.

Previously a specialist in youth accreditation and with a view towards supporting those disadvantaged and facing social exclusion, Tim will oversee and grow our Regional Impact Network through partnership working, helping the sector to demonstrate and embed impact improvement through an accessible package of resources and training with sustainability at its core.

It doesn’t take long to find out that Tim loves bouldering/climbing, music and a strong black coffee!

Previously, Josef worked in the further education sector and was responsible for support provision for learners with disabilities, mental health difficulties, and learning differences as well as students with welfare and safeguarding concerns. Understanding the critical role that high quality data plays in planning, delivery and evaluation led Josef to roles in data analysis, web application development, and data modelling in the UK and Europe.
 
Josef’s role at the College is to assist the team to efficiently collect, analyse and model its data in order to draw meaningful insights that can inform research and practice development. Josef is also working on web applications that will share insights with the College’s partners in a collaborative manner.
 
Josef is a keen walker and will happily climb mountains if placed before him. Passionate about the role of science in the environment, computation and politics, Josef will read and watch anything that provides new information and insights in this landscape.

Adam leads on the College’s research projects that centre quantitative research design and analysis, and will also be acting as a bridge between the technical team who develop our digital products, and the users of those products.

Adam has previously worked at the National Youth Agency where for a number of years he worked across all parts of their research portfolio, leading on a number of projects with a focus on better understanding the size and characteristics of youth work organisations. Adam is especially interested in the relationship between ethics, theory and method in data analysis. Adam is also an advocate for data empathy, making data and reporting as accessible as possible to everyone, without compromising its use value.

Outside of work, Adam's main passion is cricket, but will often be found listening to new music and podcasts whilst cooking up a feast in the kitchen. When time allows, Adam will be found exploring the great outdoors and wild-camping.

Catherine specialises in supporting organisations to reflect on the quality of their provision and then embed that learning to improve their work. Previously at the College, Catherine led the pilot of the Youth Programme Quality Intervention, the #iwill Fund Learning Hub Impact Accelerator, and the Just One Question weekly practitioner survey, as well as working directly with Regional Impact Network partners and other youth organisations on various capacity building and shared impact framework projects. 

She now leads on development of our growing sector support offer, including 1:1 support, expansion of our free-to-access resource hubs, workshops, and self-assessment tools. Catherine draws on past experience working at the national youth social action charity, Student Hubs, where she led the network in programme design, delivery, and evaluation, as well as staff training and development, fundraising, and compliance. 

Outside of work, Catherine’s favourite place to be is walking or running along a muddy trail, in her local lido, or at a gig. 

Working in the field of youth work for over 25 years in different sectors, including the Fire Service, and gaining her Masters degree in Youth and Community Development, has enhanced the work Kat has done in the development and delivering of training; whilst maintaining quality through working with different awarding bodies to underpin accredited outcomes.

Her role at the College will encompass all her different experiences and knowledge to develop different training programmes, to meet different sector needs, whilst keeping the learner experience at the forefront of her work.

Outside of work Kat enjoys spending time with her dogs, being creative through different crafting techniques, and when she can, problem solving with a map and compass in the great outdoors.

Hannah is responsible for our day to day comms activity and leads on strategic comms planning for external projects.

With a background in PR, media relations and digital comms spanning over six years across the charity, arts and tech sectors, Hannah specialises in audience and engagement, helping nascent and mid-sized organisations create and deliver impactful campaigns, and strengthen their online and public profiles. She has also led and executed comms and media strategies for high profile events and figures, including influencers, government officials and Royal households. Outside of work, Hannah is a keen photographer, and will eventually finish writing that book she always said she'd write.

Dom is an interdisciplinary researcher, project manager, and policy thinker. He recently returned from the Netherlands, where he spent eight years in academia, completing a PhD and working at universities in Utrecht and Rotterdam. He was a researcher and teacher in the social sciences, and has a passion for understanding the role of data in reducing youth inequalities.

He previously spent half a decade working in policy and programmes for a UK youth membership charity (NCVYS). He's excited about being back home in the UK and combining his international outlook with his academic, policy and civil society knowledge.

Outside work, when Dom's not carting his two young sons around by bike (which is most of the time these days), he's playing sport, getting lost in creative writing projects, or exploring Europe by train.

Hannah leads on the College’s research projects involving qualitative research design and analysis, ensuring that the voices of children and young people are captured and reflected throughout.

Hannah is passionate about authentically and meaningfully involving young people in her work. She has a background in policy research and has worked in the charity youth sector for over 6 years where she specialised in young people at risk. Hannah is an experienced project manager and has an MSc in Social Policy research.

Outside of work Hannah enjoys walking, music, visual art, and spending time with friends and family.

Kayley provides support to the College's new and existing projects, as well as supporting those delivering training at the College, bringing previous expertise in and understanding of online institutional learning methods to the role.

Previously, Kayley supported online students in their studies to understand the processes around their courses, and was particularly interested in the ways in which their learning experiences could be enhanced and best supported. Kayley is passionate about young people's wellbeing and improving practices to better support people and communities, a passion discovered through her MA in Interdisciplinary Psychology.

In her spare time, Kayley can be found reading with her cat on her lap, learning Spanish, or playing badminton with friends.

Zunaira joined the College in September 2021, with a background in social sciences research and a particular interest in social mobility through education.

Zunaira supports our Organisational Research Lead and assists on College-wide research projects. Prior to joining us, Zunaira was involved with grassroots charity 'IntoUniversity' as part of their mentor programme and worked alongside her university as a widening participation ambassador. 

Louisa was previously Head of Consultancy at Renaisi. She oversaw the Consultancy team’s portfolio of projects working with a diverse range of clients including Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn, the National Lottery Community Fund, Impact on Urban Health, Barnardo’s and Defra.

Louisa’s expertise is in qualitative methods, working with diverse groups of participants from service users to senior managers in organisations. She has supported organisations of all shapes and sizes to develop their evaluation capacity and embed learning in their day-to-day operations.

Earlier in her career, Louisa worked for the Office of Public Management, the Local Government Association and The Young Foundation. She has a PhD in social policy that examined contested youth work policy agendas and was part funded by the National Youth Agency.  

Outside of work, Louisa can mostly be found on her bicycle, by the coast or up a mountain.

As a teenager, Tom was actively involved in child rights and youth work organisations and he has a long history of engagement in the youth sector domestically and globally. He is an experienced freelance consultant working with organisations leading research and evaluation projects; wider capacity development and training; and providing interim leadership. He focuses his work on child rights, youth participation; equity, diversity and inclusion; and safeguarding. He has previously Interim Executive Director at the Centre for Youth Impact and an associate of YMCA George Williams College. He has worked for the Children’s Rights Alliance for England and was previously Deputy CEO at Y Care International, the international development agency of the YMCA in the UK & Ireland. He holds a PgDip Educational and Social Research Methods from the Institute of Education.Outside of work, Tom spends most of his time with friends eating and drinking with a pretence of theatre, film, clubbing and the occasional country walk.