MeetOur Team

Rishika joined Spark Inside as a Service Delivery Manager in February 2022. She joins us as an Unlocked Graduates Ambassador with strong knowledge of the criminal justice system and the prison service. Her previous work includes completing a part-time Master’s degree, researching and helping to co-author a policy paper exploring the effects of restricted prison regimes as a result of Covid-19 and working towards a youth work qualification. Rishika feels strongly about the importance of embedding policy, frontline knowledge and academic research to drive rehabilitation and culture change. She is looking forward to seeing what the ​“new normal” consists of within the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS and how her role at Spark Inside can help to deliver change and make a meaningful impact.

Cecilia is our Participation and Engagement Manager, overseeing our In-Prison Advisory Boards and leading on our commitment to platforming the voices of the young people we work with. She joins us with knowledge of the criminal justice system (most recently as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Kingston University) and has extensive experience of working with young people, including facilitating leadership, mentoring, confidence building and self-esteem sessions and programmes. Cecilia is passionate about working with young people and committed to nurturing, encouraging, and developing the expression of their voices, having experienced the unequivocal impact this has.

Vicki joined Spark Inside as CEO in 2020 after a decade of working in leadership roles in the criminal justice sector, following an earlier career in public policy. She has led justice collaborations to secure legislative change; and helped found the ground-breaking Transition to Adulthood Alliance. She holds a Masters in Social Policy from the LSE, is a Winston Churchill Fellow, and a regular media commentator. Read more about Vicki’s appointment to CEO on our blog!

Follow Vicki on Twitter: @vickihcardwell 

Luke joined Spark Inside as Head of Service Delivery in February 2022. He has been managing services in the criminal justice sector for the past ten years, most recently with Pact where he was responsible for projects across London & South East. He has extensive operational experience, particularly running services providing professional support to vulnerable adults in the community and in prison, as well as in the areas of homelessness, mental health, supported housing, training, volunteer management, and care-experienced young people.

After gaining several years of administrative experience, Charlie joined Spark Inside to use her skills to make a social impact. In 2020, after two years as office administrator, Charlie was delighted to move to the Communications team where she centres and amplifies the voices of young people empowered by coaching!

Tom worked for 15 years designing and delivering experiential personal development training, culture change programmes and practice innovation workshops for corporate, statutory and community clients. Then, in 2006 a tragic stabbing on his doorstep motivated him to focus on his local community. He delivered community cohesion and youth engagement projects for his local authority before landing the first of a number of management roles in youth charities. Over the next 12 years he gained a solid grounding in programme design, impact assessment, project management and leading quality processes in education, prison and community settings. Tom is committed to addressing the systemic and cultural issues that cause inequality. He believes in social justice and everybody’s potential to lead a fulfilling and valuable life. After serving Spark Inside as a trustee leading on Monitoring and Evaluation, Tom is thrilled to join the Head Office team as Head of Impact and Innovation.

I am joining the team as an Unlocked Graduates Ambassador, having completed three years as a prison officer. I am currently in the process of publishing my Master’s Dissertation in the sphere of gender and sexism in the criminal justice system, comparing perceptions of and attitudes towards female officers operating in male prisons. I am passionate about equal opportunities for all and overcoming both personal and social barriers. I am therefore a firm believer that every individual can succeed with the right guidance and support and consequently feel that life coaching is an invaluable tool in enabling agency and empowerment. I believe that rehabilitation not only requires the individuals’ willingness and engagement, but a change in the prison system itself. I am therefore a strong advocate for interventions and courses that challenge perceptions and place personal growth and future-thinking at their core and believe this can best be achieved through my role at Spark Inside. 

Kate is an experienced coach and supervisor and an accredited Gestalt Practitioner in Organisations. She has over 25 years experience in healthcare as a senior leader in the NHS and in a wide variety of settings such as psychological therapies, eating disorders, mother & baby services. She has worked strategically and operationally both at local and regional levels. Kate started her gestalt career over 30 years ago and has trained in psychotherapy, coaching, supervision and organisational consulting. She currently works independently offering a range of Organisation Development/​coaching/​supervision services and has a particular interest in bringing a relational OD approach to complex and challenging systems.

Lanre joined Spark Inside as a Service Delivery Manager in December 2023. Lanre bring to Spark Inside 12 years of experience working with vulnerable and under-served children and young people, including as a county lines caseworker, gang violence prevention facilitator, and young mother and baby group leader. He is also in the process of completing a therapeutic wellbeing practitioner course. Lanre is pleased to be working with Spark Inside, using his skills and passion for supporting children and young people to help them make positive changes in their lives.

Benita joined Spark Inside in December 2020. As Operations Manager she is the first point of contact and responsible for the smooth running of the organisation’s operations including office, facilities, database, IT, and supporting with finance, HR and governance. Prior to this, Benita worked for several charitable organisations in a variety of roles including operations, fundraising, events and communications, working with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised in the areas of children and families, young people and human rights, justice and prison reform. Benita feels passionately about using her skills within organisations that provide education and opportunities to address inequality and break down the cycles of poverty and disadvantage.

Naina is a leadership and executive coach, a coach supervisor, a communication skills specialist and a diversity and inclusion consultant. Her facilitation and training style is highly experiential, engaging and energising and her systemic approach and coaching credentials inform her approach in helping teams and individuals move forward and achieve personal and professional growth. Naina also had a 22-year career in journalism and broadcasting and is a Media Skills trainer and consultant. She has been involved in Spark Inside’s pioneering coaching programme delivering coaching to prisoners and prison officers since 2014.

Louise joined Spark Inside as Head of Communications and Advocacy in March 2022. She has spent the last seven years working at Pact, heading up their communications team and leading on their marketing, PR and communications strategy, as well as advocacy work. Louise has spent many years in marketing and communications roles in the charity sector, with a particular focus on social justice. She has additional experience working in the corporate PR industry, where she started her career, and holds a degree in Journalism. Louise is passionate about providing a platform for people with lived experience to have their voices heard and effect positive change.

Julia is a Chartered Accountant with over 30 years’ experience, advising and working closely with a variety of organisations, including charities and commercial companies. She qualified with the accountancy practice BDO, where she worked for over 10 years before setting up her own company to provide a range of finance services, supporting trustees, boards, and staff. Julia has recently joined Spark Inside as Head of Finance and Operations and is excited to be a part of the team. She is proud to work for an organisation seeking to unlock the potential of individuals and to drive culture change in the criminal justice system so that rehabilitation is possible.

Elijah joined Spark Inside in October 2022. He has over 10 years experience in service roles and has been directly working with young people in the prison service for the last year. He is now using his experience to help young people with life after release and is working towards a Youth Work Qualification. Elijah has seen the impact life coaching can make on a person out of prison but especially for people within the prison system and wants to make sure everyone can get the most out of it. 

Sophie joined Spark Inside as a Service Delivery Manager in January 2024. Sophie brings more than 5 years’ experience of the Prison Service: joining as a Prison Officer as part of the Unlocked Graduates Leadership and Development Scheme, completing a Master’s degree and focusing her dissertation on stress, burnout and compassion fatigue among Prison Officers. Most recently she worked within Learning and Development in HMPPS, leading aspiring new Prison Officers through their initial training course, ensuring new staff were equipped with the tools to engage and communicate with people in prison effectively and fairly, with the aim that new officers begin to change the culture of prisons. The effective rehabilitation of people in prison is something that has always been at the heart of Sophie’s work and she is pleased to bring this passion to her role at Spark Inside.

Melissa is an executive and leadership coach, working mainly with clients in the public, academic and charitable sectors. Her previous executive career was in the Civil Service, primarily in justice and constitutional policy, and mostly recently as a Policy Director in the Ministry of Justice. She was part of a long term successful jobshare partnership, and has a particular interest in coaching job shares and others working flexibly in senior leadership roles. Melissa is also a mindfulness and yoga teacher, and chairs a small charity focusing on medical education in East Africa.

Stephanie is currently a pupil barrister at Doughty Street Chambers. Before converting to law, she was a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and worked in policy roles at the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Stephanie has a Philosophy degree from Cambridge, a management qualification from the Judge Business School and a master’s in Gender Studies from UCL.

Simon is an experienced prison Governor, committed to supporting children and young people, with a demonstrated history of working in the government administration industry. He is currently Governing Governor at HMYOI Werrington, and was previously Governor of HMYOI Cookham Wood. Simon has two children and loves watching F1 and playing golf. 

Rob is a financial technology executive and board member with significant corporate governance experience. He was formerly a finance partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a leading international law firm. Rob has a law degree from Oxford and a business degree from London Business School.

Erica is an executive coach whose practice focusses on clients from the law and financial services as well as the public and charitable sectors. She is a non-executive director on the Board of the Government Legal Department and a trustee of charities Working Chance, St Giles Trust and Iyengar Yoga Maida Vale. Her previous executive career was as a lawyer. She was European General Counsel at asset manager BlackRock and before that Barclays Investment Bank. Prior to that she was a structured finance partner at law firms Weil Gotshal and Ashurst.

Josephine is a Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) qualified accountant with significant experience in the public sector. With a background working in central, local government and in the charity sector this provides her with a rounded perspective: understanding services across the public sector, how policy is made and funded, and how strategy is formulated. She has a deep understanding of operational finance, confident to work with stakeholders of all levels, and comfortable driving change with people, systems and processes. Josephine holds a Master of Chemical Engineering (MEng) degree from the University of Edinburgh. In her spare time, Josephine enjoys theatre/​film, boxing and her family.

Hamish is an an advisor to a range of companies. He was formerly a senior executive in investment banking. Hamish graduated from Cardiff with BSc (Hons) and recently completed a MSc at London Business School. In his spare time Hamish enjoys his bike, gigs and his family.

Born and raised in Islington, with a MSc from Kings College in Emerging Economies and Inclusive Development. Kennes is passionate about all things equity, development, diversity/​inclusion and prison reform; she is very keen to see our prison systems return to more restorative practices and solutions. Kennes is currently working in the Charity sector supporting people from refugee backgrounds find employment solutions via corporate business. 

Sam is passionate about helping people live intentionally and believes in lifelong learning through pursuing curiosity. He is a student on the founding cohort of a new and innovative university called the London Interdisciplinary School where he is studying Interdisciplinary Problems & Methods. He is a fellow at The RSA, a qualified life coach and works with DWRM Consultants to improve access to higher education for people serving custodial sentences.