Josie has extensive experience of setting up and developing services for vulnerable people — including significant work in the criminal justice and homeless sectors. At Spark Inside, Josie will be piloting a project to see how Hero’s Journey can reach a wider audience across the UK.
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
After gaining several years of administrative experience, Charlie joined Spark Inside to use her skills to make a social impact. Charlie is on hand to support all staff and is open to any challenge that may be thrown her way. Her favourite part of her role is the exposure to our innovative work.
Tim is a policy, public affairs and communications professional with more than a decade of experience working for private and voluntary sector organisations. Following a stint in consultancy, Tim delivered successful campaigns on behalf of organisations including Victim Support, the British Red Cross, and the British Medical Association. His freelance journalism has been published by the BBC and the Spectator, among other outlets, and he has given oral evidence to parliamentary committees. Tim is currently training part-time as a psychotherapist. His role at Spark Inside is to connect policymakers with the expertise of his service delivery colleagues, enabling evidence-based policy that is firmly grounded in the perspectives of young people in prison.
Indy oversees the communications strategy for Spark Inside, bringing with her almost 15 years’ experience in marketing communications. With an MSc in Marketing and as a qualified project manager, Indy has built a varied career that includes central government comms; heading-up the marketing communications activity for entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones’ charity; and marketing the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the London 2012 Festival and Cultural Olympiad. Indy’s focus is raising the profile of Spark Inside’s vital work.
After delivering frontline youth work programmes for over 8 years, Christopher joins our programme team as a Service Delivery Manager. Working across prisons in London, Chris liaises between our coaches, prison staff and the people we work with to ensure that our programmes are delivered to the highest standard. Chris holds a degree in Youth Work, and has always been passionate about empowering young people to achieve their full potential.
Nicola is our research assistant, and oversees the internal evaluation and monitoring of our programmes. A trained psychotherapist, who worked mainly with the victims of sexual violence, Nicola holds a MSc in Early Interventions in Psychosis at King’s College London. More recently, she has been working on a large-scale EU funded research project, looking at resilience and adolescent mental health within deprived areas of South London.
Nic is an accounts professional with more than 10 years’ experience working in high level finance roles in public and not-for profit organisations. Nic has experience working in finance roles within criminal justice charities within London and as a charity Trustee and Treasurer. Nic also has experience leading on HR and operations for small and medium charities. Nic’s role is to ensure the wellbeing of staff, smooth running of the organisation and robust financial processes to run an efficient charity performing at its best.
Bob is a Master Youth Coach, having worked with and for young people, parents, teachers and youth workers for over 21 years. He is an expert at engaging, coaching and building rapports with young people and supporting those who work with and for them to do the same. Bob co-founded the Youth Coaching Academy in 2001, where he designed and delivered the world’s first fully accredited youth coaching courses. He has worked as a coaching consultant for many organisations including central government, various London Councils, Coreplan UK, Magnificent Generation and Coram. He is currently the CEO/Director of Coaching of the Community Coaching Academy.
Simone is a qualified youth worker and life coach with a degree in Youth and Community Work. She has been working with young people for over 14 years in a variety of environments: schools; exclusion centres; running a youth club; and for the past five years has worked within the criminal justice system. Simone manages our Service Delivery, focusing on the relationships within the prisons we deliver our programmes in. Her favourite part of her job is seeing how invested the young people become with their coaching journey from workshops, to one-to-ones, to release.
Tiwa is an investment professional and Vice President at 8 Miles LLP. She was formerly a Senior Associate at PWC. Tiwa holds a first class degree in accounting and finance from Warwick University and is an Associate of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Mike has worked in prisons for 40 years in both public and private sectors, from prison officer to prison governor, from Director of Operations to Director of Strategy and Corporate Change. Mike is also a qualified coach and helps run his company’s coaching programme. He is married with three children, and loves cycling and kayaking.
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. He is thrilled to serve as trustee leading on Monitoring and Evaluation.
Stephanie works in the policy team at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She previously worked at the Howard League for Penal Reform and Boston Consulting Group. Stephanie has a Philosophy degree from Cambridge, a management qualification from Judge Business School and a master’s in Gender Studies from UCL.
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.
Roma is the founder of the Prison Radio Association and is also their chair, as well as being the chair for Clinks. She is a criminal justice advisor and was the founder of the Make Justice Work campaign. She has worked extensively in the criminal justice sector for over 25 years in a wide variety of different roles. She is currently chair of Spark Inside as well as on the board of the Comedy School. Roma was awarded an OBE in 2016 for services to prisons. Spark Inside is now in the process of hiring a new chair; please see a message from Roma here.
Kenny is the co-founder & Managing Director of ClearView Research Ltd, a leading edge research company that specialises in research focussing on millennials and social impact evaluation. Kenny is also a campaigner and has been described by Huffington Post UK as a “young rising star making waves in UK politics.” His work in both the worlds of research and politics has taken him around the world to countries such as the United States, Brazil, Austria, Tunisia, Israel, and Hong Kong.
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.
Sophie leads the delivery operations team at a tech start up, supporting 16 – 23 year olds to accelerate their careers through coaching and apprenticeships. Prior to that she worked in impact investment bringing an analytical and rigorous approach to developing sustainable and systemic outcomes based solutions to entrenched social problems. Sophie holds a degree in Political Science from Bristol. In her spare time, you can find her reading the latest best seller, exploring new corners of the globe or playing with her two dogs.
Edward works in Business Development for the Forward Trust, a social business empowering individuals to break out of the cycle of crime and/or addiction. He holds under- and post-graduate degrees from the University of Durham, and an MSc in Criminology & Criminal Justice from Oxford. Edward is an assessor for Unlocked Graduates, and is associated with a number of other criminal justice charities. He has a particular interest in the intersection of faith and criminal justice, and is currently co-authoring a book on the subject with the Rev’d Jonathan Aitken.
