Trustees

Martin is the Chief Executive of St John Ambulance and has a strong track record in leading the development of public service delivery and in policy change with a focus on giving young people the chance to fulfil their potential through volunteering, education and training.

Prior to working at St John Ambulance, he was chief executive of Depaul UK for five years. While at the charity Missing People, he successfully campaigned for a new missing persons law and launched the new national telephone number for missing people. He has also held roles at the Children’s Society and served as Chair of the YMCA England & Wales board of trustees.

​Emma is Chief Executive of The Trussell Trust, the national foodbank network. Prior to working for The Trussell Trust, Emma worked for Ambition (now UK Youth), the UK's largest representative bodies for the youth sector, working with young people through their diverse network of local authorities, voluntary and community members in communities across the UK.
 
She has worked for over 15 years in senior leadership positions in organisations that provide services to young people, particularly in the education and training sector, including as Chief Executive of Reynolds Training, an education provider working with young people in London and the South East and as Chief Executive of Landmark, a youth education charity based in London’s East End.
 
She has also successfully run her own freelance consultancy and training business for the last 12 years

Kevin is Chief Executive with Youth Focus: North East (formerly Regional Youth Work Unit – North East). Kevin has over 30 years’ management and senior practitioner experience within both the statutory and voluntary youth sector including centre based, outreach, detached and schools work. Kevin has experience in youth participation, programme management, fundraising and the development of practitioner and management training.
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He is an Honours Graduate in Informal & Community Education, through YMCA George Williams College and currently a council member with the Institute for Youth Work. Since starting a career in Youth & Community Work Kevin has always strived to provide a high quality service which builds from the needs of young people and involves them as equal participants in the design, delivery and evaluation of the services they receive.

Kevin is passionate about social impact and is the Chief Executive of City Year UK, a programme providing young people with full-time social action opportunities in schools. Before that he was the CEO of ThinkForward, where he led the first youth unemployment social impact bond. Both organisations were incubated in Impetus - The Private Equity Foundation and Kevin previously worked for them as an Investment Director.
 
Kevin’s background is in youth work and teaching, with 20 years’ experience of developing, leading and evaluating programmes in both the voluntary sector and local government. In his spare time, he is finishing a Doctorate in Education, is a director of Catch 22’s multi academies trust and is a senior volunteer with St. John Ambulance. He was named by The Guardian in 2008 as one of the 'Future 500' leaders in public life, by Striding Out in 2011 as one of the UK’s top 100 Social Entrepreneurs and in 2014 became a Clore Social Fellow.

Leon is Director of Evidence at the Office of the Children’s Commissioner where he leads work on measurement, surveys and analysis in relation to the experiences and outcomes of children. From 2013 to 2016 Leon was Director of Evidence at the Early Intervention Foundation, an independent charity and “What Works” centre, working to evaluate the impact of early intervention.
 
From 2008 to 2013 Leon was a civil servant, working in the Treasury and the Cabinet Office on policy implementation and performance policy. Before joining the civil service, Leon was Professor of Education and Social Policy at the Institute of Education. Leon is Visiting Professor of Practice at the LSE’s Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion and Honorary Professor at Sussex University.  He undertakes work to test and demonstrate the feasibility of action to reduce economic and social inequalities and their impacts. 

​Lucy has worked both nationally and internationally, as a practitioner and researcher in youth and community development. She completed her PhD in 2011 working with young people and practitioners to understand the process of empowerment in youth development. Now, as the Head of Research at Brathay Trust, her work focuses on two areas: the process of supporting young people, families and communities to become empowered in their lives, in order to make and sustain change; and supporting practitioners to evidence the impact of their work with young people, families and communities. Lucy has co-authored two books, one in each of these two areas of focus.