Race Equity Advisory Group

To help us, we have established an independent Race Equity Advisory Group to support and challenge us in delivering our vision for race equity, and to improve our impact by bringing a range of additional insights and experiences of racism to our work.

Meet the members of the group below.

Mac is an impact focused leader with 15+ years’ experience advising some of the world’s leading organisations. As CEO of data driven equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) consultancy, The Equal Group, Mac leads a multidisciplinary team delivering EDI transformation projects with organisations across public, private and voluntary sectors.

Prior to founding The Equal Group, Mac spent 10 years as a regulatory consultant, focused on energy and utilities, working for organisations such as KPMG, National Grid and the UK government. Over the years Mac has built a track record of providing sound strategic advice and delivering high-quality outputs in politically, commercially and socially significant environments for organisations such as Macmillan Cancer Support, Wellcome Trust, National Trust, Greater London Authority, Thames Water and Ofgem.

Mac serves as a trustee of b:music (the music charity responsible for Birmingham Symphony Hall and Town Hall), as well as serving on the Lloyds Bank Black Business Advisory Committee. Mac also chairs the BRIG (Birmingham Race Impact Group) Metrics Working Group.

Sharan is an educator, facilitator and consultant who is passionate about social justice, education and the empowerment of young people and marginalised groups. Her work involves the design, development, delivery, and project management of education and training projects in the UK & abroad.

She has worked directly with a diverse range of young people aged between 7–25 years in schools, colleges, leaving care teams and prisons. She also designs and facilitates workshops for teachers, youth workers and non-profits. Her education programmes have won awards for their social impact with the Guardian Public Service and Centre for Social Justice Poverty Prevention.

Alongside her youth education work, Sharan works as a JEDI consultant, specialising in anti-racism and gender equity. She supports individuals, teams and leaders to create equitable spaces through training, strategy development and coaching. She also works part-time with Beyond Equality, working with men and boys towards gender equality.

In her free time, she helps to run #POCImpact (a network supporting people of colour in social impact), volunteers for The Blindian Project and is a trustee for the Abram Wilson Foundation.

Jouja is Head of Gulf Partnerships at Save the Children.

She is experienced in working across the philanthropic and non-profit sector, including with US-UK Fulbright Commission and Synergos Institute, and is currently the Community Partnerships Lead at Migrant Leaders. Jouja sits on the Sutton Trust Alumni Leadership Board, is a Young Founding Member of Impact 100 London and an Ambassador to the European Youth Parliament. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Founders of the Future.

Jouja holds a BA in Political Science & Human Rights from Columbia University, an MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and is an alumnus of SIT’s International Honors Programme.

Maurice Mcleod is an experienced voluntary sector leader and anti-racism expert, bringing leadership, communication and vision, from a 30-year career in politics, media and changemaking.

Maurice was the CEO of national anti-racism organisation, Race on the Agenda (ROTA), and was a Director of influential media platform Media Diversified, which nurtured and promoted hundreds of Black and Asian journalists. Maurice steered ROTA through both Covid-19 and the transformational changes brought about by the BLM uprising. He is also a senior part of the team that is leading Wandsworth Council through its transition from a Conservative administration to a Labour one, for the first time in 44 years.

With journalism experience spanning four decades, Maurice has worked on titles including the Guardian, The Voice, The Independent and the Spectator as well as making countless appearances on broadcast media, commenting on race, society, politics and culture. Maurice has a long history of working in the voluntary sector from large national membership bodies like the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), where he was communications manager, to community led racial justice organisations like UNJUST, where he was a political advocate. Maurice has a track record of bringing people and communities together in collaborative and impactful partnerships, focused on delivering on joint objectives and strategic goals.

Jennifer uses her 20 years’ experience as a culture change and communications strategist and consultant in three ways:

• As a change consultant, to help organisations and leaders give clarity and direction to their people by providing practical inclusion, communication and engagement strategies;
• As a facilitator, to design and deliver leaders strategic and inclusion workshops;
• As an experienced and accredited Executive coach to individual leaders and leadership teams.

She builds on her experience as a Principal (Equity Partner) at a global HR management consultancy and executive positions in organisations as diverse as Xerox Europe, Cable & Wireless and Islington Council. Her current clients span many FTSE 100 companies including those in the media, music, financial services and pharmaceutical sectors. Based in the UK, her work has taken her to continental Europe, the US, Latin America, West and Southern Africa.

Jennifer has a number of professional accreditations for coaching, psychometrics and mediation and her degree is in Law and English.

Nicola Rollock is Professor of Social Policy and Race at King’s College London and Distinguished Fellow at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She was recently appointed to the London Policing Board, chaired by the Mayor, following a recommendation in Baroness Louise Casey’s review of culture and standards in the Met.

Professor Rollock is widely known for her research which examines, for the first time in the UK, the career experiences of Black female Professors and the exhibition that led on from this, Phenomenal Women, which was displayed at London’s Southbank Centre. She was previously a member of the Wellcome Trust’s Diversity & Inclusion Steering Group, Specialist Adviser to the Home Affairs’ Select Committee’s ​‘The Macpherson Report: 22 Years On’ Inquiry and Senior Adviser on race and higher education to the University of Cambridge.

Nicola was selected by We Are the City as one of 50 HSBC-sponsored trailblazers for championing gender equity; identified by apolitico as one of the 100 most influential academics in politics and, by Times Higher Education as one of 11 scholars globally to have influenced the debate in higher education. Her new book The Racial Code: Tales of resistance and survival is published by Penguin Press.