head of public and youth engagement, Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law; lecturer in Law, London South Bank University
As Head of Public and Youth Engagement at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, Michael leads an international programme teaching young people about human rights and democracy. He is also a Lecturer in Law at London South Bank University, where he teaches the Law of Torts.
An experienced community organiser, he has led voter registration projects that have successfully registered hundreds of thousands of voters. He was awarded a fee-waving membership of the Royal Society of the Arts for this success.
Michael has advised a number of public bodies in the education sector; he has worked for the Office for Students, HEFCE and the QAA. He was selected as a subject pilot panellist in Year 3 Pilot of the Teaching Excellence Framework, developing and refining metrics for the assessment of Business and Law programmes in higher education institutions. In his second year in that role, Michael was made the Chair of that Committee
Michael has been a trustee of four charities and is currently a board member of the Diana Award and Law for Life. Michael is an unregistered barrister and was called to the bar in 2021.
You can follow Michael on Twitter at @ab1odun
chief executive, Federation of Awarding Bodies
Tom Bewick is the Chief Executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies – the collective voice of the UK’s independent awarding and assessment sector. Members of the Federation, working nationally and internationally, are responsible for delivering a range of academic, vocational and technical qualifications below degree-level, including apprenticeship assessments.
Tom is Visiting Professor of Skills and Workforce Policy at Staffordshire University; and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has written and published extensively over two decades; and is an acknowledged expert on post-compulsory education and apprenticeship skills policy on both sides of the Atlantic, having worked extensively as a TVET consultant in the United States, the Middle East and Asia earlier on in his career.
entrepreneur, angel, advisor
Jessica Butcher MBE is a serial technology entrepreneur, angel investor and business advisor. She was the co-founding CMO of Blippar from 2011-2015 during it’s rapid ascent as one of the global tech pioneers in the field of Augmented Reality (a global CNBC ‘Top 50 Disruptor’ business in 2015/16/17 alongside the likes of Uber, AirBnB and Spotify).
Jessica is a passionate start-up/ scale-up mentor, public speaker and writer on a range of diverse subjects such as women in technology and entrepreneurship, work-life balance and humane technology. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the BBC’s Top 100 Women, Fortune’s Most Powerful Female Entrepreneurs, the Evening Standard’s ‘Progress 1000’ list of London influencers, and Europe’s Top 50 Inspiring Women in Tech. She was awarded an MBE for services to technology and entrepreneurship in the 2018 New Years Honours List.
She tweets @jessbutcher
chair, Positive News; writer and advisor on environment and sustainability
Martin has three decades of experience as a writer, editor, adviser and speaker on environmental solutions and sustainable futures. Martin is an award-winning journalist and photographer, with work in a range of publications including the Guardian, The Times, New Scientist, Newsweek and the Times of India. He has interviewed business and political leaders, including Paul Polman (CEO, Unilever), Terry Leahy (CEO, Tesco) and former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, among others. He has broadcast on major radio and TV networks, including the BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera and independent television.
Martin was editor in chief of Green Futures (now The Futures Centre) and editor at Tomorrow Magazine. He is now chair of Positive News, the new media initiative dedicated to uncovering and reporting on progress and possibility, rather than doom and gloom.
His awards include Science and Environment Journalist of the Year, the Global Green Future Leadership Award (unrelated to the magazine), and Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Highly Commended). Martin sits on a number of advisory boards and judging and assessment panels for a number of prestigious organisations, continues to advise and assess businesses and organisations on sustainability issues and projects, and is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), Senior Affiliate of Forum for the Future and a Futerra Associate.
chief economic adviser and board member, Centre for Economics and Business Research; author, Women vs Capitalism
Professor Vicky Pryce is a board member of the Centre for Economics and Business Research and sits on the Economic Advisory Council of the British Chambers of Commerce and on the advisory board of OMFIF, the central banking think tank. She was previously senior managing director at FTI Consulting, director-general for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and deputy and then joint head of the UK Government’s Economic Service at the time of the Stern climate change review.
Before that, she was a partner at KPMG and held senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector. She has held a number of academic posts and is a fellow and council member of the Academy of Social Sciences, a companion of the British Academy of Management and a fellow of the Society of Business Economists. She is also co-founder and an NED of GoodCorporation, a company set up to advise on business ethics.
Her recent books include Redesigning Manufacturing (Routledge 2015); Why Women Need Quotas (Biteback 2015); Greekonomics (Biteback 2013); It’s the Economy, Stupid: economics for voters (Biteback 2015); Prisonomics (Biteback, 2013); Women vs Capitalism (Hurst, 2019); and co-author of How to Be a Successful Economist (OUP , 2022)
Follow Vicky on Twitter @realVickyPryce
retired course leader for PGCE Citizenship Education, Canterbury Christ Church University; author (jointly with Laila Nielsen) The Citizen in Teaching & Education (2020)
Ralph taught in high school, grammar school, further and higher education in Kent 1981–2019. A former GCSE chief examiner, he developed and led the pre-service course for Citizenship Education teachers at Canterbury Christ Church University 2002-19. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His most recent book is a comparative study which scrutinises opinions and insights of young people in Sweden and England concerning their perceptions of opportunities and barriers to political participation.
He was a member of the working group which developed the Olympic Values Education Programme for the International Olympic Committee. His published research concerns the realities of school provision of citizenship education and factors which influence it, as well as the potential for social change which the subject presents. His recent work concentrates on the contrast between the formal [what official versions of what happens] and the real [people’s lived daily experiences]. Ralph has spoken at conferences in the UK and in Germany, Belgium, Poland, Portugal and Spain. He is widely published in peer reviewed journals and edited collections.
Recently retired, Ralph continues to research and write, judge Debating Matters, watch non-league football, read detective fiction, and struggle to learn Swedish and Russian – but not simultaneously.
independent political consultant; principal of O’Brien Global Strategies LLC
Jon O’Brien is an independent political consultant based in Washington DC. He has worked to give voice to those who support sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as a core value and moral imperative. He is a leader in developing global strategies to advance reproductive freedom, make the moral case for choice, and counter conservative religious opposition to reproductive health access. Jon has worked on five continents with partners – including policy leaders, prochoice advocates, family planning associations, healthcare professionals, and others – to bolster their communications and advocacy to make gains in reproductive rights and access. He was deeply involved in law reform contributing notable victories in Chile, Argentina, the Philippines, and the Republic of Ireland among others. He worked for the International Planned Parenthood Federation as Program Manager for Europe and is the past president of Catholics for Choice.
lecturer, University of Dundee; leader, joint architecture programme, University of Dundee and University of Wuhan in China.
Dr Penny Lewis leads the joint architecture programme at the University of Dundee and the University of Wuhan in China. She studied architecture and became an architectural journalist, writing for magazine, newspapers and editing Prospect, the Scottish architectural magazine before becoming a lecturer and academic. She is an advocate for parents; she was chair of her children’s Parent Council and has played an active role in the campaign against the Named Person Scheme (NtNP) and the campaign against the smacking ban (Be Reasonable).
former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales; Green peer
Baroness Natalie Bennett was leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012-2016, during which time it won 1.1million votes in the 2015 General Election – more than in every previous general election added together. Natalie became the second Green peer in October 2019.
She was a former journalist on The Times and the Bangkok Post, and editor of the Guardian Weekly. Natalie has an academic background in agricultural science, Asian studies and mass communications, and is a lifelong feminist. She’s a passionate supporter of the universal basic income, working for a food strategy that doesn’t allow multinational companies and supermarkets to decide what we eat, and thinks education should be for life, not just exams.
Natalie sees the need to address the Climate and Nature Emergencies as an opportunity to create a far healthier, happier society.
Follow Natalie on Twitter: @natalieben
engineer; student
Tegan is currently working as an engineer in London Transport Services, after training for this career path as part of a social enterprise scheme.
However, she has recently decided to follow her interests and retrain, so is undertaking a degree with the Open Uni in PPE with the aim to work with organisations focussed on social change, and with encouraging positive political discourse.
Tegan has a background experience in mental health, and this is one of her areas of interest, along with criminal justice.
