political & communications director, Centre for Social Justice
Matthew is the Political & Communications Director for the Centre for Social Justice, the UK’s leading think-tank tackling the root causes of poverty and social breakdown.
Previously, he was Chief Executive of the Mayor’s Fund for London, CEO of The Lord’s Taverners, and founding CEO of global sports and entertainment agency, M&C Saatchi Sponsorship.
Matthew was a Member of the European Parliament and sat on the EU’s Employment & Social Affairs Committee and was spokesperson for children & young people.
His non-executive Director roles have included St John Ambulance, London Funders, The Oxford Literary Festival, The Centre for Brexit Policy, and Chair of Governors at Ipswich High School.
Matthew describes his greatest achievement as delivering his third son. The midwives were late, there was nothing else to be done, and fortunately his wife knew exactly what to do.
Follow Matthew and the Centre for Social Justice on Twitter – @csjthinktank
statistician
Kathryn is a currently a statistician working in the Civil Service, however she spent many years in education, teaching English and psychology both in the UK and abroad. She debated competitively in high school in the USA and continued to stay involved in debate as a tournament judge while studying psychology at UNC Chapel Hill. She later pursued an MA in Applied Linguistics (TEFL) at the American University in Cairo, which kickstarted her career in international education, teaching in Egypt, the USA, Thailand and Jordan before settling in the UK in 2013.
history student, Trinity College Dublin
Felice is a history student at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of the Letter on Liberty the Tyranny of Wellbeing and has written for publications including the Critic and UnHerd. She writes on Substack at Inside Basbøll and co-hosts the Reading the Room podcast. She is also a Living Freedom project assistant at Ideas Matter.
marketing manager, Hodder Education
Sophia Blackwell works as a marketing manager at Hodder Education and as a freelance writer, editor, and radio journalist making arts programmes and podcasts.
Sophia holds a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford. Shortly after graduating, she discovered the two main passions of her adult life – publishing and performance poetry. She has worked in publishing since then and is also the author of three collections of poetry and a novel, and her most recent non-fiction book, The Poetry Writers’ Handbook, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022. Sophia’s projects this year include hosting events for Migrant Help, teaching a 5-week online poetry course for Bloomsbury and performing at Camden People’s Theatre this summer.
Follow Sophia on Twitter @sophiablackwell
collaboration coach and facilitator
Lucy Chambers co-founded Something Something Consulting and works as a consultant and trainer helping organisations to find better ways of working that support both the organisation’s mission and the people doing the work.
Lucy holds a BA (Hons) in Modern and Medieval Languages (specialising in German and Russian) from the University of Cambridge. After graduating, she embarked on a brief career in journalism. This rapidly evolved into a career teaching journalists and NGOs how to leverage data as evidence. From there she moved into product management and tech consultancy for a broad range of clients from NGOs to multi-million dollar global enterprises. Her topics of life-long study are power dynamics, how the brain works and participatory decision making.
Follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyfedia
student of social work, Hochschule Darmstadt
Jascha was a student at Helmholtzschule Frankfurt where he completed his full time education in 2018. He has worked as a daycare worker and as an integration assistant in an elementary school. He is now studying social work at Hochschule Darmstadt.
Key Account Manager, Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie GmbH
Karen is the Key Account Manager at Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie GmbH. Berlin Partner supports economic growth, promotes business, technology and innovation, and presents the advantages of capital to companies, investors and talents.
senior manager, Federation of German Industries
Petra Küntzel is a senior manager in the Research, Industrial and Economic Policy Department at the Federation of German Industries.
Petra lives in Berlin and she has a degree in economics from the University of Passau.
Senior Scheduling Advisor, University of Europe for Applied Sciences
Samantha Weller is the Senior Scheduling Advisor at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences. Having always had a passion for interculturalism and linguistics, she studied Translation Sciences at Heidelberg University, and received her Master’s in Intercultural Communication from Utrecht University. She specialised in the research topics of multilingualism, migration and education, with special focus on language assessment and acquisition of individuals with migration backgrounds. Prior to this, she worked as an English teacher and academic language editor in the Republic of Ireland.
student of Linguistics, Latin & Greek, Humboldt Universität; DM alumnus
Anton Spahl is an alumnus of Debating Matters, competing in 2021 as part of the Eckener Gymnasium team.
In 2022 he successfully completed his apprenticeship in Stonemasonry, and received the award “best apprentice of the region” (Landessieger in Hamburg). He then studied modern languages (Greek and Italian) at the national and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
He is currently studying linguistics, ancient Greek & Latin, and works as a student assistant at the Institute for Classical Philology (Humboldt University)
