Our Team

We are a small but passionate team, dedicated to making a big impact.

Our Team

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Sarah Devonport

Chief Executive Officer

Aisha Lysejko

Head of Service Delivery & Employer Engagement

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Sarah Devonport

Chief Executive Officer

Sarah joined The Brokerage as Chief Executive Officer in March 2023.

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Tom Slatter

Head of Insights & Impact

Tom joined the Brokerage in 2016, working first on education programmes before moving onto Insights and Impact work.

He worked as a secondary school teacher before moving into the world of social mobility charities in 2012, focusing first on university access and then, with The Brokerage, on access to work.

Having worked directly with young people via educational and charity programmes, Tom is enthusiastic about social mobility. He is also convinced that working with young people before they join the workforce is only half the puzzle. He is therefore also passionate about helping companies take a structured, data driven approach to social mobility in their workplaces.

Aisha Lysejko

Head of Service Delivery & Employer Engagement

Aisha joined The Brokerage in December 2020, from Nesta Challenges, a social enterprise running high-profile, innovation programmes for international governments, NGOs and foundations. Whilst there, she led on all things Operations, People, Culture and Finance; supporting the team to scale its impact and double in size. An advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), she also co-led  Nesta’s organisation-wide EDI strategy.

Prior to this, she leant into her lived experience as a teenage mother to lead the scaling and delivery of programmes at a youth charity; empowering, developing and employing less-advantaged young parents as peer-educators in secondary schools.

Aisha is passionate about nurturing junior underrepresented talent; inclusive leadership and teams; and champions the recognition of lived experience as expertise and a tool for empowerment.

Lydia Edwards

Senior Partnerships Manager

Lydia joined The Brokerage in April 2023. She has Account Management and Client Services experience in the corporate sector prior to joining the charity sector. Lydia has used her extensive range of transferable skills to deliver social impact across a range of charities and is passionate about creating positive change in communities.

Lydia has experience of capacity building in small charities to improve their ability to communicate their impact and fundraise. As a fundraiser she has helped to generate income for charities dedicated to improving the lives of children and young people including those living in poverty, children who need support to improve their educational attainment and families living with a disability.  

Lydia believes that all young people should have access to the opportunities to achieve their full potential and be supported to help overcome any barriers to success. 

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Niha Miah

Changemaker Programme Manager

Niha joined The Brokerage in March 2022 as the Programme Coordinator and Facilitator and promoted to Changemaker Programme Manager in November 2023.

Niha has varied and extensive experience across the not-for-profit, higher education and the creative sector.

With a background in history and gender studies, Niha understands the deeply rooted, systemic and cultural obstacles which many individuals from marginalised backgrounds face when seeking employment. Niha is driven by her own lived experience as a Muslim woman and has a desire to break down socio-cultural and systemic barriers to create a more diverse and equal workforce. She aims to do so by supporting young people in reaching their true potential and by influencing and encouraging transformation and change in attitudes towards Equality Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) across the corporate world.

Tom Slatter

Tom Slatter

Head of Insights & Impact

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Jennifer Hien

Head of Programmes

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Jennifer Hien

Head of Programmes

Jennifer joined The Brokerage in January 2020, bringing with her an extensive background in education and youth-focused initiatives.

Having come from a low-income ethnic minority background, Jennifer understands the barriers to and importance of underrepresented youth having access to opportunities. Her lived experience is a driving force behind her work where she strives to create change for young people.

Jennifer has previously worked in South Korea for Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, designing and teaching English Language curriculums to support schools in socio-economically deprived areas. Alongside this, she led volunteer programmes benefiting local non-profit organisations and orphanages.

At The Brokerage, Jennifer oversees our Academy and Changemaker strands of work, where she champions youth-led innovation and empowers our young people, by using their voices to influence what corporations do for social mobility and nurturing diverse workforces.

Tayler Kirk

Senior Outreach and Engagement Manager

Tayler joined The Brokerage as a Programme and Engagement Manager in August 2021. Previously she has been a Senior Education and Engagement Manager within the charity sector, where she managed a community of over 650 schools and colleges across the UK and worked with a variety of corporate partners to give students from disadvantaged backgrounds insight into what working in a top technology company could look like for them.

Tayler’s passion for social mobility comes from her own lived experience and the completion of the Teach First Leadership Development Programme. She is very excited to work with The Brokerage to make real change in the workplace.

Shilpa Sharma

Senior Programme Manager

Shilpa joined The Brokerage in October 2023 as Senior Programme Manager.

Shilpa is an educator at heart and has a strong passion for human rights that have led her from different roles from a teacher, state education consultant, learning designer, course creator, along with a Masters in Human Rights from the University of Sussex.

Shilpa brings the skills of sustaining meaningful relationships with stakeholders, preparing long-term plans for organisations, and designing projects to empower young people. Additionally, she is a travel and horror movie enthusiast and loves talking about all things political!

Matthew Thomson

Partnerships Account Manager

Matthew joined The Brokerage as Partnerships Account Manager in September 2023.

With a professional background in account management within the private sector, Matthew, a native of New Zealand has been dedicated to delivering excellence, forging strong client relationships, and driving innovation.

Matthew is looking forward to aligning his skills with organizations that share his commitment to positive change, improving equity, diversity, and inclusion and making a lasting impact.

Joseph O’Malley

Programme Coordinator & Facilitator

Joseph joined the Brokerage as Programme Coordinator and Facilitator in October 2023, having previously worked as a freelance facilitator in the education and charity sectors. During this time, Joseph led workshops for hundreds of schools and colleges offering careers insight into STEM industries, working with partners from the private and public sector to provide opportunities and insight to students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Prior to this, Joseph had a background in the creative arts, working with young people and those with SEND to create art through music and song. Joseph is passionate that structural and societal barriers shouldn’t prevent any young person expressing their true self and achieving their goals.

Ilya Bojarskis

Marketing and Social Media Junior Coordinator

Ilya joins us as our Marketing and Social Media Junior Coordinator. Utilising his keen interest in media, Ilya has been an integral part of the comms team since joining us in March 2022, creating  content for our social media platforms to promote our events as well as boosting our TikTok account.

With a background in business studies, Ilya is passionate about playing his part in improving social mobility, making workplaces more diverse and inclusive. As a young person who first language is not English, Ilya recognises some of the struggles our Brokerage candidates face and is excited to promote the many opportunities we offer our young people.

susheel sharma

Susheel Padda

Head of Corporate Partnerships & Income Generation

Lydia Edwards

Senior Partnerships Manager

Matthew Thomson

Partnerships Account Manager

Shilpa Sharma

Senior Programme Manager

Joseph O’Malley

Programme Coordinator & Facilitator

Belinda Waiswa

Senior Talent Manager

Tayler Kirk

Senior Outreach and Engagement Manager

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Eri Arakawa

Senior Coordinator

Chaneice Mistry

Academy Programme Manager

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Niha Z

Changemaker Programme Manager

Laura McIntosh

Delivery Administrator

Savannah Morgan-Fung

Recruitment & Delivery Administrator

Ilya Bojarskis

Marketing and Social Media Junior Coordinator

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Eri Arakawa

Senior Coordinator

Eri joined The Brokerage in January 2019 as a Programme Administrator, bringing with her a wide variety of experience from finance, pharmaceutical, healthcare PR and, most recently, at a children’s reading charity. Eri was promoted to Senior Coordinator in November 2020 and now leads the Delivery Admin team.

As a born and bred Londoner from an ethnic minority, Eri is passionate about supporting young people regardless of their background and is looking forward to making a difference to the next generation.

Belinda Waiswa

Senior Talent Manager

Belinda joined The Brokerage in December 2020 as the Placement and Recruitment Manager. She brings with her over 4 year’s experience of working with companies on their apprenticeship and work experience programmes. She was recently promoted to Senior Talent Manager in November 2023.

Before coming into the education industry, Belinda worked in advertising and ran her own business. She is passionate about seeing others achieve their career goals and takes pride in providing the best experience for her clients and candidates.

susheel sharma

Susheel Padda

Head of Partnerships & Income Generation

Susheel joined The Brokerage in 2018 as a Programme Manager. She moved across to the partnerships team in 2019, supporting to build The Brokerage’s new corporate partnership model which now sees almost 30 determined and passionate corporate partners on board. These partners are committed to creating opportunities for The Brokerage’s candidates to kick-start their corporate careers. They are also committed to holding the mirror up to themselves as employers to create truly inclusive working environments.  As well as overseeing all corporate partnerships, Susheel is responsible for The Brokerage’s broader income generation activities including grant funding and corporate/individual giving which create further opportunities for our driven, able and ambitious candidates.

A proud Midlander, Susheel worked in schools and colleges across both London & the Black Country prior to joining The Brokerage, supporting students much like The Brokerage’s candidates to access work experience and knowledge about future career options.

Please get in touch with Susheel at susheel.padda@thebrokerage.org.uk if you are interested in becoming a corporate partner/supporter of The Brokerage, or if you would just like to learn more about what we do.

 

Laura McIntosh

Delivery Administrator

Laura joined The Brokerage in November 2020 as one of the Delivery Administrators. She has a varied background having worked in the mental health charity sector as well as for arts organisations facilitating creativity and supporting young people.

She loves being part of the innovative Brokerage team working towards access of opportunities for all young people, something very close to her heart.

Savannah Morgan-Fung

Recruitment & Delivery Administrator

Savannah joined The Brokerage in November 2021 as one of the Delivery Administrators.

Savannah joined the Brokerage as she believes in the values and has lived the stereotype first hand coming from a single parent household, as well as being a young mother herself, watching her younger sibling be the first to go to university. Savannah has a charity work background, running young parent & CSE workshops in schools and youth settings. Prior to this she studied to become a beauty therapist where she personalised her treatments for the elderly and mothers on a low income.

Chaneice Mistry

Academy Programme Manager

Chaneice joined The Brokerage in January 2022 as the Programme Coordinator and Facilitator and promoted to Academy Programme Manager in November 2023.

Previously, Chaneice worked in the Impact Investing and Inclusive Finance field in Oakland, California. The central force of this work was to close the racial wealth gap and build wealth in marginalised communities. Additionally, she has worked in the Microfinance sector as a fellow doing research around access to education for women in young girls in low to middle income countries.

With most of her experience being in non-profit and charity sectors, Chaneice is excited to join a team whose mission aligns so closely with her values and vision for change.

Chaneice is passionate about enabling and supporting young people in their career journeys as well as changing the way in which organisations approach access, equity and inclusivity within the corporate workforce.

Sessional workers

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Karen Rosen

Sessional Worker

Valentina Wright

Sessional Worker

Leona Awoyele

Sessional Worker

Audrey Linton

Sessional Worker

Pauline Leung

Sessional Worker

Diana Hysenaj

Sessional Worker

Valentina Wright

Sessional Worker

Valentina joined us in November 2020. Valentina’s educational and professional background has focussed on people, and how they can work together to get the best out of each other and their communities. She feels passionately about building networks of support and opportunity for young people to achieve their goals and create positive futures for themselves.

Before working at The Brokerage, Valentina coordinated a mentoring programme for homeless and vulnerable young people, and also works for a charity which gives children and young people access to musical tuition without cost.

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Karen Rosen

Sessional Worker

Karen joined The Brokerage in February 2018. She has a law degree from the University of Southern California and has worked in the education sector for over 20 years, at a university, in charities and museums. She enjoys working with young people, helping them to reach their potential.

At The Brokerage, Karen helps to raise aspirations of young people by delivering workshops to introduce them to the various career opportunities available within financial, professional and related services.

Leona Awoyele

Sessional Worker

Leona joined The Brokerage in November 2023. She has an MA in Public Humanities from the University of Sheffield and is an Associate CIPD.

Leona has experience in facilitating workshops, internal communications, student outreach and employee engagement. She is passionate about instilling confidence in others, helping them identify their strengths and achieve their goals.

Audrey Linton

Sessional Worker

Audrey joined The Brokerage in December 2023.

Audrey is passionate about releasing the potential of others and brings experience as a careers consultant and coach.  She holds a Masters in Management & Leadership and has designed and facilitated workshops across a number of private and public sector organisations to individuals, teams and leaders.  Audrey has led high profile programmes across the NHS, within schools and universities and was privileged to work with female entrepreneurs in the Cameroon.

Pauline Leung

Sessional Worker

Pauline joined the Brokerage in December 2023. With more than ten years of experience as a change professional and people development coach, she strongly believes in the power of collaboration and diversity. She has led global communities and programs in multinational organisations.

As a learning and development professional, she is passionate about growth and development. Pauline has created and facilitated workshops, training, and webinars for employees across six continents. Her holistic approach to work and life motivates her to support others in their well-being and personal growth.

Diana Hysenaj

Sessional Worker

Diana joined the Brokerage as a sessional worker in December 2023 and is an activist and campaigner, working with communities to drive change.

Previously a Brokerage candidate and Brokerage Young Leader, Diana is passionate about supporting future Brokerage candidates in their development. She is also an Aziz Foundation Scholar and is currently undertaking her Masters in Human Rights at UCL. Working with the Fair Energy Campaign, Diana is working to tackle fuel poverty and the increasing costs of living crisis through coordinated community action and the development of three strands: emergency, education and policy. Diana has extensive experience working with schools, organisations and communities and is committed to supporting others in their growth.

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