Abdi Hassan, Founder; is someone who has (trigger warning) experienced child abuse, homelessness, addiction and lives with PD. Despite this Abdi was able to study and gain an Economics degree from the London School of Economics. Abdi has over 16 years Director level experience, working for PwC, Unilever and the Dorchester, Four Seasons, RAC and 45 other luxury hotel group. Abdi focuses his time on developing social enterprises and supporting the POC community to find solutions to impact change in their own lives. Founder of Coffee Afrik CIC, running 8 projects, across North East London, with a clear culturally competent focus, including violent reduction, peer to peer/individual therapy, Tree of life therapies and is a creator of social action and trauma centred safe spaces as well as sitting on NHS England's Mental Health Transformation Board. 

Alex has worked with the VCSE sector for over 14 years. Prior to joining NAVCA in 2020, Alex was Chief Executive of a VCSE infrastructure body in the West Midlands, where he played an active part in the local Health and Wellbeing Board and was Senior Responsible Officer for the ‘Resilient Communities’ strand of the Integrated Care Partnership plan. Alex is also a director of Black Country Together CIC, a collaboration between local VCSE infrastructure bodies which plays an integral role in supporting VCSE engagement in the Black Country & West Birmingham Integrated Care System. 

Alice Wilcock is Assistant Director of Team London (volunteering) and Sport at the GLA. Alice’s team covers volunteering and social action and using volunteering as a way of bringing Londoners together. She is also responsible for the Community Sports programme.  

Alice joined the GLA in 2016 from the Community Development Foundation, where she was Director of Partnerships and Innovation. Her role included working with community groups on local social action, managing multi-million-pound programme Community First for Office of Civil Society and delivering training and consultancy to a variety of clients from the public, private and voluntary sector.  

Prior to joining CDF Alice worked for Barclays, where she headed their Community Affairs programme, covering community sponsorship and staff volunteering.

Angela qualified in medicine at the Royal London Hospital and spent her junior doctor years in north east London. She crossed the Thames to train in public health  in south east London  and Kent. First appointed to a consultant post in Bromley, she progressed to be joint Director of Public Health in Bromley Primary Care Trust and subsequently, Chief Officer of Bromley CCG. Now, as part of a bigger organisation, south east London CCG, there have been even greater opportunities for system wide working, for example as SRO for various south east London wide workstreams. Latterly, as Gold Command for SEL CCG, Angela worked with key colleagues and core organisations, to shape and implement south east London’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Dawn is Senior Head of Practice at Collaborate. She leads Collaborate's place-based partnerships with a number of areas, work on funding and commissioning, and systems change learning partnerships with clients including Save the Children and the Cornerstone Fund. She is co-author of the reports Exploring the New World and Public Service for the Real World which set out an alternative approach to commissioning, funding and managing public service in complexity. 

Dawn's background is in grantmaking, including strategy and learning roles at the Big Lottery Fund and charity consultancy, NPC (New Philanthropy Capital). Dawn is trustee of Southwark and Tower Hamlets grant-maker, the Wakefield and Tetley Trust; and Xenia, a community group in Hackney which brings together women learning English and women who speak fluent English to enable language learning, social connections and cultural exchange. 

Jessica Lubin is the Director of Health Transformation, Partnerships and Networks at Hackney Council for Voluntary Services. She has worked across health, social care and the third sector including managing a community service for people who had strokes and their families, and consulting in health governance improvement. She is part of an international research collaborative looking into partnership working across health and social care sector and has studied psychology to an undergraduate level and Global Health to a postgraduate level. 

She has a passion for the power of communities to look after their health, and in her current role at HCVS is working closely with communities and health professionals across Hackney and the City to improve health outcomes, challenging and reducing health inequalities. 

With almost 20 years of NHS Board experience, Marie is currently the Independent Chair Designate of the North East London Integrated Care System, Chair of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and of the NHS Race and Health Observatory.  Prior to this, Marie chaired East London NHS Foundation Trust and before that commissioning organisations with budgets up to £3bn.  Her first NED role was as Vice Chair of Newham University Hospital Trust.  Marie’s national roles include membership of the National People Board and National Equality and Diversity Group and she is also the Co-Chair of the London People Board and a member of the Greater London Authority’s London Health Board. Marie’s background is in local government and the voluntary sector with particular experience in social justice, regeneration and equity.  In 2020 Marie’s contribution to the NHS was recognised through her incorporation in the Health Service Journal’s list of the 80 most influential people in the NHS and the award of her CBE in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours.  Marie's contribution to the London Borough of Newham was recognised in 2010 when she was awarded Honorary Freedom of the Borough. 

Naomi Goldberg is the Director of Strategy at METRO Charity, a community and equalities organisation working predominantly across the South East of England with a strong heritage in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.  

Olivia is the lead Social Value Development Officer at Flintshire County Council. As an experienced social value practitioner, Olivia is responsible for delivering a strategic programme devised to measure and maximise social value across the organisation, its services and collective expenditure. 

Her main role focuses on the Council’s collaborative commissioning and procurement activities as a key driver for social value. She works closely with key stakeholders and providers to drive positive change through sustainable commissioning and procurement practices, through applying the core principles of social value and The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, centred on long termism, collaboration, co-production, prevention, involvement, assessment and inclusion of stakeholder and community needs. 

Moreover she challenges day to day procurement decisions, partners, services and providers to consider how they can generate additional value for the communities of Flintshire.  

Since joining the Council in 2019, Olivia has been responsible for developing a Flintshire specific social value measurement framework and bespoke system aligned to local needs and priorities, and which is now used to fairly and consistently measure and evaluate social value during the commissioning and procurement of all goods,  

Olivia currently leads as Vice Chair of the North Wales Regional Social Value Network Group, which aims to develop and share good practise of social value across the North Wales region.  

Prior to her current role, Olivia worked as an independent consultant supporting organisations within the construction sector to grow and develop through strategic procurement support and guidance.  

Dr Sandra Husbands is Director of Public Health for the City of London and London Borough of Hackney. Before coming to East London she was Executive DPH at Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board/Swansea Bay University Health Board, in South West Wales. Dr Husbands has over 30 years’ experience in health care, research and academia in the UK and internationally. She has held a number of senior public health roles at local and regional level, in the NHS,  local government and Public Health England. Sandra is devoted to unleashing the power of individuals and communities to improve their own health and wellbeing. She is committed to driving improved population health, through engaging communities and improving health care quality to achieve better outcomes for patients. Her particular interests  are increasing health literacy, preventing and improving outcomes from  long-term conditions and making better use of resources to improve outcomes. 

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