Our People

Staff, Policy Associates, members of the Board and the Policy Advisory Group, all listed alphabetically.
Policy Advisory Group members participate in a personal capacity.

Hamida Ali

Head of Policy and Programmes

Hamida Ali

Head of Policy and Programmes

Hamida has over 20 years experience of addressing equality and diversity in public sector organisations including local and regional government, the criminal justice system, public service broadcasting and the trade union movement. Hamida served as a councillor for Woodside ward in the London Borough of Croydon from 2014-2022. In October 2020, Hamida was elected as Leader of the Council and responsible for steering the council through a period of significant turbulence prompted by serious financial and governance problems. Prior to that, Hamida served as a cabinet member for Safer Croydon and Communities from 2016-2020 leading on community safety, community and voluntary sector relations and equality and diversity. Hamida led a public health approach to tackling serious violence, including domestic violence and knife crime. Since standing down as a councillor, Hamida has joined the team who deliver some of the leadership development programmes for councillors in leading roles for the Local Government Association.

Email:[email protected]

Dr Charlotte Augst

Senior Policy Associate

Dr Charlotte Augst

Senior Policy Associate

Charlotte came to London in 1997 to pursue postgraduate studies, after her law degree in Germany. She completed a social science Masters, and a PhD (in law and medical ethics) at the University of London. Since then, she has engaged in health, care and research policy making – in Parliament (for the Chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee), for national regulators (HFEA and GPhC), and in the voluntary and community sector. For the last 10 years, she has led work in collaborations and coalitions (Richmond Group of Charities, National Voices), building networks and connecting decision makers with experts by profession or experience. Charlotte lost her husband David to cancer five years ago, and lives with her two teenage children in South London. She now advises public sector organisations, charities and industry partners on strategy, influence, and their work with people and communities.

Phone:07947 406708
Email:[email protected]

Stephen Bediako OBE

Policy Associate

Stephen Bediako OBE

Policy Associate

Stephen is a serial social entrepreneur with a 20 year career in politics, government, business and social entrepreneurship. His experience includes building six social businesses in 15 years, sitting on Boards, angel investing across the UK, North America and Africa. The businesses he has founded include Project Oracle, The Social Innovation Partnership, Path Group, Turning Basin Labs, Black Global Trust and most recently The Pathway Fund. One of five children whose parents migrated from Ghana to the UK in 1979, he grew up in East London before securing a first-class degree at Brunel University in Politics, and a scholarship from LSE / Skinners Livery Co to study Public Policy at LSE. During his career he has been awarded an OBE, the Freedom of the City by the Corporation of London, an Honorary Fellowship by Social Enterprise UK, and a Visiting Fellowship by Stanford University. He’s former Vice Chair, and current Board member of the Barbican. He is an Advisor to Regenerate which is a leading UK Think Tank, on the Board of Start.COOP (a USA based COOP accelerator) and recently joined the Acquisition Committee of the Whitney Museum in New York, USA.

Matt Bevington

Policy Associate

Matt Bevington

Policy Associate

Matt is a Practice Director at the political consultancy firm Global Counsel, where he leads M&A projects for global investors on UK assets, specialising in infrastructure and education/skills. He was previously a senior researcher at the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank based at King’s College London, leading their Europe-facing workstream on Brexit, and prior to that worked as an industry analyst and editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit. He recently wrote a report for the Progressive Britain thinktank on how a Labour government should approach regulation, as well as being a Fabians contributor.

Josie Cluer

Policy Advisory Group member

Josie Cluer

Policy Advisory Group member

Josie Cluer is a Partner at EY, leading the people consulting practice across government and infrastructure working with clients. Her specialisms include civil service reform, public service reform, the future of work, home affairs, justice, loneliness, cohesion, skills and growth. She regularly speaks and writes on these issues, and was recently a founding member of the Skills Taskforce for Global Britain. She was a Special Adviser in Gordon Brown’s government and was part of the Opposition’s Preparation for Government steering group in 2015. She is a social entrepreneur, having set up and run a design studio in a prison and chaired the Cares Family (a network of charities bringing younger and older neighbours together) through rapid growth from 2012-2019. Following the murder of Jo Cox MP, Josie supported her loneliness commission which successfully campaigned for a Minister for Loneliness and contributed to establishing loneliness as a mainstream issue in the public consciousness.

Tom Collinge

Policy Associate

Tom Collinge

Policy Associate

Tom Collinge is head of Policy and Communications at Progressive Britain. He leads their work on the renewal of the centre-left in the UK and around Europe. Before Progressive Britain he worked in policy in the Charity Sector, as a journalist and writer, and in public affairs.

Dan Corry

Policy Advisory Group member

Dan Corry

Policy Advisory Group member

Dan is Chief Executive of New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), a charity think tank and consultancy that aims to increase the social impact of the non-profit and corporate sectors. Previous to this he held a variety of posts in public policy and economics. He was Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit and Senior Adviser to the Prime Minister on the Economy from 2007 to 2010; Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Treasury; a special adviser to the Secretary of State in the Education Department as well as at DTI and DCLG; a Director in the Economics segment of FTI Consulting; ran the New Local Government Network think tank (now called New Local) between 2002 and 2005; was Senior Economist at the IPPR in the 1990s and was a government economist in the civil service before that. Dan is a trustee of homelessness charity St Mungo’s and of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, and a former member of the Research Committee of the ESRC and of the Greater Manchester Economic Advisory Panel.

Cllr Bev Craig

Policy Advisory Group member

Cllr Bev Craig

Policy Advisory Group member

Bev became Leader of Manchester City Council on 1st December 2021. First elected in 2011 as a Burnage Councillor, she held a range of responsibilities on Manchester City Council including as Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Health and Deputy Leader. Bev is a Vice-Chair of the Local Government Association and Leader of the association’s Labour Group. In Greater Manchester she holds a range of responsibilities on behalf of the city as a Vice Chair, including leading on the Economy, Business, and International Portfolio for the Combined Authority. She was formerly Chair of Core Cities UK. She began her career in Local Government, before working in higher education and then a national trade union leading on social care.

Bruno Dent

Communications Officer

Bruno Dent

Communications Officer

Bruno joined The Future Governance Forum from the think tank Centre for Cities. Prior to that, he was involved on over a dozen parliamentary and national selection campaigns, specialising on communications. As Communications Officer, Bruno delivers FGF’s digital communications and press and media strategies. He also leads on FGF’s events programme and manages the blog and monthly newsletter.

Email:[email protected]

Andrew Dyson

Policy Associate

Andrew Dyson

Policy Associate

Andrew Dyson has spent his career in investment management and investment consulting in the UK and US. He is currently a non-executive director at Adjuvo, an angel investing / early stage private equity business, and at New Change FX a currency benchmarking and advisory business, and a senior advisor to Pollination, a specialist climate change and advisory firm. His last executive role was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PGIM Quant Solutions, a $120bn asset manager, from 2017 until 2022. Prior to joining PGIM Quant Solutions, Andrew was Executive Vice President at Affiliated Managers Group, Inc., and a Named Executive Officer of this S&P 500 company. Before that, he was Head of BlackRock’s Global Institutional Client Business following the merger of BlackRock and Barclays Global Investors. Previously, Andrew was Head of US Multinational Investment Consulting and Head of UK Pension Fund Investment Consulting for William M. Mercer, and a Worldwide Partner there.

Sam Freedman

Policy Advisory Group member

Sam Freedman

Policy Advisory Group member

Sam is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government (IfG) and writes regularly on politics and policy for Prospect, The New Statesman, The Times Educational Supplement (TES), The Financial Times (FT), The Guardian and The Sunday Times. Sam and his father, Lawrence Freedman, co-author their popular substack newsletter Comment is Freed which has over 40,000 subscribers. Previously he was an executive director at Teach First and worked at the Department for Education as a senior policy adviser to Michael Gove between 2010 and 2013. Sam is also a senior adviser to the education charity Ark; Vice-Chair of Ambition Institute; and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Beth Gardiner-Smith

Senior Policy Associate

Beth Gardiner-Smith

Senior Policy Associate

Beth was the founding CEO of Safe Passage International, an award-winning international charity she set up and ran between 2018-2024 to assist refugees to access safe routes to protection across Europe and beyond. Prior to this Beth held various Advisor roles to the Labour Shadow Cabinet, including as Political Advisor to the current Home Secretary Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP. Beth trained as a community organiser with Citizens UK and has worked on political campaigns in the US for the Democrats. She is a non-resident Fellow of the Migration Policy Institute as well as serving on the Advisory Board of the IPPR Migration Policy Unit.

Ali Goldsworthy

Policy Advisory Group member

Ali Goldsworthy

Policy Advisory Group member

Ali is President of Accord and a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has built deep expertise in polarisation and co-authored the best seller Poles Apart (2021). Prior to going to Stanford, Ali made her name as a campaigner and movement builder. At Which? she led the team that built the world’s fastest growing and most engaged consumer movement, which followed overseeing successful campaigns to introduce opt out organ donation and introduce measures to alleviate disability poverty. Ali is Vice Chair of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, a board member at openDemocracy and a former deputy chair of the Liberal Democrats. She is a frequent keynote speaker and media pundit on both sides of the Atlantic. Her work has appeared in The Economist, The Times, The Telegraph, The New York Times and on many broadcast outlets.

Julia Goldsworthy

Policy Advisory Group member

Julia Goldsworthy

Policy Advisory Group member

Julia Goldsworthy is Head of Social Impact Investment at Legal & General Capital. She drives strategic partnerships with local leaders and experts that deliver transformational projects and support the real economy, as part of Legal & General's long-term commitment to invest society’s capital for society’s benefit. A former Director of Strategy and Economy at the West Midlands Combined Authority, Julia led negotiations on the region’s second devolution deal and Local Industrial Strategy, after 3 years at PwC focusing on the market response to the emerging devolution agenda. Julia has also served as an MP and Treasury Special Adviser in the Coalition, with work spanning a broad range of issues, though often with a place based, inclusive growth focus. Julia also holds non-executive positions including as a Board member for the homelessness charity Crisis.

Roger Harding

Non-executive director

Roger Harding

Non-executive director

Roger is the Director of Round Our Way, a new organisation for people in the UK paying the price for climate change. Its work is changing how this vital issue is discussed and getting more working class voices into discussions about how we best respond. Roger was previously Chief Executive of working class youth campaigning charity RECLAIM and Director of Communications, Policy and Campaigns at the housing and homelessness charity Shelter. He has also worked at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and at a Public Affairs and PR agency. He is a past co-author of NatCen’s British Social Attitudes report, Counter Culture (a Fabian Society report on progressive responses to the so-called culture wars) and Missing Experts (a report on the lack of working class representation in think tanks and anti-poverty organisations). He is on the Board of the Economic Change Unit and Vice Chair of Victim Support.

Joseph Holland

Research Associate

Joseph Holland

Research Associate

Joseph Holland is the Operations and Programmes Manager at Progressive Britain. He has experience in policy research, political communications and political campaigns in the Labour movement. A former professional football player, he has a Masters degree in Economics.

Charlotte Holloway

Policy Associate

Charlotte Holloway

Policy Associate

Charlotte has spent the past decade working in digital and economic policy and advocacy, most recently as Head of Government Relations across Europe, Middle East and Africa at Zoom Video Communications. Charlotte is a Board member at TechUK, the national industry body for the UK tech sector. She is also a Labour Councillor in Plymouth, and has been a political adviser to Tracy Brabin as well as a former parliamentary candidate. As a policy associate with the Future Governance Forum, Charlotte is focusing on how the UK can support more high-growth firms and economic policy development.

Lizi Hopkins

Policy Associate

Lizi Hopkins

Policy Associate

Lizi is a Principal Consultant at Metro Dynamics. She is an experienced policy consultant, having worked in social and economic policy in central government, Parliament and public affairs. Lizi's experience in government includes designing local growth funding and programmes to tackle regional inequalities. In Parliament, she was a Senior Researcher for the former Shadow Health Secretary, and previously worked in health and NHS policy. She has a strong mix of experience in local economic and public service policy. Her skills in policy and strategy development and stakeholder engagement help clients to support inclusive growth and build great places to live and work. Recent projects at Metro Dynamics include supporting places to develop and implement devolution deals, developing investment opportunities in inclusive growth, and creating strategy for public-private economic collaboration in places. As a policy associate with the Future Governance Forum, Lizi is focusing on devolution and regional economic growth policy development.

Ben Lucas

Policy Associate

Ben Lucas

Policy Associate

Ben is an expert on the political and economic drivers of inclusive growth, and how to shape strategies and narratives that best reflect these. He advises places on governance, inclusive growth, and devolution. Before co-founding Metro Dynamics, Ben was a Trade Union Head of Research, a New Labour adviser developing regional and local government policy, and an adviser to cities on urban renaissance, including on the Manchester Commonwealth Games, and the Liverpool Capital of Culture. In his career he has worked with Ministers, Officials, Local Government and Business Leaders on a range of public policy issues, and has set up and run a public affairs consultancy and two highly influential Commissions, the 2020 Public Services Commission and the RSA City Growth Commission. Ben is Executive Director of the Power Test podcast, and a member of the Evidence to Impact Committee of Foundations, the What Works Centre for Children and Families, and former Deputy Chair of the Early Intervention Foundation.

Helen MacNamara

Chair

Helen MacNamara

Chair

Helen joined FGF as Chair in October 2024, bringing decades of experience at the highest levels of government, a wide-ranging network and an unshakeable dedication to public service and the importance of getting things right. Helen has previously held several senior roles in the civil service, including over a decade at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. She managed the domestic Cabinet Secretariat (2013-15) and coordinated preparations across government for the 2015 general election. She moved to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as Director General for Housing and Planning, before returning to the Cabinet Office in 2018 and serving as Deputy Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Cabinet Secretariat until her departure in February 2021.

Bilal Mahmood

Policy Advisory Group member

Bilal Mahmood

Policy Advisory Group member

Bilal is a Banking and Finance Solicitor and currently Director at the Royal Bank of Canada. He’s the former Vice Chair of Labour in the City, a group dedicated to Labour values and policies in the Square Mile. Bilal has been actively involved on various Labour campaigns including Stella Creasy MP’s fight to end High Street Loan Sharks, and Sadiq Khan’s elections as Mayor of London. In addition, he’s been a Parliamentary Candidate against Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, turning the safe Tory seat into a key London marginal over two General Elections. Outside of campaigns, Bilal is passionate about oracy, debating and social mobility. He pioneered a debate mentoring programmes (the London Debate Challenge and Discover Your Voice) to improve the skills and aspirations of disadvantaged young Londoners. These have been running for over 20 years and have impacted thousands. He regularly runs professional skills classes in East London and is a school governor and former Trustee of the international education charity, the English-Speaking Union.

Sarah Mulley

Policy Advisory Group member

Sarah Mulley

Policy Advisory Group member

Sarah is Interim Director for Policy & Politics at IPPR. She has a particular interest in migration and social policy, and has most recently been a consultant working with a range of think tanks, funders and civil society organisations. She was previously Executive Director for Communities & Skills at the Greater London Authority, a brief that included social policy, health, young people, civil society and adult education. Before that, Sarah led work at IPPR on migration, communities, employment and family policy. She has also been a civil servant in central government, and worked in policy roles for international development NGOs.

Ram Puvinathan

Policy Associate

Ram Puvinathan

Policy Associate

Ram is a public policy researcher and consultant. He works with governments and businesses globally to advise on reform and modernisation and innovation. He previously led strategy at a public sector consultancy and worked in the Civil Service. He is an Expert Advisor on responsible innovation to the World Economic Forum.

Joanna Reynolds

Non-executive director

Joanna Reynolds

Non-executive director

Joanna has been Chief Executive of Folio Books since 2016, having had a long career in publishing with Which?, Reader’s Digest and Time Warner. She has chaired the board of Inpress Books since 2020 and was a non-executive director of City Lit, 2009-18.

Oliver Smith

Policy Associate

Oliver Smith

Policy Associate

Oliver is an independent strategy adviser, innovator, and policymaker, as well as the Director of Daedalus Futures, a responsible AI consultancy. He was one of the founding executive team at Koa Health, which span out of Telefonica Alpha in 2020 with a €50m investment, where he was responsible for strategy and ethics. Prior to Koa Health he was Director of Strategy and Innovation at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, responsible for investing £100m over five years in innovations in health and healthcare. He was a Senior Civil Servant in the UK Department of Health; responsible for UK Tobacco Control Policy, and UK Obesity Policy before that, writing the government’s first comprehensive childhood obesity strategy. Oliver was also a Policy Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit under Tony Blair.

Claire Spencer

Head of Policy and Programmes (Devolution)

Claire Spencer

Head of Policy and Programmes (Devolution)

Alongside her work at the Future Governance Forum, Claire is the Associate Director of Public Sector and Politics at The Leadership Centre, where she works on programmes supporting leaders to develop political nous and grapple with the challenges and complexities of delivering public service outcomes. As an elected member on Birmingham City Council, she helped to establish the first Overview & Scrutiny committee for the West Midlands Combined Authority, serving as its Deputy Chair for two years. She went on to work as the Strategic Lead for Inclusive Growth, with a remit that covered public service reform, social economy growth, and the development of a mission-driven Inclusive Growth Framework. Claire currently holds roles across public services, including as Chair of Governors for Kings Heath Primary School, Public Governor (Birmingham South) for University Hospitals Birmingham Trust, Co-Chair of Moseley Community Development Trust, Trustee of Baby Aid Birmingham, and as a member of the Advisory Group for Aston University’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Email:[email protected]

JP Spencer

Policy Associate

JP Spencer

Policy Associate

JP is Director of Devolution Policy at Labour Together, and has almost a decade of experience working across economic policy and strategy in both central and local government, including working on both sides of four Spending Reviews. Most recently, JP has worked at the centre of HM Treasury setting up the new Green Book and Major Projects Unit following the 2020 Green Book Review. Prior to this, he was seconded to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority where he worked on a range of economic and fiscal issues across infrastructure, skills and innovation policy. In previous roles, he has led the Treasury’s work on capital spending, higher education policy and worked as an economist in HMRC.

Pritpal S Tamber

Policy Associate

Pritpal S Tamber

Policy Associate

Pritpal is a doctor who works at the intersection of evidence, power and health equity. As the former Physician Editor of TEDMED, he contends that most innovation in health fails to appreciate people’s social circumstances and innate strengths. Since leaving TEDMED in 2013, he has spent time with ‘community-centric’ innovators to understand how they work. His observations have brought him to the importance of power to health, especially in terms of changing the unfair and unjust structures that underpin social inequities. Drawing on his earlier career as a medical editor, he now helps community-oriented practitioners, whether in health care, public health or community-based organisations, make sense of the evidence and design structural interventions that pursue health equity.

Adam Terry

Deputy Director

Adam Terry

Deputy Director

Adam joined the Future Governance Forum from the Labour Party where he was Head of Policy Development, overseeing the party’s democratic policymaking processes and their contribution to manifesto development, and setting up the party’s 2021-23 policy review. He previously worked as Head of Policy in the Shadow Treasury Team and as senior adviser to Anneliese Dodds in both Westminster and the European Parliament. He started his career in the UK civil service, helping to plan the 2012 London Olympics, managing capacity-building programmes with the Afghan government at the British Embassy in Kabul, and serving in the Prime Minister’s Office in 10 Downing Street. He has also worked in both the charity sector, as Head of Public Affairs at the housing charity Shelter, and the private sector, where he is currently a senior adviser at the political consultancy Global Counsel. Adam draws on this range of experience and expertise to oversee FGF’s programme of research projects and its contribution to our core aim of renewing effective, progressive governance, policymaking, implementation and delivery.

Email:[email protected]

Phil Tinline

Policy Associate

Phil Tinline

Policy Associate

Phil is the author of The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares, which explores how political settlements break down and are painfully recreated. From 2002 to 2022 he worked for BBC Radio, producing and presenting documentaries about political history and how it shapes the present. His journalism has appeared in various outlets, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Prospect and The New Statesman.

Grace Wyld

Head of Policy and Programmes (Mission-driven government)

Grace Wyld

Head of Policy and Programmes (Mission-driven government)

Grace’s previous experience is predominantly in the charity sector, spanning policy research, strategy, and measurement and evaluation. Before joining the Future Governance Forum, Grace was the Research Manager at the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank charity. Her previous roles include consultancy and policy at New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), and for the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, supporting civil society organisations to increase their impact. Grace has a particular interest in participatory methods for decision making and has a masters in Inequalities and Social Science from LSE.

Email:[email protected]

Nathan Yeowell

Founder and Director

Nathan Yeowell

Founder and Director

Before founding the Future Governance Forum, Nathan was the Director of Progress, and then the Executive Director of Progressive Britain, between 2019 and 2023. He was previously Head of Policy and External Affairs at the social sector think tank New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), Strategic Policy Adviser at the London Borough of Sutton, Head of the Labour Group Office at the Local Government Association (LGA), and an analyst at the BBC Political Research Unit in Westminster. Elected to Torfaen County Borough Council in 2022, he is currently Chair of the Greater Gwent Pension Fund. He is the editor of Rethinking Labour’s Past (2022) and a contributor to The Times, New Statesman and The Guardian.

Email:[email protected]