About
Naomi has held senior roles at The Careers & Enterprise Company, Department for Education, C40 Cities, and L’Oréal HQ, where she advised Ministers, Mayors, and CEOs on public engagement and policy influence. She brings over 13 years’ experience in shaping policy, leading strategic communications, and building high-impact partnerships across government, non-profit, and corporate sectors. Naomi’s work is driven by her commitment to equity, inclusion, and creating opportunities for young people.
Based in South East London, Naomi is a proud toddler mum and unabashed francophile. Having lived and studied in Paris, she brought home a lasting love for French culture, especially the baked goods. When she’s not juggling mum life, she’s keeping up with current affairs, discovering new gigs, or indulging in a pastry or two.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
As Deputy Director of External Affairs, Naomi leads our Public Affairs and Communications teams.
About
Robyn is an experienced communications professional who drives change and innovation in social-purpose organisations. Before joining Youth Futures, Robyn led communications at What Works Wellbeing where she spearheaded the organisational strategy refresh, evolved the organisation’s brand identity, and delivered the Centre’s 10-year Legacy Report. She has previously worked across PR, social media and copywriting in the higher education and performing arts sectors. Outside work, Robyn is a keen foodie, occasional runner, and sings in semi-professional consort group Epiphoni.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Robyn leads large-scale digital projects and content strategy, with a particular focus on translating our evidence for key audiences.
About
Lauren loves being organised and helpful and has previously worked in admin & secretarial jobs, most recently at a property investment company. In her personal time, she enjoys doing charity work. She has raised £20k by organising various fundraising events, and visited North Africa to carry out charity work at children’s hospitals, schools and women’s refuges. She also enjoys big walks, pilates and spending time with family and friends.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures?
Lauren is a Directorate Assistant for the Policy and Public Affairs, and Employer Engagement and Partnesrhip teams.
About
Surayah brings experience in social media and community engagement. Outside of work, Surayah enjoys martial arts, piano, photography, and reading. She’s passionate about volunteering and community work, supporting young people and helping at a local church and food bank.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures?
Surayah supports our Employer Engagement & Partnerships and Policy & External Affairs Directorates with day-to-day administration and coordination.
About
Max has been passionate about improving outcomes for disadvantaged young people ever since attending a secondary school stuck in Ofsted special measures and seeing his peers have their life chances severely affected. He has worked for charities supporting marignalised young people to make positive transitions his whole career, gaining experience in direct delivery of youth work as well as fundraising. Prior to joining Youth Futures Foundation, Max led on UCAS’s transformation in improving its offer around apprenticeships and vocational pathways. In his spare time Max is a long-suffering Arsenal fan and music enthusiast.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures?
Max works across the range of Youth Futures Foundation’s policy areas to influence government thinking and develop evidence-based policy solutions.
About
Emily is an experienced non-profit communications professional. She has a masters degree in sociolinguistics from the University of York, and she carries an enduring interest in identity, language, and power into her work at Youth Futures.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Emily is responsible for strategic thinking on how we can best engage our key audiences: from our internal staff team, to employers who can use our evidence to make meaningful change for young people. Emily also works to develop and deliver high-quality content, amplifying the voices and stories of marginalised young people.
About
After graduating from the University of Leeds (Politics & Spanish) in 2020, Lewis has amassed a diverse range of experience at marketing and PR agencies, delivering communications campaigns for client across the sustainability, retail and construction sectors. He joined Youth Futures after volunteering at London-based charity Football Beyond Borders.
Outside of work Lewis loves being active, whether that’s playing football, tennis, or running, and travelling. He spent his year abroad studying in Argentina and travelling across South America.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Lewis works across the public affairs and communication teams, communicating Youth Futures’s work to policymakers and its wider audiences.
About
Ryan has worked in policy and related roles across the third sector and local government. In addition to his work on youth employment in multiple roles at Youth Futures Foundation, his work has included leading on skills and place policy at the National Centre for Universities and Business and working on the delivery of the City Deal in Greater Cambridge. He holds a wealth of multi-disciplinary professional experience in policy, public affairs and relationship and project management.
What they do at Youth Futures
Ryan sits at the intersection of our policy, government relations and evidence generation work, playing a key role in helping us to work with local and national government to set up trials to build new evidence about what works. He has a specific focus on our engagement with regional government, acting as a point of contact for interest stakeholders and shaping our offer based on their needs. This currently includes a strong focus on the Youth Guarantee Trailblazer programme.
About
Justin’s career has spanned the public, private and third sector, with a focus on education and skills. He most recently worked as a consultant with clients in and around the UK public sector on stakeholder engagement and project management, having previously held external affairs and policy roles at The Careers and Enterprise Company.
Outside of work, he likes to travel, keep up with politics and sport, and drag himself out for a run.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Justin leads our communications function.
About
Vicki started her career as a parliamentary researcher in the House of Commons before moving to The Fostering Network. Vicki’s campaigning work led to the introduction of legislation to extend foster care to young people to the age of 21. She co-chaired the Alliance for children in care and care leavers, working in partnership with 50 organisations to co-ordinate influencing activity as well as regularly representing The Fostering Network in the media. In her spare time, Vicki loves to cycle in the Surrey Hills and plays netball for Kingston Tigers.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures?
Vicki leads our Public Affairs team, along with Jessica Shrenk.
About
Alison holds a BA in Geography and History from the University of Glasgow and MA in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response from the University of Manchester. Having spent 2 years in our Impact and Evidence directorate, Alison has worked on many of our evidence-generation projects and gained experience with various research methods in a range of projects to better understand the youth unemployment challenge.
Before that Alison did her Masters in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response at The University of Manchester. Her dissertation explored the efficacy of cash-based humanitarian interventions targeting young people.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures?
In her role as Policy Manager, Alison works in the Policy and Public Affairs Team to grow and develop our policy expertise and develop evidence-led solutions based on what works.
About
Beth previously led the education work at the Centre for Social Justice, a leading independent think tank. Her work there focused on school absence, exclusions, and alternative provision. Prior to that, Beth led policy and PR at a UK-wide children’s charity, worked as a Fundraising Project Manager for a national poverty relief organisation, and served in the Parliamentary office of a government minister.
Outside of work, Beth is a (long-suffering!) season ticket holder at Huddersfield Town and enjoys spending time with her family, especially her two young nephews.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Beth works closely with colleagues in communications and public policy, playing a key role in driving engagement with parliamentary, government, political, and sector stakeholders.
About
Jessica has over seventeen years of experience working in public affairs and stakeholder engagement in Brussels and the UK. Outside of work, Jessica loves spending time with her family, dancing, live music, and yoga.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures?
Jessica leads our Public Affairs team, along with Vicki Jones.
About
Before joining Youth Futures, Jodie worked at a Birmingham-based PR agency, where she led on both strategy and delivery for clients across industries including retail, arts and culture, hospitality and the third sector.
Jodie enjoys spending her free time walking her Dachshund, Frankie, and mentoring students and graduates at Birmingham City University.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
As the Senior Media and Communications Manager, Jodie is responsible for amplifying the youth employment challenge and increasing Youth Futures’ brand awareness, through strategic communications and media relations.
About
With a PhD from the University of Warwick, specialising in unemployment policy, economic justice, and political philosophy, Peter is deeply passionate about tackling inequality and creating a fairer labour market for marginalised young people. Beyond the world of policy, Peter enjoys playing tennis and padel, watching American Football, engaging in political philosophy discussions, and playing guitar.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Peter leads our Public Policy team, advancing the development of our ‘what works’ body of policy expertise, positions and solutions, to influence the Government policy agenda to better support marginalised young people to secure good work.
About
Sarah is a strategic public affairs and communications professional with experience of driving influencing strategies and reputational positioning. Previous roles include Head of External Affairs at The Careers and Enterprise Company.
What they are involved with at Youth Futures
Sarah leads our Policy and External Affairs directoriate, providing expert counsel to senior executives and policy makers and representing us in the public arena.
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