Alumni Leadership Board

Yasmin is a first-year medical student at Imperial College London. She attended the Cardiff Medicine Sutton Trust Summer School in 2019. Coming from a low-income background, she appreciates the importance of social mobility and access to higher education. She has been involved with Sutton Trust as an Alumni Advisor. She also sings in the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, plays in orchestras and fundraises for charities. 

Stephanie is a Global Leadership Fellow and Practice Lead in the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Intelligence team. She holds a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford and completed her master’s degree in Global Affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University. She grew up on a farm in rural Lincolnshire.

Roger grew up in Aberystwyth, Wales, and attended the 2008 Sutton Trust programme at the University of Cambridge, from which he graduated. He has since moved between the public and private sector, and between the UK, New Zealand and Latvia. He is currently living in London, working for the Joint Biosecurity Centre.  

Rory is studying MSc Global Politics at the London School of Economics. Prior to that, he completed a BSc in Political Economy at King’s College London, during which time he spent three years working in the UK Parliament, advised the European Commission as a Young leader of Industry, and stood as a 19-year-old Parliamentary Candidate in the 2017 General Election. He sits on Amnesty International’s first ever Youth Task Force and work on social impact projects as a member of the London Global Shapers hub – an initiative of the World Economic Forum.

Last year, he was recognised by Target Jobs as one of the UK’s Top 10 Undergraduates of the Year for Impactful Social Action, from over 4500 applicants. In 2014 he attended the Sutton Trust’s Economics Programme at the University of Cambridge. He is also on the Civil Service’s Fast Stream graduate programme, the first year of which he’ll spend in the Department of Health and Social Care.  

Lucy is a Brand Strategy Consultant at Lippincott and an independent musician. She was a participant on the Sutton Trust’s US programme and won a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from which she holds a BA in Political Science and English.  

Originally from the North East of England, Dan attended a Sutton Trust Summer School in 2007 and went on to read Medicine at the University of Manchester. He graduated with a first class BSc in Pharmacology & Physiology, partly thanks to a Wolfson Scholarship, alongside his MB ChB (Hons) in 2014. He is currently working as an Anaesthetic Registrar in London. Outside of clinical work, he has a passion for mentorship, education and championing social mobility. 

Laura graduated in 2015 from the University of St Andrews with a BSc in Biochemistry after attending the Sutton Trust Summer School there in 2010. Laura went onto work in admissions and now manages their widening access team running a range of activities throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Zoe is a strategic advisor and certified coach who has spent a decade working in strategic and operational talent roles within technology companies, startups and venture capital. Zoe is currently Talent Partner at EQT Ventures, a global multi-stage VC firm where she supports the investment team and portfolio companies to attract, select and develop people. Previously Zoe was part of the founding team at talent-investor Entrepreneur First (EF) where she built the global talent function, and has also worked in talent roles at Mind Candy and Apple. Zoe is passionate about diversifying the leadership landscape in tech. 

Pooja is Policy & Communications Advisor at the Royal College of Medicine. She previously held policy roles in think tanks and charities, and started her career working as a history teacher. Pooja holds an MSc Social Policy (Research) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a PGCE from the University of Warwick, and BA (Hons) in History, Government and International Affairs from Durham University.

Jouja is Collaboration & Synergy Executive at Regenerative Investment. She holds a BA in Political Science and Human Rights from Barnard College, Columbia University and a MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford. She is a proud alum of both the Sutton Trust’s US and UK programmes.

Matt is a first generation Polish immigrant and the first in his family to go on to higher education. Matt recently graduated from LSE with a law degree and is due to commence his training contract with Allen & Overy in September 2019. He is interested in politics, fitness, development and travelling, and is passionate about social mobility.

Daniel is in his fourth year studying Physics at the University of St Andrews. Prior to this he completed the Sutton Trust summer school at UCL.  He is currently based in Scotland, but was born in Afghanistan and raised in Grays, UK. He has experience in Investment banking, PE consulting and has launched a tech-based mobility start-up which has recently completed its first seed round.  

Farouk currently works as a portfolio manager investing in Africa and the Middle East. Prior to returning to the UK in 2019, Farouk was based in the Middle East for ten years where he was in charge of regional investments for the Saudi pension fund, as well as heading an investment research team for a local firm.  Farouk started his career in London at Lehman Brothers and subsequently Nomura looking at European equities. Farouk holds a MA degree in Economics and Management from Cambridge University. Farouk was born and raised in Lancashire and took part in the Sutton Summer School in 2001 where he spent a week at Cambridge University in the Economics programme. 

Elliott is a Senior Policy Advisor at HM Treasury, working in the government’s Public Services Group. He was a participant on the Sutton Trust’s inaugural US programme in 2012. With the Trust’s support, Elliott obtained significant financial aid to attend Middlebury College in Vermont, from which he holds a BA in Political Science.

Joel is an adviser on education reform, currently working for the Greater London Authority. He has previously worked for the education technology company Jisc, and the Policy Connect think tank. Joel has an MA in Educational Planning, Economics & International Development from UCL, and a BA in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford.

Tom is a Policy Advisor at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, working within the EU Engagement Team as part of EU Strategy and Relations. He has an active interest in community work and social action, with a passion to boost social mobility across the UK and end education inequality.

Before joining the Civil Service, Tom was an experienced teacher and middle leader in West Yorkshire. He completed Teach First’s Leadership Development Programme in 2019. As a teacher, he worked with the UK Parliament to develop pupils’ understand of Parliament and democracy, and became an accredited UK Parliament Gold Teacher Ambassador.

As an undergraduate, Tom studied Law at Newcastle University. He completed the Pathways to Law Programme in 2013 (at the University of Nottingham) and the Pathways to Law Plus Programme in 2014-15. Tom has a Masters in Educational Leadership, where his research focussed on how Science teaching can be improved to meet the growing gap in STEM skills and increase ‘Science capital’ in disadvantaged areas. He also has a National Professional Qualification in Middle Leadership.

Josiah is a BCL Candidate at the University of Oxford, where he studies as a 4 New Square Scholar. He recently graduated from Harvard University as the youngest Kennedy scholar to study the LLM in over 10 years. He studied law at the LSE as a Lord Benson Scholar where he graduated with numerous academic prizes and is a published independent researcher in leading UK private law journals including the OJLS and LMCLQ. He currently teaches contract law at the LSE, has co-founded a food-tech start-up and works in the M&A and Strategy team of a unicorn fin-tech. He is state school educated, grew up in North-East London and attended the UK Summer School at the University of Cambridge in 2015.

Elle is a Northerner hailing from Doncaster and is now residing in London, UK. She was first introduced to the Sutton Trust in 2015, when she travelled to MIT on the US Programme. Since then,  she has fallen completely in love with the states and recently graduated as a Robertson Scholar from Duke University, with Honors in History and Political Science. Having now returned across the pond, she works with a fantastic team at Amazon, specializing in Business Development. From advocating for social mobility to it’s data-driven research, the Trust’s work is invaluable to society and she is so honoured to be a part of that contribution through the Alumni Leadership Board.’ 

Dani was a young carer at a failing secondary school in North Yorkshire, and despite this secured an offer to study at the University of Oxford. As an ambassador for the #iwill Campaign, he is passionate about youth social action and wants to help students access the support they need to achieve their goals. He attended the Chemistry Summer School in 2019 at Imperial College London. He will be studying an MChem in Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and hopes to potentially pursue a career in law.