Shalni Arora is a Founding Trustee of Belong and the CEO of Savannah Wisdom, a charitable foundation. She is also on the Board of the British Asia Trust, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital Foundation Trust and is a member of the Network for Social Change. She has been awarded a Medal of Honour by Manchester University for services to the City of Manchester in recognition of her support to the City, in particular the Hardship Fund she set up during the pandemic. She also has a Beacon Award for Philanthropy. Shalni holds a Masters in Genetics from Cambridge University and a Masters in International Development from Manchester University. She is a Biotech entrepreneur and an accountant and uses her strategic and leadership skills to guide organisations to achieving their mission. Shalni is committed to working towards a better, more cohesive United Kingdom through Belong and her other projects.

Míriam currently works as the Head of Research at OBI’s Democracy & Belonging Forum at UC Berkeley, and advisor to Our Common Home. She also worked as a senior researcher for More in Common, where she was the co-author of Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape and the lead author of Britain’s Choice: Common Ground and Division in 2020s Britain and has worked as an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona where she teaches courses on human rights and international criminal law. She has also contributed as a consultant to a variety of projects across the globe and is a board member of FundiPau, Foundation for Peace in Catalonia.

Míriam has fieldwork experience in Ghana and Colombia, where she worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and interned at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She holds a master in Global Affairs from Yale University and a law degree from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She has received several awards, including the Fox Fellowship from Yale University and the la Caixa Fellowship in Spain.

Garth is co-founder of Dallas Consulting and of the Good Small Business Awards. He has helped many businesses grow sustainably by maximising the potential of their people and connections. He specializes in helping businesses develop strategies that focus on making a positive impact on people, places, and the planet, across multiple industries.

Garth has a particular passion for helping businesses develop strategies that focus on making a positive impact on people, places, and the planet, across multiple industries. Having received a Vice-Chancellor Scholarship from Liverpool John Moores University, he is currently researching business ecosystems for SMEs in the Social and Solidarity Economy, in the UK and across the world.

In a consulting role, he was the Head of Collaborations for The Good Business Festival and the Good Small Business Champion for the Liverpool City Region’s Growth Platform, Good Small Business Programme from January 2020 to March 2022. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Alder Hey Children’s NHS Trust, and Chairperson of the Liverpool Commonwealth Association.

Michelle is Director of Link Up (UK), a charity she established in 2010 to combat prejudice and discrimination. She has over 15 years experience supporting charities working on community cohesion, interfaith dialogue and citizenship, developing income streams and capacity building. In October 2017, Michelle began a ground-breaking initiative to bring together those agencies and individuals interested in setting up a Network and this has helped to shape our development. Michelle started her career in marketing, before leading the corporate and community fundraising team at Centrepoint, the youth homeless charity.

Reeya Harish Gadhvana is Funding Partnerships Lead at the Centre for London, a nonpartisan think tank working to tackle London’s policy issues and make it a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous city. Reeya was previously the Head of Programmes at the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, where she oversaw several initiates including most notably the Fellowship Programme for political, business and civic leaders within Northern Ireland, a role in which she developed a desire to work closely with community cohesion and integration. Prior to this she completed a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a Masters in Law.

Rob has spent 30+ years in the corporate sector, working internationally for Shell in senior Marketing and Sales roles and leading major transformation projects. For the past eight years, in addition to leading the Data Strategy and Analytics practice, he built a company-wide Data Privacy approach and helped to shape the UK conversation on data trust and the transparent, ethical use of data. Through his personal experiences, including providing literacy support to school children in deprived areas of the country, Rob has built strong alignment with the Belong Network’s aims.

Motivated by collaboration and learning from people with insight, Rob is looking forward to bringing his commercial, data-driven approach and experience of using evidence, showing respect for difference and being courageous to the Belong Trustee team.

As Chief Executive of Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire, Robin leads the Council’s workforce, performance and budget. In October 2018, he was elected as the Deputy Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing for the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE). Since 2005, Robin has supported local government across the country as an accredited peer leading reviews on cohesion and corporate performance. Robin has worked in a number of senior roles in local government, in the Probation Service and the voluntary sector. His work in LB Waltham Forest led to the authority securing Beacon status for cohesion and community engagement. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Trustee of the Lankelly Chase Foundation, and has Masters degrees in Social Work and Management.

Fiona Callister is Head of Brand and Creative Content at the international development organisation WaterAid. Having started her career as a journalist in Liverpool and then working for national titles, she has since specialised in media and communications work for the not-for-profit sector working for national and international organisations including Age UK, the MS Society and CAFOD amongst others. Living and raising a family in South East London, Fiona believes that everyone in society should be able to flourish and thrive and was part of a project to create a new state secondary school to serve and enhance the local community.

Mark Lawrie is the Acting Chief Executive at StreetGames.

With a background in education and local authority sports development, Mark originally joined StreetGames in its infancy in January 2008, managing the national Young Volunteers programme.

In 2011, Mark became the founding Chief Executive of the new, independent County Sports Partnership, Get Berkshire Active.

Having returned to StreetGames as Deputy Chief Executive in May 2013, when the organisation secured £20 million to deliver 1,000 neighbourhood Doorstep Sport Clubs in England, Mark subsequently took on the role of Acting Chief Executive in October 2019.

Mark is passionate about the power of sport and physical activity to impact upon the lives and aspirations of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Julie Robbins is Head of Inclusion and Diversity at Youth Sport Trust.

Julie has 30 years experience in various Social Policy, Community Development and Sporting Regeneration management roles across England working with multi agency partnerships including central government.

Julie is currently the Head of Inclusion for the Youth Sport Trust. In her role she oversees the Charities Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategic plan and leads a team that works with schools and a wide range of organisations in the UK and Internationally, to directly address inequalities and achieve positive outcomes for marginalised groups of young people in and beyond educational settings.

Julie is also a member of Cheshire Constabulary and British Canoeing Diversity Equality and Inclusion Boards and is passionate about ensuring local people, especially those who are often seldom heard, can influence decisions and shape public services that affect their lives.

Samiya Butt is the Prevent & Community Cohesion Coordinator at Manchester City Council.

Samiya has over 20 years’ experience in working in Local Government, and has extensive experience in managing the delivery of large scale projects, building partnerships and working collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders.

Samiya has been in her current role for the last five years and at the heart of developing Manchester’s approach to delivering the Prevent strategy in the city. This includes the co-creation of a campaign designed with local communities to build community resilience called RADEQUAL and piloting new processes and support to safeguard those most vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism.

Samiya’s skills and experience are key to building a better understanding about community cohesion in the city encouraging positive relationships between and within communities. She has been part of the delivery of a number of programmes of work aimed at seeking a better understanding of community sentiment and the drivers that can lead to potential tensions along with tackling the multi-faceted cross-cutting approaches needed to address long standing socio economic factors.

Samiya has worked across Greater Manchester to develop tools and support for a range of partners aimed at establishing a better understand about the risks associated with terrorism, the delivery of the Prevent Duty and working with communities to rethink radicalisation and build community cohesion.

Daljit Kaur is the Chair of Ashiana. Established in 1981, Ashiana Sheffield supports Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BAMER) women and children from all over the country and recently arrived from all the world, fleeing domestic and sexual abuse within a range of multiple perpetrator systems such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), human trafficking, gang violence, ‘honour’ based violence and grooming.

Daljit is a Founder member, along with Professor Ted Cantle, of the Institute of Community Cohesion. Daljit managed the work of iCoCo, building on its position as the leading national institution working in the area of community cohesion, and developing an international profile for its applied research and advocacy work.

Andrew Copson is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK, the national charity advancing humanism through advocacy and community services such as ceremonies, pastoral care, and education, and support services benefiting over a million people every year. His work in cohesion and integration has largely focused on religion and belief, including work as chair of a Standing Advisory Council on RE, as a member of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, and at Humanists UK, where he introduced new dialogue programmes and has led campaigns against religious segregation and discrimination in public services such as state schools.

Ted is the director of the iCoCo Foundation, a community interest company dedicated to promoting interculturalism and cohesion, has a long career in public service, previously serving as the Chief Executive of Nottingham City Council, and Deputy Chair of the Environment Agency and has led other charities and partnerships. In 2001, he was tasked with conducting an independent review of the 2001 race riots across northern cities. The Report that was published, known as the ‘Cantle Report,’ set out a new approach to race and community relations, community cohesion – based on intercultural exchange or ‘contact theory.’ Ted was appointed CBE and Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire in 2004.

Jo is the former CEO of Belong – The Cohesion and Integration Network, and was previously CEO of StreetDoctors where she grew a UK wide healthcare volunteering movement advocating for a public health approach to address youth violence.

Jo has worked in a number of senior leadership positions in the third sector leading on the design and development of a series of award winning programmes to tackle gangs and territorialism, reduce prejudice and hatred and build social peace. Jo was a Community Cohesion advisor for the Department of Communities and Local Government supporting local areas to reduce community tensions and improve good relations. Her background is in conflict transformation and she has worked as a practitioner in the UK and internationally.