UK Youth is a leading charity working across the UK. We have influence as a sector-supporting infrastructure body, a direct delivery partner and a campaigner for social change.
UK Youth’s new 2025 strategy, “Unlocking Youth Work” outlines a bold ambition to impact young lives by unlocking youth work as a catalyst for change. We will work in partnership to build a cross-sector movement, creating a society that understands, champions, and delivers effective youth work for all.
With an open network of over 8000 youth organisations and nation partners, we are focused on unlocking youth work as the catalyst of change that is needed now more than ever.
CEO
Joining UK Youth as CEO in January 2020, Ndidi is an influential public advocate, delivering transformational change in a variety of contexts. She is deeply committed to youth work, life skills development, and youth equality. Ndidi is also a board member for youth homelessness charity, Centrepoint UK, the National Citizen Service and The Mulberry Schools Trust.
President
The former motor racing champion became President in 1999 and continues to work tirelessly to promote the charity. Nigel has taken on a host of fundraisers raising over £1 million for UK Youth.
Patron
HRH, Patron since 2003, makes a number of personal appearances each year on behalf of UK Youth, and has a genuine understanding and passion of the positive impact UK Youth has on young peoples lives.
Chair of Trustees
David was appointed as a Trustee of UK Youth in February 2020.
David has 40 years’ experience in engineering and business. He served on the Global Management Board of Accenture for 11 years prior to retiring in 2014. His leadership roles at Accenture included being Chairman of the UK and Ireland business and overall responsibility for Strategy and Operations across 55 countries.
David now has a wide portfolio of commitments. These include the Chair of Moixa Energy – a smart battery company, International Secretary at the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Advisory Board member of BecomingX and Immerse (a virtual reality technology company). He is passionate about addressing inequalities of opportunities for young people to realise their potential. He has been a long-term supporter of TeachFirst and sits on the UK Board of Teach For All.
Vice Chair
Matt has worked in financial services for over 20 years and specialises in leading large transformation programmes and managing significant-sized teams in multi-regional structures. He is CEO of 10th Bridge Consulting and has previously held senior positions at Holley Holland Consulting, RBS, Deutsche Bank and PWC in a variety of change-related roles.
Honorary Treasurer
Daniel is a Senior Manager at PwC, providing audit and specialist assurance services, with a particular focus on working with the central government and not for profit clients. He was appointed to the Charities SORP Committee in February 2020. Daniel is a Chartered Accountant and holds the ICAEW Diploma in Charity Accounting. He is also a Chartered Manager and has a master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Management.
Trustee
Godfrey is a Senior Secretariat Lead for the Covid 19 Taskforce in the Cabinet Office. He has a passion for public service and making a difference in society which has seen him hold several roles within the Civil Service. His career and volunteering have focused on supporting young people to fulfil their potential. Godfrey sits on the People Committee as Race lead working and motivating leaders across the Civil Service assimilating their challenging feedback, enhancing their capability to cultivate young and BAME leadership within the Civil Service. He is also a Governor of a local school.
Trustee
Kamara is a Computer Science and English Language graduate from Aston University. She is a Graduate Developer at BBC Design & Engineering. She is a diligent, goal-oriented individual with a strong ability to think logically and laterally.
Trustee
Lanai Collis-Phillips is in her second year of a Children’s Nursing Degree at Birmingham City University. Since 2019 Lanai is an #iwill ambassador for UK Youth including for the young and black campaign and has represented and spoken at numerous events for UK Youth. She is also a volunteer at Volunteering Matters for the youth social action project since 2015.
Trustee
Aaron is a Strategy Consultant and was previously Business Manager at Global Markets Consultants (GMC), a management consulting firm in the City of London. He was elected Common Councillor for Tower Ward, City of London in January 2022. In 2018, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with a PwC team, raising over £5,000 for UK Youth. Aaron joined UK Youth as a Trustee in 2016.
Trustee
Obum Ekeke currently leads DeepMind’s efforts to build an AI ecosystem that supports inclusive and equitable use of AI to maximise benefit to society. He has dedicated his career towards enabling people from underrepresented groups to access a quality computing and AI education, and to thrive in whatever career they choose to pursue afterwards. In 2022, Obum was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List for services to computing and AI education, and championing diversity and inclusion in the tech sector.
Trustee
Anna is Chief of Staff for Finance at Pearson. She is a qualified accountant (ICAS) with extensive commercial finance experience in the Education and Media sector. In her career, she has held various finance roles in Pearson (FTSE 100), Nuffield Health and PricewaterhouseCoopers and has recently been shortlisted for NXT GEN Female Finance CFO of the future award.
Trustee
Ben works as part of Sport England’s External Affairs team to champion the organisation’s work in grassroots sport and physical activity across Westminster and Whitehall. Previously Policy Adviser for the Sport and Recreation Alliance, he led their policy, influencing and advocacy work around public health, mental health and helping more children and young people to be active.
Trustee
Jolanta is Chief Executive of Ambitious about Autism, including the School Trust. She Chairs two sector infrastructure bodies – Autism Education Trust and the Autism Alliance. She is a Trustee of UK Youth. Her career includes Director roles in national voluntary sector organisations, including I CAN and the Governance Hub (a national body set up to support the governance of the third sector).
Trustee
Jodie is the CEO of Oxfordshire Youth, Vice Chari of the Oxfordshire Children’s Trust Board, Chair of the Children and Young People’s Forum and co-Chair of the Charity Leaders Forum. A strategic leader and big picture thinker, Jodie is passionate about equality, social justice, system change, youth voice and the power of youth work to change lives.
Trustee
Gabrielle is a multi-award-winning children and young people’s health advocate with a passion for ensuring children and young people’s voices are reflected in all decisions that affect them. She sits as an Oversight Board member to the Research and Economic Analysis for the Long-term (REAL) centre at the Health Foundation, is the youngest member of the NHS Assembly, a board member of the #iwill Partnership board, and works across the Youth Sector as a representative on the BackYouthAlliance. She previously worked as a Youth Expert Advisor to the NHS England Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme, a former trustee of the Imperial College Union. Gabrielle is a newly qualified doctor, currently working in Paediatrics at North Middlesex University Hospital. She was celebrated as one of 450 Women of the Year in 2019, awarded a Diana Award and honoured as the 1444th Point of Light by the UK Prime Minister in 2020.
Trustee
Iain has 20 years’ experience in the technology industry, with a particular focus on helping businesses and governments deliver better outcomes using technology. He is currently the Country Manager for Stripe in the UK. Along with other trustees, he cycled to Paris from London in 2017 in support of UK Youth.
Trustee
Jon is an Executive Director at the Youth Endowment Fund and previously a Special Advisor within the Department of Education and a Business Analyst at McKinsey. He founded three youth initiatives, including the National Citizen Service, founding, and scaling a charity from 3 volunteers to 1000 staff. His main priority in life is to be a decent human – and support young people to progress through the youth work that he has been involved in, to serve young people through the initiatives that I have founded and be a decent husband and father.
Director of External Relations
Director of Collective Action
Director of Outdoor Learning
Director of Strategy, Research and Impact
Director of People Development and Wellbeing
Chief Programme Officer
Chief Operating Officer