Guidance

List of Disability and Access Ambassadors

Updated 11 December 2024

Please note: Disability and Access Ambassadors are not able to deal with individual issues or personal queries.

Advertising

Josh Bullmore, Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett

Josh Bullmore is the Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett, where he has worked for 14 years.

Josh won ‘Strategy Leader of the Year’ at the Campaign Agency of the Year Awards in 2021, 2022 and 2023. He works on campaigns for clients including The National Lottery, Google and Morrisons. He writes articles on the importance of inclusion for disabled people, and has a column in Campaign magazine.

Josh grew up with a family member with cerebral palsy. This gave him direct experience of the barriers that disabled people face. It also gave him a passion for change for disabled people. He believes the advertising industry can be a tool for change – both as an employer and an influencer of perceptions in wider culture.

Josh is a board member of enABLE, the employee action group for disability at Leo Burnett’s parent group, Publicis. He established a work experience programme for disabled people at Leo Burnett. This served as a pilot for a broader programme that Publicis is launching with 10,000 Able Interns.

Arts and culture

David Stanley BEM – Chief Executive Office (CEO), The Music Man Project

David is a musical director (including of Southend Mencap), teacher, and composer. He is the founder and CEO of The Music Man Project, a multi award-winning, world record-breaking international music education and performance service for people with learning disabilities. He works with special schools, regional music hubs (highlighted as best practice by the Arts Council), national charities and music conservatoires.

David has enabled hundreds of children and adults with disabilities to perform in front of thousands of people at the London Palladium and the Royal Albert Hall. He advises venues, casting agents, promoters, producers and directors regarding disability access. David has been a disability hate crime ambassador and was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2021 for services to disabled people.

Aviation

Ann Frye OBE – Independent Consultant

Ann specialises in policy analysis and delivery on the mobility needs of disabled and older people across all modes of transport in the UK and internationally. She is currently the Chair of the Independent Gatwick Advisory Panel. She has delivered training and policy advice to airports and airlines (including easyJet) to improve the accessibility of air travel.

Ann was the Chair of the European Civil Aviation Conference Working Group on Passengers with Reduced Mobility for 16 years. She also served for 5 years as a member of the Civil Aviation Authority Consumer Panel. Before this, Ann led the Department for Transport’s Mobility and Inclusion Unit for 26 years, and established the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC). Ann’s OBE was awarded for services to disabled people.

Banking

Kathryn Townsend – Head of Customer Vulnerability, Access and Inclusion, Nationwide Building Society

Kathryn has been leading the advancement of accessibility in the business sector for more than 10 years. She is responsible for defining and executing the strategy to ensure that Nationwide’s members receive a market-leading, inclusive experience.

Prior to Nationwide, Kathryn led the disability and vulnerability programme at Barclays, which was recognised as a global leader in accessibility. Kathryn’s work has received numerous awards in the field, including from MoneyFacts and Business Disability Forum. Kathryn has spoken to global audiences as an ambassador for financial inclusion and accessibility, including at the United Nations in Vienna.

Kathryn led a partnership with the Barclays Investment Bank in New York and the New York Mayor’s Office to run several events in 2015 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. She is a founding member of the Visit England Inclusive Tourism Action Group. She is also a passionate board member of Euan’s Guide, the disability access charity.

Built environment

Jean Hewitt – Inclusive Design, Buro Happold

Jean has specialised in accessibility and inclusion in the built environment for over 20 years and has been a member of the National Register of Access Consultants since 2003. She is a senior consultant at Buro Happold, an international, integrated consultancy of engineers, consultants and advisers. Alongside this role, Jean is an Honorary Associate Professor at UCL, running the ‘Designing Inclusive Places’ module on the MSc Health Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings Bartlett programme.

A keen writer and trainer, Jean has contributed to accessibility and inclusion guidance for Sport England, EHRC, IWFM and many other organisations and she is the technical author of the British Standards Institute (BSI) PAS 6463: ‘Design for the Mind – Neurodiversity and the Built Environment’. She has been a longstanding member of BSI’s B559 Committee ‘Design of an Accessible and Inclusive Environment’, representing the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management plus charities for sight loss, vestibular conditions and neurological pain.

Jean is a Trustee of Changing Places Toilets International, a Dementia Friend, Mental Health First Aider and a member of Buro Happold’s Inclusion Council.

Buses

Claire Walters – Chief Executive, Bus Users UK Charitable Trust

Claire has been Chief Executive of Bus Users UK for the last 9 years. Under her leadership, Bus Users has become the only registered alternative dispute resolution body for the bus and coach sector, and a national enforcement body for bus and coach passenger rights. As a bridge between operators, local authority transport teams and local communities, Bus Users aims to ensure that the voices of passengers are heard by policy and decision makers. Bus Users is recognised by the bus and coach industries as a source of intelligence on passengers’ wants and needs.

Claire’s previous career spanned the public, private and voluntary sectors, including time spent as fundraising manager for the National Eczema Society, and deputy director for the Down’s Syndrome Association.

Countryside

Debbie North – Accessibility Expert and Chair of the Access for All Group

Debbie is passionate about creating a countryside for all. Since becoming a wheelchair user, Debbie has campaigned tirelessly to break down barriers in all aspects of promoting accessibility for all. Debbie lives on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. She is a member of the Local Access Forum for the YDNP and chair of the Access For All group. She is a volunteer for the National Park with the responsibility of auditing the ‘Miles Without Stiles’ routes.

For the past 6 years, Debbie has been the expert in inclusion and diversity for all for the Outdoor Guide, a free online resource dedicated to enjoying the outdoors, co-founded and fronted by TV presenter Julia Bradbury. Debbie is also a Get Outside Champion with Ordnance Survey, promoting the physical and mental wellbeing of being outdoors, and ambassador for Ramblers UK. In 2020, she was nominated for ‘Outdoor Personality of the Year’ by TGO magazine readers.

Debbie is a presenter, motivational speaker, writer and consultant. She is a regular contributor for the BBC Countryfile Magazine. Debbie is founder of the charity Access the Dales, which provides all-terrain wheelchairs for people to use in the Yorkshire Dales. Although Debbie specialises in walks for wheelchair users, she also creates multi-sensory walks for people with other disabilities and impairments.

Creative industries

Giles Barker – Workplace Disability Lead, Channel 4

Giles Barker was appointed as Channel 4’s first ever Workplace Disability Lead in 2022. He works closely with Channel 4’s Head of Inclusion to ensure Channel 4 is the best place for disabled people to work in the UK. Giles is accountable for developing a company-wide strategy for disability inclusion, built around the Business Disability Forum’s Disability Smart benchmarking framework, and to maintain and build on Channel 4’s Disability Confident Leadership status. He is also responsible for external engagement and collaboration with disability- related industry initiatives and membership organisations, including OFCOM, The TV Access Project (TAP), Disability Confident Leaders Group, and Valuable 500.

Giles joined Channel 4 from British Telecom, where he was Group Diversity and Inclusion Lead. Before that, he spent 14 years at Transport for London, leading transformation programmes and becoming an accessibility and inclusion specialist. He was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2017 in recognition of his ability to influence and then deliver corporate-wide culture changes around disability inclusion.

In 2015, Giles was involved in the working group to help design and launch PurpleSpace, the world’s only networking hub for disabled employees. He has recently been made a PurpleSpace Ambassador and Chair of PurpleSpace’s Impact Steering Strategic Forum.

Energy

Meghna Tewari – Head of Retail Market Policy, Ofgem

Meghna is a recognised energy sector leader with extensive experience of leading regulatory reform for vulnerable consumers, including those with disabilities. She created the energy regulator, Ofgem’s, highly influential vulnerability strategy, which has influenced cross-sectoral regulatory approaches in the UK and internationally. She regularly uses her influence to drive change in the best interest of consumers. For example, she was on the advisory panel for Fair by Design’s inclusive design initiative, seeking to drive out the poverty premium and empower consumers.

Meghna co-founded Ofgem’s ethnic diversity network and is an advocate of increased diversity at the workplace and in leadership roles. She also serves as a non-executive member for the Office for Students (higher education regulator) Committee on provider risk, which operates to serve the best interests of students and improve sector standards. She is regularly invited to speak at national and international conferences on disability and consumer issues in the energy sector.

Heritage

Kim Klug-Miller – Community Partnerships Manager, Historic Royal Palaces

Kim Klug-Miller has worked at Historic Royal Palaces for over 10 years. She is passionate about creating ways for people of all ages and abilities to engage with museums, galleries and heritage sites in ways that are meaningful and relevant for them.

In 2012, Kim launched the Community Access Scheme, a sustainable model for community engagement. This scheme involves identifying, establishing and nurturing partnerships with organisations who are gatekeepers to local communities with real or perceived barriers to access.

In 2016, she initiated the Dementia Friendly Heritage Network to share best practice for engaging people with dementia with heritage. She chaired a group of over 40 organisations, which included heritage organisations from across the UK, Alzheimer’s Society, National Lottery Heritage Fund and academics. This resulted in the publication of ‘Rethinking Heritage: A guide to help make sites more dementia-friendly’.

Kim has significant lived experience of this condition through her family. She is experienced working with children, families, young people, non-English speakers and adults living with disabilities, mental health issues, dementia and those experiencing social isolation. She believes that making it easier to access and understand art, heritage, museums and galleries helps the communities around them to thrive and become stronger and more cohesive.

Hospitality

Kate Nicholls OBE – Chief Executive, UKHospitality

Kate is Chief Executive of UK Hospitality, the representative membership body for the industry, which has 90,000 members. She is also Chair of the Mayor of London’s Night Time Commission, and member of the London Food Board and UK Government Events Industry Board. Previously, as Chief Executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, Kate gained significant experience in public speaking in the industry and wider media on food and beverage trends and strategic issues. At Whitbread, Kate developed industry good practice guides in response to the Disability Discrimination Act.

Kate is a trustee of 2 industry charities (Licensed Trade Charity, and Hospitality Action), advising on the establishment of mental health and wellbeing helplines, and a catering work experience programme for neurodiverse and autistic young people. Kate was awarded an OBE in 2021 for services to the hospitality sector, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Housing

Position currently being advertised.

Insurance

Peter Hamilton – Head of Market Engagement, Zurich

Peter has 40 years of experience as a financial services professional. Peter joined Zurich in 2005 and is now responsible for its response to industry issues. Last year, Zurich revitalised and rebranded its Access and Inclusion Network (of which Peter is a member), updated its Disability Confident Leader status, became a PurpleSpace member, updated its Reasonable Adjustment policy, and had 126 people volunteer as Mental Health First Aiders.

Peter is Chair of the Association of British Insurers’ (ABI) long-term care working party, Chair of the ABI’s retail protection sub-group, member of the ABI’s protection strategy board, the building resilient households group, and the British Insurance Brokers’ Association’s access to insurance committee.

Rail travel

Alison Smith – Head of Accessibility and Inclusion at the Great British Railways Transition Team

Alison is the Head of Accessibility and Inclusion at the Great British Railways transition team, where she has been working with colleagues at the Department of Transport and across the rail sector on development of the first ever National Rail accessibility strategy. To support this, a National Rail accessibility advisory group made up of disabled people and representatives from disabled people’s organisations and charities has been established to directly inform priorities and proposals. Alison and her team are also delivering a second phase of the Department for Transport’s accessibility audit of stations, aimed at providing information improvements for customers and helping the industry with insights and analysis to inform future station investment priorities.

Alison has had a long history in the rail sector, working at Network Rail, where she headed up their accessibility and inclusion team, launching a new accessible travel policy, station guides and new organisation wide disability and equality training. She has also worked for various train companies, and the Rail Delivery Group looking at customer experience and accessibility improvements, with the aim that everyone’s journey matters.

Recruitment

Kate Headley – The Clear Company

Kate co-founded the Clear Company diversity and inclusion consultancy in 2003. As part of the executive team, she has successfully grown the business to one with a global reach and recognition as pioneers of inclusive best practice. Her clients include organisations who are leaders in their sectors in inclusive hiring and talent management. She is a fully qualified HR professional who has spent over 20 years specialising in recruitment and diversity. She is a sought-after speaker and advisor, helping to tell audiences about the benefits of being diversity-confident.

Kate was a founding member of the Department of Work and Pensions’ disability employer engagement steering group, which was created to develop a platform for individual MPs to activate and support disability best practice in their constituencies. In 2011, Kate founded and continues to chair the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI). RIDI is a not-for-profit movement to increase disability confidence in the UK recruitment industry, and has changed the lives of more than 500,000 disabled job seekers.

Kate is a government advisor on disability and diversity and serves on the external panel of experts to the Cabinet Office. She is a founder partner of the government’s Disability Confident Campaign.

Retail

Elisabeth Wooller – Strategic Sourcing Manager at Sainsbury’s

Beth Wooller is a Strategic Sourcing Manager at Sainsbury’s, where she leads teams in the successful launch, delivery and evaluation of multi-million pound value creation and cost saving programmes. She is also the Chair of Sainsbury’s EnAble network and recognised as one of the UK’s most influential disabled people in the Shaw Trust Power 100 List.

Beth has presented widely on accessibility, including at 10 Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and to employers across the UK. She shaped the strategy for disability inclusion at Sainsburys for over 160,000 employees, and launched EnAble, the company’s first ever disability network.

Beth is also an ambassador for AccessAble, actively raising awareness of and enhancing accessibility information for over 70,000 venues across the UK. Prior to entering the retail sector, Beth worked as a management consultant at Deloitte MCS Ltd.

Sports and physical activity

Tim Hollingsworth OBE, CEO Sport England

Before his role with Sport England, Tim was chief executive of the British Paralympic Association (BPA) for 7 years. He led the team into 4 Paralympic Games, including a best-ever Winter Games performance at PyeongChang 2018 and the record 147-medal haul at Rio 2016 as Paralympics GB finished second in the medal table (up from third and 120 medals at London 2012).

Tim has also been at the forefront of the work that has increased the profile and interest of the Paralympic movement, driving the commercial and business growth of the BPA as a charity that challenges perceptions of disability in society.

Before the BPA, Tim held the roles of director of policy and communications and chief operating officer at UK Sport. Prior to that, he had a decade’s worth of experience working in senior corporate communications roles. Tim was awarded an OBE in 2017 for services to sport.

Technology and web accessibility

Hector Minto, Director of Accessibility Evangelism at Microsoft

Hector has been a leading voice in the field of assistive technology and accessibility for 25 years, developing technology solutions to empower people with disabilities to participate in education, employment and society.

Hector has committed his whole career to inclusive technology and has worked on UK government projects for alternative communication, employment and skills, and business confidence on disability. He has led innovation projects on gesture technology, eye-tracking, learning experiences and home automation.

In his role as Director of Accessibility Evangelism at Microsoft, Hector is actively engaging with Microsoft’s global workforce and partners to showcase inclusive design, product accessibility, the inclusive hiring program and accessibility innovation from Microsoft Research. He also works with product teams, ensuring that Microsoft are continuously adapting to the changing needs of the diverse population using their products across the globe.

Tourism

Ross Calladine, Head of Business Support, VisitEngland

Ross is VisitEngland’s in-house accessibility specialist, developing and delivering initiatives that engage tourism businesses and destinations in accessible tourism.

Ross led the development of England’s first Accessible Tourism Action Plan, and has produced a large number of guidance and support tools for the industry. He champions leaders in the field through VisitEngland’s Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Award.

Seeing strong partnerships as the key to success, Ross founded England’s Inclusive Tourism Action Group, which comprises leading accessible tourism stakeholders. Having amassed over 13 years of dedication to the field of accessible tourism, listening to disabled people, developing world-leading guidance for businesses and destinations, Ross has become a respected subject matter expert, not only in the UK but worldwide.

Universities

Professor Geoff Layer OBE – Chair of the Disabled Students’ Commission

Geoff was Vice Chancellor at the University of Wolverhampton from 2011 to 2021. He is Chair of the Disabled Students’ Commission, Chair of the Student Loans Company Stakeholder Forum, and Chair of Advance Higher Education’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (the lead UK higher education body on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion). Geoff is also Director of the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership, Vice-President of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Chair of Universities West Midlands.

While at Sheffield Hallam University, Geoff established its first Disabled Student Support Service. Geoff was previously Director of Action on Access for the Higher Education Funding Council for England and National Coordinating Team for Widening Participation, and Director of the Equality Challenge Unit. As Chair of the Disabled Student Sector Leadership Group, Geoff produced the first guidance on inclusive learning for the sector. Geoff was awarded an OBE for services to higher education in 2003.