Our people

Sharon Squires

Director, Sharon Squires Consultancy

With an extensive track record working with political leaders, Sharon is the director of her own consultancy. She is also chair of multi-agency assurance panels for the Modern Slavery unit at the Home Office, a trustee a Involve, a senior fellow at The Young Foundation, and lectures on place-based leadership at the Universities of Birmingham, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam.

Professor H.A. Hellyer

Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Atlantic Council and the Royal United Services Institute

A scholar and author focusing on politics, religion, and security studies, Dr H.A. Hellyer is a specialist on politics in the modern Arab world, challenges facing European Muslim communities, and Islam in the contemporary era.

Gorka Espiau

Director, Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies

Gorka was director of International Affairs at The Young Foundation and a senior fellow at the Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies. He is also a founding partner of Social Innovation Laboratory Koop, a Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) country ambassador, and a member of the International Advisory Group of INCORE (University of Ulster and United Nations University).

William Heath

Social Entrepreneur and Senior Adviser, DXW Ltd and ARC

William Heath is a social entrepreneur. He co-founded and chaired both Kable Ltd, and Open Rights Group. He helped form a co-op that bought The Bell Inn in Bath, and another to take control of Bath City FC. He co-founded Mydex CIC, and Ctrl-Shift Ltd. He currently acts as senior adviser to DXW Ltd and ARC (Alliance of Religions and Conservation).

Dr Tony Flower

Founding Chair, The Young Foundation

Now retired, Tony was The Young Foundation’s founding chair in 2005, having been Michael Young’s right-hand man throughout the 1980s and 90s. He has been director of numerous charitable and voluntary organisations, and has acted as consultant to many others – notably the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.

Paul Barker

Writer, broadcaster and editor, 1935-2019

Paul was a writer, broadcaster and the former editor of the social affairs magazine New Society. He was awarded a research fellowship by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 for his work on suburbia which laid the foundation

Kirsteen Tait

Trustee, Most Mira

Kirsteen works with Most Mira (Bridge of Peace), a charity that provides arts-based opportunities for Serb and Bosnian young people. She also supports Men for Tomorrow, a charity that examines mothers’ work/family life balance, and how young under-performing white working class males can play a part in that.

John Thackara

Senior Fellow, Royal College of Art.

John curated the celebrated Doors of Perception conference for 20 years, in Amsterdam and India, and was the first director of the Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam. He has served on start-up teams for new institutes around the world, and was commissioner of the social innovation biennial, Dott 07, and the ecological city biennial, City Eco Lab.

Dr Elaine Bauer

Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, London South Bank University

Elaine is a social anthropologist with research interests including international migration, transnationalism, language brokering, race/ethnicity, and ‘mixed’ families. She is a senior research fellow and lecturer at LSBU, and associate fellow at Institute of Latin American Studies.

Marcial Boo

Chief Executive, IPSA

Marcial is chief executive of IPSA, the MPs’ pay and expenses watchdog. He was previously a director at the National Audit Office and senior civil servant at the Home Office. He was an advisor to Tony Blair, and was deputy chair of The Young Foundation.

Malcolm Dean

Journalist

Malcolm was a journalist for more than 60 years. In 1969, he joined The Guardian, where he worked his way up to associate editor, having launched the paper’s weekly society section. During this time, he met Michael Young. He took up a fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford and was chair of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation commission on older people.

Kate Gavron

Chair, Folio Holdings Ltd and the Folio Society Ltd

Kate has a background in book publishing and writing. She chairs Folio Holdings Ltd and the Folio Society Ltd, and is on the board of Granta Publications. She is a trustee of BalletBoyz. She co-authored The New East End with Geoff Dench and our founder, Michael Young, in 2006, and she was co-author of Young at 80: the prolific public life of Michael Young.