Team
We build movements for social justice. Meet the people who make it happen.
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
Executive Director
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is a social movement strategist, facilitator, and coach with over a decade of experience in political education, organisational transformation, and liberation work. As Executive Director of the New Economy Organisers Network (NEON), she has led major strategy initiatives and trained hundreds of organisations in movement building, strategic communications and political strategy. Ayeisha is also the co-founder of Kinfolk Network, a pioneering space for Black activists, and sits on several boards including Greenpeace UK. Ayeisha presents the Weekly Economics Podcast, Economics with Subtitles for BBC R4 and The Why Factor for BBC World Service, and holds degrees from UCL and Goldsmiths University of London.
Rosie Baines
Head of Training
Rosie organises all of the comms training programmes NEON offers, including media training and press officer training. She has been working in press offices for 14 years and was previously a press officer at a number of national museums in the UK, and is a member of the campaign group, Museum Detox.
Naia Bazin
Senior Organiser
Naia works to strengthen organising in UK social justice movements. Prior to joining NEON, Naia was a community organiser with Trans Action for Housing Justice and the London Renters Union. They are also a somatic practitioner in training with Healing Justice London, working towards building embodied leadership within our movements.
Heather Clancy
Senior Press Officer
Heather works on the Spokesperson Network, which trains up progressive and diverse voices to speak in national and regional media. Heather is an experienced journalist and has previously worked for the BBC in various roles, producing stories across the UK and abroad.
Molly Fleming
Interim Head of Media
Molly works on the National Spokesperson Network pitching and supporting spokespeople to navigate the mainstream media. She was previously a journalist before moving into social justice communications. Before NEON she worked at Women in Prison and is particularly interested in supporting traditionally underrepresented voices and challenging narratives especially around abolition, trans liberation and migration.
Gauri Goyal
Head of Movement Organising
Gauri leads NEON’s work on elevating organising strategy and practice across our programmes to strengthen social movements. Originally from Los Angeles, she has over a decade of experience with community-based organisations in the US fighting for social and economic justice. Before joining NEON she was an organiser with Unison’s Strategic Organising Unit where she focused on the rights of migrant and outsourced workers in the NHS.
Enez Nathie
Training & Media Officer
Enez is a Training & Media Officer in the Comms Hub, working across the spokesperson network, progressive comms network, and the messaging and training programmes. She has a background in cultural sociology and has previously worked in arts journalism and academic comms. She is particularly interested in the use of media and arts in challenging narratives surrounding climate change, gender and migration.
Janine Lucking
Head of Finance
Janine has extensive experience in both not-for-profit finance and commercial organisations and am passionate about furthering the aims of NEON through good financial management and innovation.
Matthew Butcher
Co-Director / Communications Hub
Matthew co-leads the Comms Hub with Dora. He works with press officers, spokespeople and campaigners to help them get the messages that matter to the people who need to hear them. He previous worked in Westminster, Brussels and for campaign group ShareAction.
Ilona Leighton-Goodall
People & Operations Manager
Ilona works with the operations team to ensure the organisation runs smoothly, focussing in particular on HR & finance. She is always looking for ways to improve systems for the benefit of the people involved. She has previously worked in arts management, media & retail.
Hannah Sewell
Head of Messaging
Hannah leads messaging and narrative work at NEON. Formerly a freelance narrative strategist, she has spent the past decade designing and delivering high-impact narrative and messaging programmes on issues ranging from homelessness and housing to access to justice, climate, and gender equality—both in the UK and internationally. She is particularly interested in the role of pop culture in driving social change. Hannah is the co-author of Impact Storytelling: The Ecosystem, the Evidence and Possible Futures (University of Arts London).
Dora Meade
Co-Director / Communications Hub
Dora is the Co-Director of the Comms Hub at NEON. She has a particular interest in finding the rights words to advocate for a new economic system. She has designed and delivered movement building framing projects on a range of issues - including climate justice, LGBTI equality and new economics. Dora is a co-author of the widely referenced Framing the Economy report, a fellow of the Global Messaging Programme, and is on the advisory boards of Reframing Race, Moving Mindsets (Frameworks UK), and Persuasion UK.
Dona John
Director of Operations
Dona leads the Ops Hub providing strategic direction on all its operational, people-oriented and financial responsibilities. Before traversing into the operational world, she worked on human rights projects across the globe for almost two decades. She was previously the Operations Director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.
Morten Thaysen
Head of Movement Projects
Morten works to strengthen organising in UK social justice movements. Morten has spent years organising and campaigning as part of migrant and climate justice movements. He co-founded Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants in 2015 and prior to NEON he worked as a Just Transition campaigner at Greenpeace.
Andrew Dolan
Director of Movement Building
Andrew provides a strategic lead to the Movement Building Hub, working with the team to develop and deliver their programmes. He previously worked at Momentum, overseeing the organisation’s campaigns, organising and communications teams, and he has also worked in political education, movement journalism, and as an advisor to a political party. He is interested in the ways in which social movements can build power and influence political processes and institutions.
Teigist Taye
Senior Network Organiser
Tiggy is an organiser, artist and facilitator working to strengthen and organise the wider NEON Network. Prior to joining NEON, Tiggy organised for racial, carceral and economic justice in the UK, US and Kenya. Tiggy also co-founded Radish Magazine, a feminist, decolonial and anti-capitalist lifestyle magazine by and for the global majority.
Our Board of Directors
Heidi Chow
Board Member
Heidi is the Executive Director of Debt Justice (formerly called Jubilee Debt Campaign), an organisation working to end poverty and inequality caused by unjust debt in the UK and the global south. She has been a campaigner and activist for over two decades. Heidi has led public campaigns on a range of economic justice issues, including global health, food and agriculture, international trade deals, and financial markets regulation.
Ben Haber
Board Member
Ben is the Managing Director of Big Change, a charity that backs early-stage ideas to improve the lives of young people and spark systemic change. A chartered accountant by training, he has spent eight years working in the social sector and previously led finance and operations for a global mental health charity. Ben also completed the On Purpose leadership programme for future social enterprise leaders. He has co-founded two social enterprises and served as treasurer for Magic Me, the UK’s leading intergenerational arts charity.
Alex Worrad-Andrews
Board Member
Alex Worrad-Andrews is a software consultant with over a decade of industry experience. He co-founded Common Knowledge, a tech cooperative that builds tools to strengthen social movements. He previously worked as a senior software engineer at major London startups before moving into the tech for good space, where he contributed to projects with the tech cooperative Outlandish and at Lightful, a company powering social and environmental change. He has also advised a range of campaigns and organisations on strategy, from national initiatives to grassroots efforts.
Berry Cochrane
Board Member
Berry is the CEO of Forward Action, a digital mobilisation agency that helps progressive organisations harness the power of digital for change. She has been campaigning for human rights and environmental justice for over 17 years and previously led digital teams at Amnesty International UK and Greenpeace. Berry is a passionate believer in people power, driven by a conviction that together we can create a more just and sustainable society.
Emily Kenway
Chair
Emily Kenway is an activist sociologist. She spent over a decade working on social justice issues at organisations including ShareAction, the Living Wage Foundation, the office of the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and Focus on Labour Exploitation and has extensive understanding of campaigns, communications and policy work. She brings considerable board experience to NEON, having been a trustee/director of Common Wealth think tank, Justice for Domestic Workers and National Ugly Mugs, as well as formerly chairing the Public Interest Research Centre. Her first book, The Truth about Modern Slavery, used cognitive linguistics to expose 'modern slavery' as a political reframe of systemic exploitation. Her second book, Who Cares: the hidden crisis of caregiving and how we solve it, told her story of being a carer alongside in-depth investigation into the global 'care crisis'. It was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2023 and has been widely acclaimed in national press. She is currently finishing her PhD at the University of Edinburgh which presents a Bourdieusian analysis of exploitation among the homeless community, while running other research interventions for institutions such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Amsterdam University Press. She lives in Edinburgh.
Rebecca Newsom
Board Member
Rebecca is the Global Political Lead at Greenpeace International, where she works to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate damages. She was previously Head of Politics at Greenpeace UK and led corporate accountability campaigns at ShareAction. Earlier in her career, Rebecca served on the advisory board of the UK Energy Research Centre and chaired a charity supporting amputee children. She has also been active in grassroots climate movements, including the fossil fuel divestment campaign.
Sarah Miguel
Board Member
Sarah brings a wealth of experience in the non-profit sector and is passionate about social justice. She is the Director of Fundraising & Marketing at LGBT Foundation and also sits on the boards of MASH (Manchester) and FutureEverything. Previously, Sarah held leadership roles at Safe Passage, Campaign Bootcamp and the People’s History Museum. A digital enthusiast, she explores how technology can drive social good and help mobilise communities.