Aletha Shepherd

Sutton High School

Aletha is the founder of Shot of Tea, a neoteric production company created with the vision of inclusivity at its core to bring a fresh perspective to the industry.

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  Aletha is a powerhouse in the film industry, creating a space to showcase and celebrate women and minority voices and stories which are still underrepresented. She founded Shot of Tea with the desire to push the industry forward for all while exploring the potential depth and breadth of the female gaze. Through her stellar leadership, the company quickly gained recognition for its highly successful short films, winning international, prestigious awards.

  Inspired by her love of filmmaking and the creative arts, Aletha strives to produce visually compelling motion pictures with female lead roles that empower women. As founder, writer, actor and producer, she is at the forefront of seeking out and finding undiscovered voices and talents, platforming those previously not offered opportunities and paving the way for up-and-coming talent.

  In 2023, she was awarded the Women of the Future Award 2023 in Arts & Culture where the judges praised her resilience, motivation and attitude towards success and failure. This year, she gave her first TEDx talk, ‘Why diverse creators are better for film’.

  Ultimately, Aletha is leading an organisation determined to break through glass ceilings and proudly stand as the foremost female-led, diverse super indie, spearheading a groundbreaking transformation in the entertainment industry.

Amanda Bronkhorst

Northwood College for Girls

Amanda is the founder and CEO of JUST ONE Tree, an award-winning nonprofit reversing climate chaos and biodiversity loss through global reforestation, ocean regeneration and climate education.

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  The charity has planted 4 million trees, provided 37,000 days of rural employment, and restored 1800 acres across 16 countries. Amanda set up JUST ONE Tree while on maternity leave after being concerned about the planet her daughter would inherit. With just £1 per tree, the charity encourages large-scale minimal participation to plant trees and restore oceans where needed the most, helping alleviate poverty in rural communities.

  Under Amanda’s direction, the organisation has quickly flourished with businesses and schools uniting under the JUST ONE Tree banner to help restore the planet. The annual JUST ONE Tree Day is celebrated in schools worldwide, bringing climate change education into the classrooms of over 220,000 children.

  In recognition of her passion and drive, Amanda was nominated for Woman of the Year 2023 and is one of the Top 100 Women Social Enterprises in the UK. She is also a sought-after speaker for climate change, most notably for the Bank of England. JUST ONE Tree has been recognised as a Natwest Top 100 Social Enterprise, winner of the London and SE England Prestige Awards and selected as an ‘actor’ in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Danielle Sanderson

Brighton Girls

Danielle Sanderson began her career as a physicist, discovered a passion for teaching and research and is now Associate Professor of Real Estate at The Bartlett School of Planning. Alongside this, she excelled at long distance running and represented Great Britain 21 times.

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  After attending Brighton and Hove High School (now Brighton Girls) She studied Physics at the University of Oxford and began her career at CERN in Geneva, contributing to cutting-edge research in particle physics. She then joined the global IT consultancy Sema Group as an analyst programmer, later transitioning to the training department to teach graduates and senior staff. Her courses included goal setting and action planning, techniques she applied to her own life, leading her to discover an aptitude for running.

  Danielle ran her first marathon in 1989 and embarked on an extraordinary athletic career in which she represented Great Britain 21 times. She won the European 50km Championships, secured a bronze medal in the European 100km Championships, finished 4th in the World 100km Championships, placed 6th in the Commonwealth Games Marathon, and 11th in the European Championships Marathon.

  In 2012, while working as a consultant for RealService and RealService Best Practice Group, Danielle studied for her PhD at Henley Business School. She now coordinates and teaches courses in Real Estate, Real Estate Management, Real Estate Valuation, and Real Estate Development at The Bartlett School of Planning. Her research focuses on the management and development of commercial and residential properties.

Felicity Baker

Wimbledon High School

Felicity is a Senior Producer for BBC News and has worked on many high-profile news stories, including five general elections. She is a ‘Stambassador’ who helps put stammering in the spotlight by using her own experiences to inspire young people.

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  Felicity revealed her stammer in 2021 when she fronted a TV documentary ‘I Can’t Say My Name’ with fellow GDST alumna and BBC presenter, Sophie Raworth. Broadcast on BBC One and around the world, the show was watched live by over 2.6 million people in England alone.  The documentary demonstrated that she is not alone and featured other public figures including a rugby player who blames his stammer for his aggressive behaviour on the pitch, a rapper who found that music stopped him stammering, and the film star Michael Palin, whose father stammered but never ever spoke about it.

  The response to the documentary was overwhelming. Since broadcast, Felicity has been contacted by people from all over the world who found her story inspiring and have shared their experiences of living with a stammer.  She continues to put stammering in the spotlight – she is a ‘Stambassador’ and hosted a conference for Action for Stammering Children – a charity she has now joined as a trustee. She also uses her own experience to help inspire young people, regularly giving talks at the Michael Palin Centre and back at Wimbledon High.

Hayley Kennedy

Bromley High School

Despite being visually impaired and an alopecian, Hayley Kennedy embarked on a challenge to visit all 193 UN countries. She completed this challenge on 19th November 2023, in the final week of her thirties. Extraordinarily, Hayley has fitted her full-time job around her travels.

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  At 13, Hayley developed alopecia and lost all of her hair. At 27, she was diagnosed with Stargadts disease, causing her to lose all of her central vision. On a mission to see as much of the world as possible before her sight completely deteriorates, Hayley recently became the first known disabled woman to visit all 193 United Nations member states (and more). She is now using her platform to raise awareness of the challenges of travelling with a disability.

  Hayley said, ‘Reaching this goal is not just for me but for all the disabled people who have been told they cannot or should not do something because it will be hard, and all the alopecians that struggle with self-esteem and confidence issues.’

Katy Barrow-Grint

Oxford High School

Katy serves as an Assistant Chief Constable for Thames Valley Police. She has worked for the police for 24 years alongside raising her young family. Her contributions were recognised globally as runner up at the 2024 World Police Summit in the ‘Inspirational Female Police Officer’ award category.

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  Katy is a passionate advocate for combatting violence against women and girls, leading her force response which has seen increases in charges and convictions, as well as innovative practice such as Project Vigilant, and working with Instagram influencers to ensure young people are engaged in prevention activity. She writes academically on domestic abuse and has recently co-authored a book ‘Policing Domestic Abuse’. Her current research interest is adolescent domestic abuse.

  She is the Editor in Chief of Going Equipped, the College of Policing’s operational and frontline publication, crafted by and for police officers and staff. Additionally, she contributes to the @wecops team on X (formerly Twitter) & LinkedIn, fostering an online community that shares learning, ideas, and information to enhance policing practices. Further to this, she has also been an external examiner at Canterbury Christ Church University where she supports the next generation of policing professionals.

  Katy also featured on the podcast Reducing Crime, a monthly series featuring conversations with influential thinkers in policing and leading crime researchers. On the show, Katy shared her insights and research on domestic abuse, highlighting her dedication to advancing public safety.
  Katy is a dedicated public servant, working tirelessly to improve outcomes for the communities she serves, as well as influencing policing policy and practise nationally and internationally.

Nadia Odunayo

South Hampstead High School

Nadia is founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, a hugely successful reading tracker and recommendations app with 2.6m users and 7m unique monthly visitors. She single-handedly built her product informed by market research and occupies a space in the market where Amazon is her biggest rival.

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  Nadia began the company as a hobby for her own reading but decided to embark on building a more fully-fledged product after customer interviews revealed the wider appeal for something new in the books space. She says, ‘We exist to enhance the lives of avid readers everywhere and to inspire non-readers to discover the joy of reading.’

  The popularity of The StoryGraph exploded in June 2020 after a viral tweet, which showcased the pain points with Goodreads and the pros of StoryGraph. Users choose the platform because of some of its key factors, including discovering books by your mood, favourite topics and themes, insightful stats, intelligent book recommendations, reading ‘live’ with friends and more.

  In 2013, Nadia was selected by a panel as the Number 1 Future Leader in a magazine produced by Powerful Media, which showcases 100 of the UK’s most outstanding African and African Caribbean students and new graduates.

Sofia Ilyas

Howell’s School, Llandaff

Sofia is a true pioneer who has made outstanding contributions to the electronic music industry. As chief community officer of The Beatport Group, she is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion by advocating for underrepresented voices.

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  After facing cultural barriers and familial opposition, Sofia’s mission is to empower women and people of colour across the globe whilst making the electronic music industry a safer and more inclusive place for all. Sofia studies the electronic music industry landscape to determine if efforts have been made to increase the exposure of women by comparing current data to that of 10 or 20 years ago. She has also delivered initiatives such as Beatport’s Diversity + Parity Fund, which aims to support organisations that focus on underrepresented groups and diversity within the music industry. She was recently interviewed by Forbes and Grammy on her work championing diversity.

  Sofia is actively involved in sharing her knowledge of diversity and inclusion with musicians, labels, and everyone who engages with the music community. She hosted a panel discussing ‘Gender Disparity in the Record Label Ecosystem’ at the 2024 International Music Summit in Ibiza.

  Sofia previously co-managed Erased Tapes for five years, where she raised the record label’s profile and artists such as Nils Frahm. In 2015, she founded the PR and marketing agency FLOAT who create and execute innovative campaigns for artists such as DJ Sasha, Dishoom, and Christian Löffler. She has curated annual Piano Day events in London and Melbourne since 2016 and was invited to curate the lineup for the National Gallery’s 200th birthday.

Victoria Monk

Nottingham Girls’ High School

Victoria is Founder and Captain of There She Rows, a pioneering initiative that led a team of four women to row 3,000-miles, unassisted across the Atlantic Ocean, aiming to inspire more women and girls to engage in sports.

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  Shocked and saddened by the statistic that over half of girls in the UK drop out of sports before turning 17, Victoria wanted to do something to shine a spotlight on this critical issue.

  Victoria galvanised the team of women – previously strangers – around the cause and dedicated two and a half years to the preparation. Having never previously set foot in a rowing boat, the endeavour culminated in a record-breaking crossing, with There She Rows completing the challenge in 39 days, 12 hours, and 25 minutes on 21 January 2024, becoming the fastest British women to ever row across the Atlantic.

  Intent on using the campaign to raise as much awareness and reach as many young people as possible (particularly girls and women), There She Rows secured media coverage in some of the world’s biggest publications (The Telegraph, BBC News, ITV News, Sky Sports, BBC The One Show + more), as well as a 12-month media partnership with Freeda Media.

  Back on dry land, Victoria is determined to continue using the row as a platform to inspire as many young people as possible – after only a few months, Victoria has already spoken to over 2,000 children around the UK aged between 3-18.

  The row has so far also raised over £50,000 for four charities.

  In her day job, Victoria leads Women’s Sport Strategy for Wasserman Sport & Entertainment Marketing Agency in London – consulting with brands and rightsholders to inspire more investment into elite women’s sport – and is an influential advocate for women’s sport across the industry.

  Beyond the row, Victoria advocates for women’s health and sports, delivering impactful keynotes and workshops to inspire the next generation of women. Victoria passionately believes that sport is one of the most powerful platforms to empower the next generation of women leaders in society (over 94% of C-suite women played sport as a teenager), yet over a million girls are dropping out of sport each year in the UK.

  Victoria is dedicated to encouraging young women to continue participating in sports beyond school in order to build confidence and learn critical skills that enable them to achieve their full potential in life.