Our Champions
Sustainable & Circular Futures Crew
Verity Jones
Lead, Sustainable and Circular Futures
Verity Jones is a senior lecturer in the Department of Education and Childhood at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She is education advisor to the Global Goals Centre and the international sustainable charity Fashion Revolution. She is Director of Bristol Achieve, supporting disadvantaged learners in the city, Trustee to the Darwin Centre for Biology and Medicine and Primary English consultant to Oxford University Press. Her research focuses on sustainable futures.
Harri Wavell
Facilitator, Sustainable and Circular Futures
Harri is Schools and Colleges Manager at the Ellen Macarthur Foundation. His focus is on curriculum development and capacity building, research into, and the development of, teaching and learning materials. Harri began his career in education teaching English as a Foreign Language before working as an English Teacher at the International School of Choueifat, Abu Dhabi. Upon completion of his PGCE on at Portsmouth University, Harrison taught English, creative writing and physical education at Christ the King College on the Isle of Wight. Harri has also had a number of roles in outdoor education teaching young people to sail, surf, and kayak.
Rachael Goude
Facilitator, Sustainable and Circular Futures
Rachael holds the role of Manager, Cymbrogi Conversations. She has recently finished an MSc in Sustainable Development, specialising in sustainable diets and agriculture. Having studied Spanish and Italian at Swansea University, she holds the South Wales coast close to her heart. Her pedagogical experience extends to her time as a British Council English teacher at the Universidad Autónoma in Chile. Rachael has combined her passion for sustainability, languages, the outdoors, teaching and people in this role.
Matt Powell
Chief Chef and Forager
Matt is a chef, forager and food storyteller based in Pembrokeshire. Although Welsh-born, he has spent many years working outside his beloved country working in the best culinary establishments, many Michelin starred. He moved back to Wales to create something unique and culturally relevant to Wales, connecting people to their landscapes through food. Matt is a passionate advocate for locally sourced sustainable foods and the protection of the ecosystems that produce them. He will be contributing to both your personal wellbeing and nutritional needs, as well as the planet’s!
Creative Skills Crew
Al Brunker
Lead, Creativity & the Curriculum
Al is a trainer, performance poet and recovering lawyer. Al Brunker is founder of Let’s Do This, running training courses in creative thinking for a range of third sector and corporate clients. For over 20 years, Al has worked with charities such as the Prince's Trust and YMCA, and delivered communication workshops for students in over 200 state secondary schools.
Phil Okwedy
Chief Storyteller, Creativity & the Curriculum
Phil tells stories to anyone who is willing to listen. He tells stories that come from the richness of the world's oral tradition. Having been a teacher, Phil understands that storytelling is a powerful tool for raising standards in literacy as well as playing a crucial role in developing emotional literacy skills in young people. In 2010 Phil became a trainee of the MYTHOS-Grundtvig project, a partnership of 5 international storytelling festivals providing and exchanging training of storytelling techniques and methods. He now uses this experience to provide training for those wanting to become storytellers.
Andy Penaluna
Advisor, Creativity & the Curriculum
Andy is a Professor Emeritus of Creative Entrepreneurship. International thought leader in developing enterprising creativity through education. Advisor to Welsh Assembly and Westminster Governments, UN, European Commission and OECD on innovation and curriculum design. Andy developed teacher training for 8 countries in South East Europe. Led the World Bank funded development of the world’s first integrated school curriculum for innovation and entrepreneurship in Macedonia. Recipient of awards such as the Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion at Buckingham Palace; SFEDI (Sector Skills) and Institute for Entrepreneurs’ Enterprise Educator of the Year in the House of Lords.
Wellbeing Crew
Shaun Brooking
Lead, Owning Your Wellbeing
Shaun is a qualified sports scientist with an honours degree in human performance, specialising in a whole body, whole person approach to health and wellbeing. Drawing upon 12 years of knowledge and experience in movement coaching, injury rehabilitation and embodied learning, Shaun works as a Movement Coach and Somatic Facilitator. He helps his clients redefine wellbeing beyond the physical body, including mental, emotional and relational wellbeing. His philosophy holds that we can make changes to ourselves and our bodies for the better, at any stage of our lives. We don’t have to settle for 'this is just the way it is.’ Shaun makes the critical connection between mind and body, and with this, empowers others to get unstuck, recover from injury and increase their energy and vitality. His ultimate hope is for people to move with ease, think clearly and perform optimally in an ever changing world, with minimal sacrifice to their overall health.
Nanna Ryder
Facilitator, Owning Your Wellbeing
Primary teacher turned university lecturer, Nanna was highly significant in the work with the Curriculum in the Wales development, with her work with AOLE for Health and Wellbeing and the progression steps. Nanna has developed a Welsh-medium Special Education Needs provision, and now focuses on the Additional Learning Needs provision. She has a particular interest in dyslexia and literacy difficulties as well as Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
Geoff Cresswell
Facilitator, Owning Your Wellbeing
Head teacher; interim headteacher; additional inspector for OFSTED and Estyn. As Director of Introteach/Cyfle Dysgu’s successful Thrive programme, which focuses on the wellbeing of school leaders, Geoff is very motivated by the idea of using his knowledge and experience of successful change management to equip and support the current and next generation of school leaders, and in turn, make a significant difference to the lives of pupils, staff and the community around a school.
Collaborative Learning Crew
Rob Gratton
Lead, Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn
Rob is an experienced Educationalist with over a decade working within Education as a teacher, school leader, teacher trainer and researcher with the UCL Institute of Education. Rob's area of expertise is Collaborative Activity, how we can both harness the power of collaboration through enhancing our innate capacity and ability to collaborate and how we can collaborate with others more effectively in practice. Rob has worked to support numerous organisations internationally to enhance their practices of collaboration and played a fundamental role in establishing UCL Academy; a University-sponsored Academy in North London driven by the practices of Collaborative Group Learning.
Our Advisors
We are lucky to have a team of non-executive directors with wisdom in all the right places
Andy Penaluna
Curriculum Design and Creative Entrepreneurship
Andy is an international thought leader and educator in creative entrepreneurship with over 30 years of global experience. He has acted as Advisor to Welsh and UK Governments, as well as the UN, European Commission and OECD on innovation and curriculum design. He also led a World Bank-funded development of the world’s first integrated school curriculum for innovation and entrepreneurship in Macedonia.
Andy's work has been honoured by the Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion at Buckingham Palace; SFEDI (Sector Skills) and Institute for Entrepreneurs’ Enterprise Educator of the Year in the House of Lords. He is currently Professor Emeritus for Creative Entrepreneurship at University of Wales Trinity St Davids and lives in the beautiful Gower peninsula.
Rachel Crossley
Strategy and Sustainability
Rachel has 30 years in international development, responsible investment and sustainable business, including roles at the World Bank, a start-up sustainable private finance company and City investment management firms. She has worked at Board-Level as advisor to investors, business and NGOs on sustainability.
Katharine Lewis
Finance and Funding
Founder of FutureSmartMedia, Katharine has 20 years experience in the media industry with a specialism in content and incubating and investing in new businesses, at FutureSmartMedia, Bertelsmann, eBay, IBM and PWC. She works at Board level and counts Channel 4, BBC, Telefonica, BAFTA amongst her clients.
Marten Lewis
Strategy & Partnership
Marten has been involved with Cymbrogi as an advisor and friend since its inception. Currently Head of Corporate Responsibility at Bluestone Resort, one of West Wales' largest employers, Marten leads on all things related to biodiversity, energy, waste and the circular economy.
Prior to joining Bluestone Marten led the Darwin Centre, where he founded the award-winning Darwin Experience (DE), an experiential learning programme directly engaging 30,000+ young learners in learning through science. Awards and recognition include those from Sustain Wales, the South Wales Chambers of Commerce and Business in the Community.
Marten's pioneering spirit in environmental education means he is a Champion to others too! Recognised by Leadership Wales, Institute for Wales Affairs, the National Park, he has been nominated a Pembrokeshire Hero’s Environmental Champion. He has an Environmental Studies degree, Masters in Business Management, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). Article - The Darwin Experience Marten Lewis – The Young Darwinian
Building business partnerships
A next generation of innovators and enterprise
Connecting today's learners with tomorrow's enterprise
- Future generations of young adults entering a fast-changing world of work need future-facing knowledge, training in creativity, and skills in empathy, collaboration and resilience. We want to provide that, with your help.
- We know that involvement in a business can reduce a young person's likelihood of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training). We want to leverage your knowledge and resources to engage and empower the next generation of thinkers, do-ers and community players.
- We're looking for creative partnerships with business that share your expertise, volunteers and challenges to help next generations build better futures and better businesses.
