Seema Malhotra – Director is a management consultant by profession, with over ten years experience with leading consultancies Accenture and PriceWaterhouse Coopers. She is also a campaigner on equality issues, community activist and was the first Asian Chair of the Fabian Society. She is the founder and Director of the Fabian Women’s Network.
She graduated from Warwick University in Politics and Philosophy, with a year spent on scholarship to the USA. She has been a consultant to several government departments and local authorities on public service reform issues, including reform of the civil/criminal justice systems and public advice services. She is a former Chair, Young Fabians, and speaks widely at local societies. Seema has been a candidate in local government and London Assembly elections. She is a contributor to news and radio discussions, and is a regular writer for political magazines. She is currently working as freelance management consultant and studying for an MBA.
Johanna Baxter – Union Liason is a National Officer for Connect, the trade union for professionals in the communications industry. Johanna has also worked as a Negotiator for the Public and Commercial Service Union (PCS) and as an Organiser for the TUC. She has been the CLP Secretary for Camberwell & Peckham for the past 3 years and BLP Secretary for The Lane for the last 5 years. Johanna has previously served on the Young Fabian Executive and Scottish Labour’s Policy Forum and Conference Arrangements Committee. Johanna enjoys voluntary work and is particularly interested in constitutional, employment and welfare policy.
Sophia – Researcher has a long-standing interest in and commitment to gender issues. After completing a masters in Women’s Studies, she went to work for the Women’s Unit in the Cabinet Office, where her work included the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act, which aimed to increase women’s representation in Parliament.
Since leaving the Women’s Unit in 2001, Sophia has pursued a wide range of projects. As Deputy Director at the London thinktank Demos, she led the organisation’s work on families, co-authoring The Other Glass Ceiling: the domestic politics of parenting. More recently, she completed a cutting-edge study of families living on low incomes with Kent County Council, which has recently been published as Just Coping: a new perspective on low income families.
Laura McVeigh – Head of Communications is Development Director with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts – an international charity supporting over 10 million girls and young women worldwide, helping develop their leadership, advocacy and citizenship skills. Laura is also a trustee of Thesis Trust, a charity supporting the education of women in Bangladesh. She is a Senior Fellow of the Young UK and Ireland programme and volunteers as a trainer and mentor within the voluntary sector. Laura has a BA Hons in Modern & Medieval Languages from Cambridge University, an MSc in Global Politics from the University of London, and has also studied human rights, development economics, international relations and international law at London School of Economics and Birkbeck College, London. Previously a young writer with the Royal Court Theatre Laura continues to work with and support youth theatre projects.
Laura has been involved with the Fabian Women’s Network since its inception in 2005.
Sarah Hutchinson – Researcher and Website is a DPhil candidate at Oxford University, where she is researching the impact of informal care on carers’ pensions decisions. For the year 2009-10 she will be on sabbatical, working as Vice-President (Graduates) for Oxford University Student Union. She is also County Councillor in Oxfordshire.
Before starting her doctorate, Sarah took an MPhil in Comparative Social Policy at Oxford, and an MSc in Political Theory at the LSE. Before starting at Oxford she was a case officer and manager at the Charity Commission, and has also interned for a number of MPs and for IPPR. Her research interests include pensions, carers, social security, gender inequality and poverty.
Alex Kemp – Committee Secretary
Jessica Asato – Researcher
Henneke Sharif – Researcher
Claire Hickson – Communications
Kate Ravenscroft – Events
Kate Groucutt – Female Futures Programme
Denise Whitt – Membership and Communications
Amina Lone – Fabian Women’s Network North
