Team

Sharon Booth

Founder & Executive Director

image of team discussion (for a hr tech)

Jess Brandler

Deputy Director

Mohammed Ali Amla

Public Affairs Director

Education Coordinator

Jonah Manning

Intern

Trustees

Expert advice and guidance.

Rich Grahame

Chair of Trustees – charity sector specialist

Rich is a co-founder and Chief Executive of Settle, a homelessness charity that supports vulnerable young people moving into their first home. The charity helps with the transition of young people in the UK moving away from temporary housing, teaching them practical skills. He has won the Shackleton Leadership Award. Rich studied at Bayes Business School and the University of Nottingham, he also is a Social Innovation Fellow at Year Here. He has worked with developing Trading Up, a project designed to help young homeless people develop working skills.

Helen McCord

Trustee – education specialist

Helen is a Lecturer at the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. The Centre offers fully funded; research informed professional development for secondary school teachers to support them when teaching the Holocaust to young people. With over 20 years’ experience in education, Helen’s previous roles have included secondary history and Politics teacher, initial teacher educator, school governor and board member for a schools based initial teacher education provider.

Raahim Zafar

Trustee – interfaith and youth leadership specialist

Raahim is the strategic communications lead at the UK's largest interfaith charity. His work is twofold: (1) it documents and amplifies the voice of faith-inspired individuals and communities to improve faith and belief literacy in the UK, and (2) it connects, promotes and empowers social action projects, particularly youth-led initiatives, to deliver positive collective impact in local communities and beyond. In addition, Raahim facilitates workshops in the youth and community leadership space, confronting polarising issues including Israel-Palestine and the 2024 UK Summer Riots; he further writes op-eds, drawing on these real life encounters, to bring human faces to the conversation. These experiences have led him to policy conversations in parliament and the INGO space, particularly on Islamophobia and community cohesion. Lastly, outside of his day job, Raahim works to give young Muslims across England and Scotland opportunities that equip them with the skills, knowledge, connections and experiences to thrive through organising career focussed events and retreats.

Steven Lewis

Trustee – finance specialist

Steven is a Partner at Ernst & Young, he has over 20 years of experience leading Banking & Capital Markets business and technology transformation. Steven understands the challenges of building a rewarding career, especially for those from working-class backgrounds, having grown up in East London and leaving school without A Levels. He is now committed to creating better opportunities for individuals from similar backgrounds. He mentors young adults outside of work and helps ensure that his colleagues have access to professional development and a supportive environment. Steven values being a member of the Jewish community in the Uk, partaking actively in a number of charity and community based organisations. He has been married for over 30 years and together with his wife has two children.

The Board

Academics and community leaders that advise SNS

Ben Abrams – secondary school teacher

Raghib Ali – secondary school governor

Philip Brooks – United Reform Church

Ashfaque Chowdhury – Association of Muslim Schools UK

Kelly Jacobson Collins – advocacy, media and tech sector

Peggy Forell – public speaking and performance skills Advocality

Alex Goldberg – Jewish Chaplain, University of Surrey

Ed Kessler – President of The Woolf Institute, Cambridge

Lauren Keiles – Assistant Director The Anne Frank Trust UK

John Lyndon – Executive Director of ALLMEP

David Mason – Muswell Hill Orthodox Synagogue

Jonny Newton – Community Security Trust

Esmond Rosen – Barnet Multifaith Forum

Jeremy Rosenberg – marketing, brands and comms sector

Nathan Servi – COO, MaccabiGB; Founder of Stand Up! Education Against Discrimination

Sajeela Shah – Secondary School Teacher

Bruce Thompson – the Methodist Church

Ifza Tindal – Ministry of Justice, UK

Prof Francesca Klug OBE - Visiting Professor at LSE Human Rights Centre

Prof George Wilkes (MA PhD) - Director, Project on Religion and Ethics in theMaking of War and Peace Honorary Fellow, Edward Cadbury Centre (University ofBirmingham). Lecturer at Edinburgh University.

Prof Hagai M. Segal (BA) - Lecturer at NewYork University, London; and Oxford University. Advisory on Middle-Easternaffairs, geopolitics and extremism.

Dr Ben Gidley (MA PhD) - Senior Researcher at the COMPAS Centre on Migration, Policy andSociety, Oxford University. Research Associate, Birkbeck Institute for theStudy of Antisemitism

Prof Solon Simmons (MA PhD) - Director of The Narrative Transformation Lab atGeorge Mason University’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter School for Peace andConflict Resolution.

Prof Graham Bodie (MA PhD) - Professor of Media and Communications atUniversity of Mississippi

Prof Smadar Cohen-Chen (MA PhD) - Associate Professor at University of Sussex

Prof Daniel Bar-Tal (MS PhD) - Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Tel AvivUniversity, Former Director of Walter Lebach Research Institute for Jewish‑ArabCoexistence through Education and Former co-Editor in Chief of Palestine-IsraelJournal.

Prof  Daniel Wehrenfennig (PhD) - Professor of International Relations / Political Science at theUniversity of California, Irvine (UCI). Founder and Executive Director of theOlive Tree Initiative (CIEL)

Prof Robin Banerjee (PhD) - Professor of Developmental Psychology atUniversity of Sussex. Pro‑Vice‑Chancellor (Global & Civic Engagement) ofUniversity of Sussex.

Leonard Daniels MBE - Founder Member of Nonviolent Communication in the UK

Ken Stern(BA JD) -Director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate

Prof Andrew Peterson (PhD) - Professor of Character and Citizenship Education atthe Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at Birmingham University

Prof Julie Norman (PhD) - Associate Professor at UCL in Politics andInternational Relations

Prof Jeremy Hayward (MA) - Lecturer at UCL Institute of Education

Eloise Copland (MSc) - Principal Behavioural Scientist at Influence At Work

Cameron Howes - researcher and policy specialist in social science and humanities at LSE

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Our team

Expert advice and guidance.

Academics and community leaders that advise SNS