Team - The future needs us all

Bayo Adelaja, Founder and Chief Do-er

In 2018, Bayo was named one of the most influential women in social entrepreneurship in the UK, by Natwest bank. Bayo Adelaja, is an award-winning entrepreneur passionate about helping brands and businesses excel at creating sustainable social impact.

For four years, she worked at the London School of Economics, helping governments and large charities figure out the best ways to achieve their impact goals. While there, she realised the reason a lot of great initiatives failed to get off the ground was a lack of well organised grassroots activism, particularly in the business space.

Ugo Ikokwu, Director of Investment and Grants

Ugo has over a decade of experience in social finance and grant making. As Programme Director at The Fore Trust, Relationship Manager and Business Development Analyst at Social Investment Business (SIB) he has managed numerous grant and investment readiness programmes and overseen the delivery of well over £120m of grant and social investment funds.

He has developed business plans for new funds and commercial projects and has also sat on the other side of the table (both in Local Government, at SIB and The Fore) assessing proposals for funding support.

He has also been a member of and chaired multiple grant decision making panels as well as managing key stakeholder relationships across all grant contracts and fund holders).

Caroline Komuhangi, Head of Innovation

8 year career in programme management, design and delivery across multiple verticals for the public sector, corporates and SMEs, including blockchain, retail tech, sports tech and social enterprise.

Managed some of the world’s leading corporate innovation programmes for FTSE 500 companies like John Lewis, Arsenal Football Club and Intu and created a programme for the world’s first blockchain lab.

Advocate for diversification of founders in tech and new ways of supporting and identifying untapped talent, working with inclusive organisations such as Foundervine, Color in Tech and Do it Now Now.

Ana Bradley, Director of Digital Communications

Ana is a highly experienced digital strategist, producer and project manager.

Utilising a varied skill-set, she has created, designed and distributed large scale campaigns successfully for a range of organisations from startup to non-profit and large private sector institutions.

Ana is also the Executive Director at Sentient Media, a journalism nonprofit building transparency around human & nonhuman animal lives.

Loreen Fraser-Owusu, Director of PR and Communications

Loreen has almost 20 years experience in communications strategy, working with everyone from solo-preneurs to FTSE-100 businesses in the UK, Europe, US and the Middle East. Her experience spans a range of sectors including tech, finance and wellness.

Loreen uses her ability to connect with people and talent at crafting compelling content to help clients achieve their business communications objectives. This has included building key relationships with venture capitalists, media analysts and the corporate press.

Ida Ossonemane, Digital Communications Assistant

Born in Gabon, raised in France, and fluent in 4 languages, Ida is a career-changer with a 10-year background in large scale operations and supply chain management in the Pharmaceutical, Food and Packaging industries. She moved to London in 2018, took part in the Escape the City entrepreneurship programme where she learned about Do it Now Now for the first time.

As a beneficiary, collaborator and now employee, Ida is utilising her growing skills to communicate Do it Now Now’s mission and vision across social media platforms for all our initiatives. She also runs a wonderfully popular virtual cooking class business that connects Black chefs around the world to customers seeking to infuse a little fun and community into their meal times.

Towsyn Omowole, Community Lead, Afritech XYZ

Towsyn is our Afritech XYZ Community Lead, working on key content assets to support our community of African tech entrepreneurs and enthusiasts across 8 countries.

Towsyn is also a PR professional with vast experience working on African fashion, lifestyle and technology companies.

As one of the key influencers within the African tech ecosystem, Towsyn, a Nigerian, is well placed to guide the way we engage effectively across the continent as we expand to provide support to the best early-stage tech startups in all 54 of Africa's countries.

Jessica Bukenya, Innovation Manager

Jessica has 4 years experience in programme management, helping diverse groups of young people and entrepreneurs achieve their full potential. She has advised a wide range of early-stage tech startups across the UK in their launch and pre-launch stages.

Academically, Jessica is a philosopher at heart and combines her expertise with project and change management to deliver exceptional Programmes that deliver value to entrepreneurs.

She also has a passion for natural hair, and is the Founder of Baked Kurls - the world’s first CBD-infused natural hair care brand dedicated to afro and kinky hair textures. Baked Kurls is on a mission to transform the natural hair industry through innovation, education and community.

Saidat Giwa-Osagie, Insights Lead

Saidat has 7 years of experience writing for publications, corporations and brands. She has a background in technology, working across B2B software, eCommerce and cybersecurity.

Saidat is also the inventor of an AI autonomous vehicle innovation. She enjoys sharing stories about changemakers and future trends.

Taz Latif, Head of Inclusive Partnerships

Taz spent almost 5 years as a teacher before making the move to hire global teams in the Startup space. Frustrated with the lack of diversity and inclusion in her industry, she began to focus her efforts on more strategic hiring – educating founders and leaders on the importance of mental health, wellbeing, race, religion, culture, gender, neurodiversity and so on.

Taz has collaborated with the likes of Google for Startups, Ministry of Justice, Facebook, Financial Times, Expedia, TechInclusion and Bloomberg. In her spare time, she’s an EnrolYourself alumni, part-time spin instructor, conqueror of Kilimanjaro, charity skydiver and a huge foodie.

Vicki Purewal, Inclusive Partnerships, Senior Associate

Vicki is a social innovation specialist experienced in designing, delivering and leading innovation programmes. She often works across subject and sector boundaries and helps people and organisations move from strategy and idea development into action.

Vicki has worked with national and local governments, charities and other agencies, advising on, designing and running grant programmes, challenge prizes and innovation programmes focussed on social and environmental impact. She also supports a range of innovators and entrepreneurs to develop, test and sustain their ideas – including individuals and social enterprises, and change-makers within organisations and local government.

Our People