Peace shouldn’t be a dream.

Dr Scilla Elworthy

Dr Scilla Elworthy is a three times Nobel peace prize nominee and visionary whose peacebuilding experience spans many countries and conflicts. She has worked with notable peacemakers such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, advised heads of state in nuclear non-proliferation talks and is a vocal advocate for business as a force for peace.

Dr Madeleine Mosse

Madeleine has led grassroots peacebuilding projects in Kosovo and supported social cohesion organisations in the UK. She has written policy recommendations on social cohesion for local and national government. Madeleine is committed to supporting people at all levels of society to find creative and collaborative solutions to building peace.

Michelle Arnell

Michelle has worked with Plan For Peace throughout its early years of start-up, as Operations Manager, Mighty Heart Course Manager, and now as CEO for Business Plan for Peace. She is a highly skilled project manager with a background in accounts, events and technical management.

Elizabeth Besa

Elizabeth has worked in the charity sector for over 10 years, including for organisations experiencing rapid growth. She is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and is pursuing an MSc in Charity Financial Management.

Ruby Kellard

Ruby works at the intersection of grassroots peacebuilding and mental health initiatives, having led projects in both the UK and Uganda. She has worked closely with conflict-affected communities to support peace and recovery after trauma. Ruby is dedicated to building an environment in which peacebuilding initiatives are trauma-informed and locally led.

Jo Berry

Jo Berry is an award-winning public speaker who works to resolve conflicts around the world. Sixteen years after an IRA bomb killed her father in 1984, Jo met with the man responsible, Pat Magee. This led to them speaking on over three hundred occasions on a shared platform worldwide. They’ve been featured in documentaries, plays and on film.

The founder of the charity ‘Building Bridges for Peace’, Jo advocates that listening and unbounded empathy are the biggest tools we have to transform conflict.

Pelin Turgut

Pelin is a storytelling consultant and writer of Turkish/British origin. A lifelong belief in the power of stories informs her work. Founder of a popular independent film festival and a regional screenwriters lab with the Sundance Institute, she was also a long-time correspondent for publications such as TIME magazine and The Independent. She teaches storytelling at institutions across Europe such as The School of Life and Escape the City, is a mentor on various startup accelerator programs and works with impact-led companies and founders on strategic storytelling. Pelin is also a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader. Her first book, Secrets of a Vanishing Country, came out in 2018.

Theo Cadbury

Theo is a participatory facilitator and consultant who creates inclusive communities for learning, collaboration and decision-making. She works in social and environmental justice settings and believes that empathy and connection are key to building resilience within both ourselves and society. Her key areas of work are: co-design and coproduction with experts by experience and senior decision-makers, delivering training, including on power and participatory methods and facilitating Action Learning Sets with changemakers.

She founded the charity Xenia in 2016 to bring migrant, refugee, asylum-seeking and British women together to share and learn together in Hackney. Her work has been cited as an example of best practice by the British Academy and the Council of Europe’s North-South Centre, among others. She has been Participation Lead at The Trussell Trust since 2021 and is also a Trustee of The Four Winds Trust and St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation & Peace.

Courtney Kotze

With over seven years of marketing and communication experience, Courtney is passionate about using her business development skills for good. After working closely with NPOs in South Africa, she is committed to making a change in communities on a global level.

Dr Gëzim Visoka

Dr Gëzim Visoka is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. His research focuses on the making, remaking, and unmaking of states and peace processes in contemporary world politics, specializing in post-conflict peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as state creation and the politics of diplomatic recognition. He is author and editor of 10 books and numerous other journal articles, and currently serves as Deputy Editor of Peacebuilding Journal. Parallel to his academic activity, he has extensive experience working with civil society groups and policy-makers in post-conflict societies, mostly focusing on Kosovo and the Western Balkans.

Hussein Salahaldin

Hussein is a passionate critical peace educator, storyteller and social entrepreneur. He has a BA and MA in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford. Through his work, he is interested in creating spaces for children, young people and adults exploring self-directed cooperative learning spaces that encourage courageous conversations, critical consciousness and radical freedom to re-create knowledge, challenging educational structures and innovating new ones using playful, artistic and decolonised practices. He is a part-time lecturer in peace studies and conflict resolution, modern Arab and Palestinian history, political violence and militarism, Islamism and the history of education in the Muslim world.