Experienced, Passionate and Inspired.

Meet the people behind Career Accelerator and our advisory board.

Our Team

Mayur Gupta
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Mayur Gupta

CEO & Founder

Mayur set up Career Accelerator based on his own experiences growing up as an LGBT+ person of colour, as well as well as his experience working in state schools with 100s of students. Mayur observed how lots of hard working young people from diverse backgrounds were missing out on relatable and impactful career support, affecting what they feel capable of achieving and their future career destinations.

Mayur is driven by the notion that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not and through Career Accelerator tries to address this by connecting young people from diverse backgrounds with inspiring and relatable role models from top businesses through a combination of mentoring and wider career support. As CEO of Career Accelerator Mayur leads and owns Career Accelerator’s strategy, including building paying partnerships with businesses, designing and delivering on the business strategy and maximising the social impact for Career Accelerator’s young people.

He is passionate about supporting young people from diverse backgrounds, the role of businesses for social good and business entrepreneurship. Mayur is also a frequent guest speaker. He has spoken at The Economist, The Labour Party and Teach First and has contributed towards 2 books – DiversityEd and 26 Friends: Lessons to Learn Before It’s Too Late. He has been recognised on the OUTstanding and Empower Lists four times and was named as a LinkedIn Top Voice in 2022.

Rebecca Lewis
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Rebecca Lewis

Head of Youth Programmes Manager

After graduating from Cambridge University in 2017, Rebecca started the Teach First Leadership Development Programme in West Yorkshire as a history teacher. During this time, Rebecca succeeded in her additional roles which focused on supporting students in their next steps after leaving full-time education.

Following this, she continued her teaching career in East London, as a history teacher and the school’s Head of Department for PSHE.

Rebecca now works as Career Accelerator’s Head of Youth Programmes Manager, where she uses her experience of working with students in schools to ensure that the programme has the best possible impact for the young people with whom we work.

Jhanay Otto
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Jhanay Otto

Head of Youth Programmes Manager

Whilst studying English Language and Linguistics at Warwick University, Jhanay participated in delivering courses of traditional martial arts to young people who are newly arrived into the U.K (refugees, asylum seekers) alongside young people from marginalised communities and low socio-economic backgrounds. Jhanay additionally volunteered for ‘Warwick in Africa’ where she virtually contributed to supporting young people in Ghana with an enhanced educational experience.

Jhanay is also an alumnus of ‘The Black Collective of media in sport’, a programme whose objective is to increase diversity and career opportunities for minority young people within the media.

Jhanay currently works as The Youth Programme Officer at Career Accelerator where she aims to make a positive impact in the professional career development of young people.

Umbreen Lenoire
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Umbreen Lenoire

Marketing Manager

Umbreen graduated from Aston University, Birmingham, in 1999 with a BSc in Business Administration and Management (1st Class). A university placement at Prudential’s headquarters in London led to Umbreen joining the project team that launched Egg plc – one of the UK’s first online banks. The team at Egg went on to sponsor Umbreen for her final year at university and offered her a marketing role on graduation.

She has over 20 years experience as a marketing and campaign manager in both traditional and digital media – working in a variety of sectors from Financial Services to Utilities to her role as CRM manager at Weight Watchers UK.
Umbreen works as Career Accelerator’s Marketing & Communications Manager helping to showcase Career Accelerator’s work with young people and its corporate partners.

She is also a Trustee for Riverside Counselling, a leading Oxfordshire based mental health social enterprise – advising on its business and marketing.

Tracy Barlow
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Tracy Barlow

Marketing Assistant

Tracy has a love for all things digital! With a passion for bringing things to life, her personal motto is: ‘Dream the impossible, live the dream…never stop believing’.

If you don’t dream it, you won’t see it; and if you can’t see it, it can never happen!
Having 9 years’ experience in web design and development, Tracy has a passion for beautiful designs and a flair for the creative.

Along side her website design work, Tracy is also in her 3rd year of Cybersecurity studies.

Originally from South Africa, she moved to the UK in 2011 and currently lives in Reading, Berkshire with her wife Zané and two cats, Fuzz & Lily

Sanjeev Gupta
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Sanjeev Gupta

Finance Manager

Sanjeev is honorary finance manager for Career Accelerator. He holds a MSc in Business Studies from the London Business School and has done varied banking roles with international banks like Standard Chartered Bank, UBS AG and Emirates NBD over a 35 year period.

Along with Mayur, he is the co-founder of Master Money Ltd which provides financial coaching to young professionals.

Kate Vayle
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Kate Vayle

Virtual Assistant

With 20 years’ experience in a variety of roles within the retail and marketing section of the energy industry, Kate has a wealth of knowledge and experience in administration and business support.

As a SmartPA partner, Kate is a self-employed Virtual Assistant who has supported Career Accelerator in its early days with social media, proofreading, document production, and email management.

Kate continues to provide support with research and other tasks that help Career Accelerator to grow and develop.

Kathryn Hughes
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Kathryn Hughes

PR Consultant

Kathryn is a strategic communications consultant with over 20 years public relations experience. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work with a diverse range of corporate clients in various sectors including financial services, technology, retail, not for profit and education.

Kathryn has developed strong relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers across various channels. These connections have allowed her to successfully work with leading business brands, start-ups, charities, and industry associations to deliver effective, compelling thought leadership campaigns.

As a PR consultant for Career Accelerator, Kathryn is focused on raising our profile in the media and promoting our range of programmes, research and activities and highlighting how effectively we are supporting leading businesses to achieve greater inclusivity and diversity and widen their talent pools.

Jake Marshall
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Jake Marshall

LGBT+ Ambassador

Jake volunteers as Career Accelerator’s LGBT+ Ambassador for Career Accelerator’s LGBT+ Mentoring Programme.

He has supported Career Accelerator ever since their first LGBT+ programme and has sat on Career Accelerator’s Youth Advisory Board for 2 years. Jake has a particular interest in promoting Career Accelerator’s work to the North East, Yorkshire and Humber and Midlands regions, and uses his role to increase the number and diversity of mentees from across the UK.

Roan Maclean
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Roan Maclean

Neurodiversity and Disability Ambassador

Roan is a passionate activist especially when it comes to people who are Neurodiverse and LGBT+, having themselves been diagnosed with autism.

Roan has pushed boundaries especially after being told to give up on job hunting. Roan has worked in hospitality for 7 years. Roan was diagnosed with autism when they were 18 and found ill prepared for the world of work. Roan is passionate about making sure others don’t suffer as they did when they started out in their career. Working with Career Accelerator is one way they are doing this.

Mayur Gupta

Mayur set up Career Accelerator based on his own experiences growing up as an LGBT+ person of colour, as well as well as his experience working in state schools with 100s of students. Mayur observed how lots of hard working young people from diverse backgrounds were missing out on relatable and impactful career support, affecting what they feel capable of achieving and their future career destinations.

Mayur is driven by the notion that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not and through Career Accelerator tries to address this by connecting young people from diverse backgrounds with inspiring and relatable role models from top businesses through a combination of mentoring and wider career support. As CEO of Career Accelerator Mayur leads and owns Career Accelerator’s strategy, including building paying partnerships with businesses, designing and delivering on the business strategy and maximising the social impact for Career Accelerator’s young people.

He is passionate about supporting young people from diverse backgrounds, the role of businesses for social good and business entrepreneurship. Mayur is also a frequent guest speaker. He has spoken at The Economist, The Labour Party and Teach First and has contributed towards 2 books – DiversityEd and 26 Friends: Lessons to Learn Before It’s Too Late. He has been recognised on the OUTstanding and Empower Lists four times and was named as a LinkedIn Top Voice in 2022.

Rebecca Lewis

After graduating from Cambridge University in 2017, Rebecca started the Teach First Leadership Development Programme in West Yorkshire as a history teacher. During this time, Rebecca succeeded in her additional roles which focused on supporting students in their next steps after leaving full-time education.

Following this, she continued her teaching career in East London, as a history teacher and the school’s Head of Department for PSHE.

Rebecca now works as Career Accelerator’s Head of Youth Programmes Manager, where she uses her experience of working with students in schools to ensure that the programme has the best possible impact for the young people with whom we work.

Jhanay Otto

Whilst studying English Language and Linguistics at Warwick University, Jhanay participated in delivering courses of traditional martial arts to young people who are newly arrived into the U.K (refugees, asylum seekers) alongside young people from marginalised communities and low socio-economic backgrounds.

Jhanay additionally volunteered for ‘Warwick in Africa’ where she virtually contributed to supporting young people in Ghana with an enhanced educational experience. Jhanay is also an alumnus of ‘The Black Collective of media in sport’, a programme whose objective is to increase diversity and career opportunities for minority young people within the media.

Jhanay currently works as The Youth Programme Officer at Career Accelerator where she aims to make a positive impact in the professional career development of young people.

Umbreen Lenoire

Umbreen graduated from Aston University, Birmingham, in 1999 with a BSc in Business Administration and Management (1st Class). A university placement at Prudential’s headquarters in London led to Umbreen joining the project team that launched Egg plc – one of the UK’s first online banks. The team at Egg went on to sponsor Umbreen for her final year at university and offered her a marketing role on graduation.

She has over 20 years experience as a marketing and campaign manager in both traditional and digital media – working in a variety of sectors from Financial Services to Utilities to her role as CRM manager at Weight Watchers UK.

Umbreen works as Career Accelerator’s Marketing & Communications Manager helping to showcase Career Accelerator’s work with young people and its corporate partners.

She is also a Trustee for Riverside Counselling, a leading Oxfordshire based mental health social enterprise – advising on its business and marketing.

Tracy Barlow

Tracy has a love for all things digital! With a passion for bringing things to life, her personal motto is: ‘Dream the impossible, live the dream…never stop believing’.

If you don’t dream it, you won’t see it; and if you can’t see it, it can never happen!
Having 9 years’ experience in web design and development, Tracy has a passion for beautiful designs and a flair for the creative.

Along side her website design work, Tracy is also in her 3rd year of Cybersecurity studies.

Originally from South Africa, she moved to the UK in 2011 and currently lives in Reading, Berkshire with her wife Zané and two cats, Fuzz & Lily

Sanjeev Gupta

Sanjeev is honorary finance manager for Career Accelerator. He holds a MSc in Business Studies from the London Business School and has done varied banking roles with international banks like Standard Chartered Bank, UBS AG and Emirates NBD over a 35 year period.

Along with Mayur, he is the co-founder of Master Money Ltd which provides financial coaching to young professionals.

Kate Vayle

With 20 years’ experience in a variety of roles within the retail and marketing section of the energy industry, Kate has a wealth of knowledge and experience in administration and business support.

As a SmartPA partner, Kate is a self-employed Virtual Assistant who has supported Career Accelerator in its early days with social media, proofreading, document production, and email management.

Kate continues to provide support with research and other tasks that help Career Accelerator to grow and develop.

Kathryn Hughes

Kathryn is a strategic communications consultant with over 20 years public relations experience. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work with a diverse range of corporate clients in various sectors including financial services, technology, retail, not for profit and education.  

Kathryn has developed strong relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers across various channels. These connections have allowed her to successfully work with leading business brands, start-ups, charities, and industry associations to deliver effective, compelling thought leadership campaigns.

As a PR consultant for Career Accelerator, Kathryn is focused on raising our profile in the media and promoting our range of programmes, research and activities and highlighting how effectively we are supporting leading businesses to achieve greater inclusivity and diversity and widen their talent pools.

Jake Marshall

Jake volunteers as Career Accelerator’s LGBT+ Ambassador for Career Accelerator’s LGBT+ Mentoring Programme.

He has supported Career Accelerator ever since their first LGBT+ programme and has sat on Career Accelerator’s Youth Advisory Board for 2 years. Jake has a particular interest in promoting Career Accelerator’s work to the North East, Yorkshire and Humber and Midlands regions, and uses his role to increase the number and diversity of mentees from across the UK.

Roan Maclean

Roan is a passionate activist especially when it comes to people who are Neurodiverse and LGBT+, having themselves been diagnosed with autism.

Roan has pushed boundaries especially after being told to give up on job hunting. Roan has worked in hospitality for 7 years. Roan was  diagnosed with autism when they were 18 and found ill prepared for the world of work. Roan is passionate about making sure others don’t suffer as they did when they started out in their career. Working with Career Accelerator is one way they are doing this.

Our Advisory Board

Career Accelerator is supported by a team of Business Advisers who contribute their expertise and professional network to help Career Accelerator develop successfully and positively impact its clients.

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Bruna Gil

Leading Partnerships at LinkedIn

Bruna is a Channel Sales Leader with extensive experience in the tech industry, marketing, partnerships, and digital advertising. Currently working at LinkedIn, she leads Channel sales in the Ad Technology space, driving the growth of LinkedIn’s Marketing Partner Program in EMEA.

Bruna has a global role within LinkedIn’s LGBT+ network leading investment efforts in LGBT+ leadership. As a member of LinkedIn’s Social Impact Board, she has worked with numerous non-profits to create opportunity for youths from diverse backgrounds. In 2018 and 2019, Bruna has been recognised by OUTstanding in the Financial Times and Yahoo Finance as a top LGBT+ Emerging Leader. In 2020, she was shortlisted by the British LGBT Awards under the Diversity Hero category.

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Dominic Arnall

CEO at Open for Business

Dominic is the CEO at Open for Business. Open For Business is a response by a number of leading global businesses to the growing backlash against LGBT+ inclusion in many parts of the world.

Before this, Dominc was the CEO at Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity. Their mission is to empower young people to champion LGBT+ equality. They want all young people to know that being LGBT+ is something to be celebrated. Before this, Dominic was Head of Programme Management at Mind, who provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem.

He also used to be head of Projects and Programmes at Stonewall, the UK’s leading LGBT+ charity who imagine a world where all LGBTQ+ people are free to be themselves and can live their lives to the full.

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Liam Hackett

Global CEO of Ditch the Label

Liam Hackett is a social entrepreneur, consultant, and mentor with a passion for empowering young people. He is the founder and CEO of Ditch the Label, one of the largest youth charities in the world, which has reached over 3 million young people during 2022.

In addition to his role at Ditch the Label, Liam sits on advisory boards across the third sector and governmental departments, contributing to various academic and government reports in the UK, EU, and US. He is a sought-after speaker, regularly addressing audiences on issues surrounding bullying, cyberbullying, equality, discrimination, gender, self-esteem, masculinity, digital technology, and youth empowerment.

Liam’s debut non-fiction book, ‘FEARLESS: How to be Your True Confident Self’, is published by Scholastic and available in most major bookstores.

He has spoken at prestigious venues such as the White House, the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Houses of Parliament. Liam also frequently speaks at public events with audiences of up to 12,000.

As a consultant and mentor, Liam provides invaluable insights and expertise to individuals and organisations looking to create positive social impact.

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Ashley Ainsley

Co-founder Colorintech.org & Black Tech Fest

Ashleigh is currently leading Colorintech, The UK’s leading non-profit focused on Diversity and Inclusion in technology backed by Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Atomico, eBay and many more.

Ashleigh also works on an advisory basis for the World Economic Forum, has been featured in Forbes 30 under 30 and holds advisory positions across universities and schools.

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Robin Chu

Director of Strategic Projects, School for Social Entrepreneurs

Robin is the Director of Strategic Projects at the School for Social Entrepreneurs.

He is responsible for driving forward Enterprise Grants and Match Trading, grant funding that pound for pound matches trading income, all designed to increase the sustainability, agency and impact of social enterprises and charities.

Before this, Robin founded and ran CoachBright. CoachBright supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to be socially mobile. They do this through running tutoring/coaching programmes in partnership with schools, universities and employers. Sir Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor of University of Exeter said “CoachBright tackles one of society’s biggest social problems, their coaching helps young people improve their attitude, work ethic and performance which ultimately transforms their life chances.”

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Charly Young MBE

Co-founder, The Girls’ Network

Charly Young co-founded The Girls’ Network. The Girls’ Network believes that no girl’s future should be limited by their background, gender or parental income.

The Girls’ Network is building a network of passionate and committed women and girls, organisations and individuals, to support teenage girls from the least advantaged communities across England.

Charly believes that mentoring, access to opportunities and the support and confidence to seize them, can be transformational. She wants to use her experience as a teacher and an entrepreneur to find the most effective way to support the future generation of female leaders. Charly wants to use her platform as charity CEO to share what works well, and to mobilise others to help ensure that neither one’s gender nor their family income determine the opportunities that are available to young people.

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Rosie Wright

Freelance social innovation consultant & post-graduate student at the University of Cambridge

Social innovation researcher and consultant working to ensure that emerging technologies are used for good.

Rosie’s career has been driven by wanting to make the changes which really change the world.

That desire has taken her on a journey from understanding how to fight poverty fatigue in the international development sector to improving the data systems that underpin economic justice in the financial industry. Throughout it she’s always tried to understand the reality over the rhetoric which has naturally led her back to academia and the opportunity to contribute both her research and lived experience to the conversation.

That journey has also allowed her to develop her own leadership skills whilst learning when to step back and empower others around her. As a result, in addition to her studies at Cambridge, she also runs her own consultancy, allowing her to learn through collaborating with inspiring innovators.

She is also passionate about serving through volunteering with mental health and homelessness being deeply important issues to her. Outside of work she’s a photographer, performer and author.

What our mentees are saying

See all of our video testimonials.

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Video Testimonial - Parineeta

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Video Testimonial - Mohamed

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Video Testimonial - William

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Video Testimonial - Tanya

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Video Testimonial - Charlotte

What our mentees are saying

See all of our video testimonials.

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Video Testimonial - Parineeta

Some captured moments

From our events, workshops, assemblies and mentoring sessions.

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