Alex Brooker
Presenter, journalist and comedian
Alex burst onto our screen after he successfully auditioned for Channel 4, after seeing their advert for the Half Million Quid Talent Search to find new disabled talent for the 2012 Paralympics.
He joined Channel 4 fully in March 2012 and reported at the Paralympics Opening Ceremony, interviewing Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister in front of a TV audience of 11 million people. Alex went on to co-host The Last Leg alongside Adam and Josh Widdicombe.
In 2013 Alex fronted his own documentary for Channel 4, Alex Brooker: My Perfect Body, in which he explored male body image, while trying to lose two stone and gain a six pack in two months. His more recent documentary Alex Brooke: Disability and Me for ±«Óãtv Two, examines his disability to acknowledge for the first time how much it impacts on who he is.
Sinéad Burke
Influencer, activist and broadcaster
Sinéad Burke is a teacher, writer and advocate. Sinéad, through her company, ‘Tilting the Lens’ works towards accelerating systemic change within the domains of education and design, by focusing on accessibility as a vehicle for creativity, innovation and social justice.
She is responsible for the introduction of the term for little person, ‘duine beag’, into the Irish language and recently released her first book, ‘Break the Mould’ to encourage children to acknowledge differences and to design a world that is accessible and equitable for all.
A TED speaker, Sinéad's talk ‘Why Design Should Include Everyone’ has amassed over one million views. She has addressed the World Economic Forum at Davos and is a member of WEF’s Future Cities Council.
Sinéad is the first little person to feature on the cover of Vogue and to attend the Met Gala, but her interest and work is utilising her experience of being the first, as a case study, to make these practices the rule.
Caroline Casey
Founder, The Valuable 500
Caroline Casey is an award-winning social entrepreneur and founder of The Valuable 500 - a catalyst for an inclusion revolution that exists to position disability equally on the global business leadership agenda.
Committed to building a global movement on inclusive business for the 1.3 billion people in the world with a disability, over the past two decades she has set up several organisations and initiatives centred on disability business inclusion.
Her latest initiative, The Valuable 500, is a campaign to get 500 businesses to commit to put disability inclusion on their leadership agendas. Launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Summit in 2019, Casey succeeded in bringing disability inclusion onto the main stage at DAVOS for the first time ever with the support of global business leaders.
The Valuable 500 is supported by a host of global leaders including Sir Richard Branson, and Paul Polman, and global brands including Microsoft and Sky.
Casey is also a TED speaker, Ashoka Fellow, Eisenhower Fellow, a past advisor for the Clinton Global Initiative, a One Young World Counsellor and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
Nikki Fox
±«Óãtv Disability Correspondent
Nikki Fox is a Sony award-winning journalist and ±«Óãtv News Disability Correspondent. She has had Muscular Dystrophy since birth and has been in a wheelchair for the last nine years.
Nikki has a BA (Hons) in Music and has studied theory, piano, opera, composition, analysis and criticism of 20th Century music. She began working at ±«Óãtv Radio Cambridgeshire on the Peterborough Breakfast Show, presenting Fox’s What’s On Guide, as well as competitions and she then won a place on a Channel 4 Disability Researcher Training Scheme and she started working at Maverick TV.
Nikki then became a reporter on Gok Wan’s C4 series ‘How to Look Good with a Difference’ bringing her personal experience of being disabled along with a lightness of touch and humour, which have become her trademark. She has been nominated for Best On Screen talent at the Cultural Diversity Network Awards in 2010.
Nikki researched and presented a major documentary for ±«Óãtv Radio 5 Live, ‘Beyond Disability: The Adventures of a Blue Badger’ where she set out to discover what it is really like being disabled in the UK in 2012. It won a Sony accolade and the 2012 New York Festivals Radio Programme and Promotion Awards.
Nikki has a wonderfully close family and because of them, and her own innate positivity, she is a very happy person.
“I love many things about being disabled. I get the opportunity to see how great and kind people are because there are many times when I have to ask complete strangers to help. I would love to dance like Beyonce and wear high heels though… but you can’t have everything!”
Mat Fraser
Actor, writer and musician
Mat Fraser is a disabled actor, writer, and musician, who's been in American Horror Story: Freak Show, His Dark Materials, Silent Witness, Cast Offs, and played Richard III onstage in 2017. He’s frustrated at the glass ceiling preventing disabled actors from getting larger roles, and bewildered as to why disabled actors are not being used more in TV, knowing that audiences and the actors, have been ready for years.
Mat was thrilled when ±«Óãtv Arts commissioned him to curate the series of monologues around Disability, “CripTales”, for ±«Óãtv 4 & ±«Óãtv America, also writing & acting in one of the pieces, but it reveals the need for more disabled presence on TV screens. Mat believes that authentic disabled voices and faces are vital in liberating narrative and portrayal of disability, and mainstream life in Society, so this series is much needed. He’s currently developing a series of half hour dramas, in a similar vein to Criptales.
As he said in his piece for the Radio Times last week, “Let’s proactively move towards casting disabled actors in well written significant roles, as meaningful participants, touching and connecting you with their human commonality, like well written drama can do. Because when this does happen, and it will, it’ll win many awards, make disabled actor stars, and change the landscape of drama on TV, forever”.
Judy Heumann
Author, advocate and campaigner
Judith (Judy) Heumann is a lifelong advocate for the rights of disabled people. She contracted polio in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York and was denied the right to attend school because she was a "fire hazard" at the age of five. Her parents played a strong role in fighting for her rights as a child, but Judy soon determined that she, working in collaboration with other disabled people, had to play an advocacy role due to the continuous discrimination.
Her memoir, authored with Kristen Joiner, of ” is coming out through Penguin Random House in February of 2020. She also is a part of a film called which shares the story of disabled teens at camp in the 1970’s and how they helped sparked the disability civil rights movement.
She has been featured in numerous documentaries on the history of the disability rights movement and she delivered . Her story was also told on in early 2018, in which she was portrayed by Ali Stroker, the first disabled woman to play on Broadway. She also currently serves on several non-profit boards and is an Ambassador for Leonard Cheshire based in London.
Cherylee Houston
Actor and influencer
Cherylee has played Izzy Armstrong in Coronation Street for the last eleven years. She has had five seasons of her memoir based plays on Radio 4, including three series on Woman’s Hour. She is the cofounder of TripleC who run DANC, The Disabled Artists Networking Community with over 900 disabled artists and allies.
She won the Achievement of The Year Award at The Women in Film And Television Awards 2019 and more recently The Doubleday Award, from Manchester University’s Centre for Patient Experience, for significant contribution to patient care.
Cherylee started the #TakingTheDis hashtag to promote the different life experiences of disabled people. TripleC is dedicated to changing the way disabled people are included in and access the arts, ensuring the way we are reflected in the media impacts on the way we (disabled people) are treated in society.
Melissa Johns
Actor and theatre maker
Melissa Johns is a disabled actor and theatre maker. She is most known for playing Hannah Taylor in ±«Óãtv ones upcoming drama LIFE (written by Mike Bartlett) and Imogen Pascoe in Coronation Street. Other TV credits include - SKY’s - I Hate Suzie, In The Long Run & FLACK, ±«Óãtv’s The Interceptor, Casualty & SILK. Theatre credits include - One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (Sheffield crucible), OthelloMacbeth (HOME, Lyric Hammersmith), GRAEAE productions.
Melissa is currently developing her one woman show - SNATCHED with The Lowry And was recently commission by the ±«Óãtv to write a 10 min short. ‘What Would You Do Frida’ will be available this autumn.
Melissa is one of the BAFTA Elevate Actors 19/20.
She was chosen as one of the UK’s most influential people with a disability on the Shaw Power List and won the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World award in 2018 for her work in fighting for the inclusivity of disabled people in the arts and wider society. She also received Alumna of the year award for University of Essex/ East 15 acting school for her advocacy and action in breaking down the barriers faced by disabled creatives.
Melissa is co-artistic director of TripleC and co created DANC (disabled artists networking community) which is a solution focussed initiative working to increase the representation and employment of disabled creatives.
Erika Jones
Director and journalist
From being the first ever British Sign Language reporter on Newsnight, breaking stories for ±«Óãtv News, to directing Countryfile episodes; Erika is an award-winning TV director and journalist.
Proudly Deaf and dyslexic, she’s a member of various diversity groups within the ±«Óãtv as well as a BECTU Branch secretary – her thirst to tell people’s stories goes hand in hand with a growing passion to fight for equality in the TV industry.
Ruth Madeley
Actress
Ruth Madeley is a BAFTA nominated actress, named as one of BAFTA’s Breakthrough Brits in 2017.Next year Ruth will star in The Watch for ±«Óãtv America, the adaptation of several Terry Pratchett novels, written by Simon Allen and starring opposite Richard Dormer and Lara Rossi.
Most recently Ruth starred in Thunderbox as part of CRIPTALES, a series of monologues curated by Mat Fraser for ±«Óãtv 4 and ±«Óãtv America.
Last year Ruth starred in ±«Óãtv One/ HBO series Years and Years written by Russell T. Davies as ‘Rosie’ alongside a stellar cast including Emma Thompson, Jessica Hynes, Rory Kinnear, T’Nia Miller and Anne Reid. The six-part one-off series is from Red Production Company and follows the Lyon family over the course of 15 years as Britain is rocked by unstable political, economic and technological advances.
The series received a Critics’ Choice nomination for Best Limited Series, a GLAAD Media nomination for Outstanding Limited Series’ and a Satellite Award nomination for Best Mini-series. In the same year Ruth also starred in Starz series The Rook opposite Adrian Lester and Olivia Munn. The series, set in London, centred on a young woman pursued by paranormal adversaries whilst grappling with extraordinary abilities of her own. Based on the novel by Daniel O’Malley, the show was executive produced by Stephen Garrett (The Night Manager) and Stephanie Meyer (The Twilight Saga).
In 2016 Ruth was nominated for a Leading Actress BAFTA award for her role as ‘Anne Watson’ in the BAFTA award-winning ±«Óãtv three drama Don’t Take My Baby. Written by Jack Thorne, the hour-long drama follows a young handicapped couple fighting for custody of their new born daughter. The ground-breaking drama was applauded for bringing an issue affected by 1,000 families per year to the forefront.
In 2017 Ruth presented ±«Óãtv Two/Horizon documentary Spina Bifida & Me which examines how a law could prevent many birth defects and how pioneering foetal surgery could transform the lives of babies with spina bifida. Ruth speaks with patients and medical professionals in the series as well as exploring her own journey with spina bifida. Other television credits include The Light, Save Me Too and Outnumbered.
Sophie Morgan
Advocate and presenter
Sophie is an award-winning disability advocate & social entrepreneur who was paralysed in a car crash when she was 18 years old. Determined to channel her adversity into opportunity, she sees her challenges as a unique chance for creativity.
She embodies her values; finding creative opportunity in diversity and adversity, and daring to be different, she proves the value and power of true disability representation in all areas of her work and life.
Sophie can be found presenting most Live Para Sport events on Channel 4 as well as hard-hitting current affairs programs such as Dispatches and Unreported World. She is also a board member for Ofcom, the UK government- approved regulatory broadcast authority.
In spring 2021 Sophie’s debut book, a memoir, will be published with Little Brown.
She established Sophie Morgan Creative Ltd and is leading the charge to better representation for disabled people in retail, travel and design consulting for large retailers such as Target Corporation and John Lewis & Waitrose.
Global Brand ambassador for Toyota GB and CanAm, Sophie is a passionate adventurer who believes that the right vehicle can transform your world. Sophie is also a judge for Toyota’s Mobility Prize to be announced in 2020. She is also Global Ambassador for Women's Rights and Inclusive Education for Leonard Cheshire, and on the Special Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch.
Sophie has been voted in the Top 10 of the most influential people with a disability in the UK.
Eddie Ndopu
Humanitarian and advocate
Eddie Ndopu is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed activist and humanitarian. Diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy at age two and given only five years to live, he has gone on to become a beacon of hope and possibility for people with disabilities around the world.
He is currently serving as Special Advisor to RTW Investments, a leading investor in scientific and medical innovation. He has also advised organizations such as the World Economic Forum, UN Women and Amnesty International.
Mr Ndopu holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Oxford University and is currently setting in motion plans to deliver a televised address to the UN from Space, in an effort to inspire greater ambition around the SDGs. This will make him the first physically disabled person to travel into space.
Greg Nugent
Co-Founder, HTYT Films
Greg Nugent was formerly Director of Brand, Marketing, and Culture at the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. and, before that, Marketing Chief at Eurostar.
He was a Non-Executive Director of the British Paralympic Association from 2013-19 and created the #FillTheSeats campaign backed by Coldplay and The Duke of Sussex which helped save the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio from being called off.
Greg is the Co-Founder of HTYT Films, an independent film company based in London. The company’s debut film, Rising Phoenix, a landmark feature documentary on the Paralympic Games was released globally on Netflix in August 2020. Produced with Academy Award-winner John Battsek, Greg aims to use the film to change the way the world thinks about human potential.
Greg is Chair of the Nottingham Board for Culture and Creativity and an advisor to the ±«Óãtv.
Adam Pearson
Campaigner, actor and presenter
Adam Pearson is an award-winning disability rights campaigner, actor, presenter and speaker. Adam was nominated as UK Documentary Presenter of the Year at the 2016 Grierson Awards.
Adam’s most recent documentary, Eugenics: Science’s Greatest Scandal, was broadcast on ±«Óãtv Four. He has previously fronted the critically-acclaimed documentaries Horizon: My Amazing Twin (±«Óãtv Two), Adam Pearson: Freak Show (±«Óãtv Three) and The Ugly Face Of Disability Hate Crime (±«Óãtv Three), as well as being a reporter on Tricks Of The Restaurant Trade (Channel 4) and The One Show (±«Óãtv One). His other credits include Question Time (±«Óãtv One), Celebrity Mastermind (±«Óãtv One), Pointless Celebrities (±«Óãtv One), Celebrity Eggheads (±«Óãtv Two), Breakfast (±«Óãtv One), Songs Of Praise (±«Óãtv One), Sunday Morning Live (±«Óãtv One), Newsnight (±«Óãtv Two), Loose Women (ITV), Lorraine (ITV), This Morning (ITV) and Front Row (±«Óãtv Radio 4).
Adam appeared in the BAFTA-nominated film, Under The Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johansson. He also played himself in the independent feature, DRIB, which premiered at SXSW in 2017. Adam stars in Chained For Life which has been released theatrically in the UK and and US as well as being shown at film festivals around the world. Of his performance, The New York Times described him as “an actor of great charm.”
Adam has spoken at a number of events for companies and organisations such as the World Health Innovation Summit, Public Service & Criminology Conference and British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy. He has also given a TEDx talk.
Adam is an ambassador for Us In A Bus, Jeans For Genes and The Childhood Tumour Trust, and he won a RADAR Award and a Diana Award for his campaigning work.
Katie Piper
Author, speaker and campaigner
Katie Piper is a best-selling international author, inspirational speaker, TV presenter and charity campaigner. Katie made the decision to share her story in a remarkable film for the Cutting Edge strand on Channel 4 called 'Katie: My Beautiful Face' which was watched by over 3.5million viewers and nominated for Best Single Documentary at the BAFTA Television Awards in 2010.
In 2009 she set up a charity The Katie Piper Foundation to help people with burns and scars to reconnect with their lives and their communities. The charity's vision is a world where scars do not limit a person's function, social inclusion or sense of well-being. In the summer of 2019 they achieved their goal to open a rehabilitation centre in the UK to offer other burns survivors the treatments that Katie received in France.
In addition to her charity and writing commitments, Katie is also a TV presenter. Katie has just joined the presenting team for the ±«Óãtv1’s much-loved ‘Songs of Praise’ from September 2020. She is also a regular contributor and guest presenter on ITV 1’s Lorraine show.
Prior to this Katie recently hosted ‘Never Seen a Doctor’ on W where she helped people overcome their fears around medical procedures and guided them on their journey back to good health, and joined the Crime and Punishment strand on ITV1 with a documentary called ‘The Death of Aimee Spencer’.
Katie has a weekly podcast called ‘Katie Pipers Extraordinary People’ and has also written a number of bestselling books, two autobiographies ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Beautiful Ever After’, an affirmations book called ‘Start Your Day With Katie’, a self-help booked called ‘Things Get Better’ and then ‘Confidence: The Secret’ with an accompanying journal and most recently a book written with her Mum ‘Things I’d Tell My Child’.
Jules Robertson
Actor
Jules Robertson is a 29-year-old actor from London, best known for playing autistic character, Jason Haynes, in the ±«Óãtv medical drama, .
Jules is on the autistic spectrum which is a neuro-diverse disability that can cause difficulties in social interactions and often manifests in repetitive patterns of behaviour and obsessive interests.
With a desire to act, his parents – author and human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson – discovered a theatre company called . It transformed his life. Jules is now a Bafta nominated actor.
Charlie Swinbourne
Scriptwriter and journalist
Charlie Swinbourne is an RTS award-winning scriptwriter making TV programmes that often have sign language and deaf culture at their core.
In the last 12 months, he has written for ±«Óãtv1 programmes like Jimmy McGovern's Moving On, Casualty and Eastenders, as well as several ±«Óãtv children's programmes.
He previously created series such as Deaf Funny, Four Deaf Yorkshiremen and the Found documentaries, as well as one-off dramas such as My Song and Departure Lounge.
As a journalist he edits the Limping Chicken blog and has written for the Guardian, Mirror and ±«Óãtv online.
Su-Mei Thompson
Chief Executive, Media Trust
Su-Mei Thompson is CEO of Media Trust, a non-profit organisation which works with the media and creative industries to give charities, under-represented communities and young people a stronger voice while helping the media sector to be more representative.
Previously, Su-Mei was CEO of The Women’s Foundation in Hong Kong. She started her career as a corporate lawyer at Linklaters and has held senior management positions at The Walt Disney Company, the Financial Times and Christie’s.
Su-Mei has a distinguished record of advocating for greater diversity and inclusion and empowering young people to reach their potential. A former Member of the Equal Opportunities Commission of Hong Kong, she founded the Hong Kong chapter of the 30% Club, was a founding board member of Save The Children Hong Kong and an Associate Producer of the award-winning documentary “She Objects”.
One of Cranfield’s 50 BAME Women to Watch 2019, Su-Mei was Public Affairs Asia’s 2016 Communicator of the Year and is a past recipient of the AmCham Women of Influence Award for Non-Profit Leader.
Su-Mei is also a council member of The Cheltenham Ladies College, a trustee of the Orwell Foundation and an advisory board member of the ENO.
Anne Wafula Strike MBE
Paralympian, author and campaigner
Anne Wafula Strike is a paralympian, author, keynote speaker, Inclusion and rights campaigner.
Anne came to the UK from Kenya in 2000, and found wheelchair racing in 2002. By 2004 she was competing in the Athens Paralympics for Kenya, reaching the 400m final. After becoming a British citizen Anne took part in the 2006 World Championships with Team GB, racing in 100m, 200m and 400m.
Anne uses her platform as a Paralympian to campaign for a better, more equal society for disabled people. In 2016 she hit the headlines for a different reason: campaigning for more accessible toilets and public transport journeys for the disabled the elderly. Anne courageously wrote about it in the national press to bring public attention to an issue which affects many disabled people. She joined the Changing Places accessible toilets campaign, and, supported by joining another campaigner and personally delivered a petition to Downing Street earlier this year in 2018.
In response, the Department for Transport sent out a consultation called Draft Transport Accessibility Action Plan in August 2017. Anne continues to pursue a result with the consultation team. Anne says: “Together we are strong, and we are wiser than we were yesterday. For the next generation of disabled people: we must not give up.” She continues to lobby the government and policymaker on access and inclusion.
Anne is currently a Non-Executive Director of the UK Athletics Board, British Paralympics Association and Active Essex. She supports a large number of charities including the British Polio Fellowship, Right to Play, Play for Change, CBM UK. She set up the Olympia-Wafula Foundation which supports disabled people in the UK and abroad. In 2014 her services to disability sport and charity were recognised with an MBE.
In addition, Anne is a keynote speaker, won the ±«Óãtv’s My Story competition, and published her autobiography In My Dreams I Dance, with HarperCollins. She was part of the thought provoking play This Is Not For You with disabled veterans.
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