Meet the Local Village Network Team
At LVN we are a small, tightly-knit team, brought together by our shared values and drive to make a real difference. We’re proud of the team we’ve formed and of the challenges we’ve overcome together. What makes us work so well together are the similarities in our values, goals and motivation, and the differences in our skills, background and perspectives. Together, we push each other to do better, aim higher and tackle anything that comes our way.
LVN Staff
Rachael Box, CEO & Founder
Rachael is passionate about young people and equality. Following 15 years in advertising sales, she found herself witnessing network poverty on her doorstep. With her skills in networking and her entrepreneurial spirit, she was the perfect person to found London Village Network in 2015. She has published several papers including ‘Network Poverty as a precursor to gang activity’ and ‘Network Poverty Behaviour Report’ with Ogilvy Change. She is currently a member of the School for Social Entrepreneurs.
Rachael.Box@lvn.org.uk
Lucy Edwards, COO
Lucy started her career at Cancer Research UK where she established herself as a forward thinking direct marketer. She then moved to the corporate world where she became an accomplished Managing Director. She has led three businesses spanning sectors including manufacturing, digital marketing and a social purpose marketing agency. And when she’s not working on LVN, you’re most likely to find her on the hockey pitch, trying to score for Potters Bar Hockey Club.
Lucy.Edwards@lvn.org.uk
Jade Broomby, Programme Manager
After graduating with a degree in Korean Studies and Business Management, Jade volunteered with multiple organisations before establishing herself at LVN. In her role at LVN, Jade manages the Local Village Network mentoring programmes in schools and online, and is developing her skills and experience in marketing, project management, web design, product development, and customer relationship management. Outside of LVN, Jade enjoys gaming, reading, cooking and trying new things.
Jade.Broomby@lvn.org.uk
Susanna Banjo, Schools Programme Facilitator
Susanna is a 400m England International Athlete and a National Medallist.
Her main focus is working on projects involving hard to reach groups, diversity, loneliness, inactive people, and obesity.
Susanna has experience coordinating events, project management, site and facilities management, community engagement, building relationships with local organizations and writing programme content.
Susanna role is to deliver the LVN Amplify Me programme and increase community cohesion between young people, businesses, and statutory services.
Her main interests are Athletics and Musical Theatre.
Samuel Broomby, Programme Executive
Samuel is a graduate of Physics at the University of Liverpool where his final year project involved Python based data analysis in high energy physics, and earned him the HWB Skinner Award for best BSc Project in Physics 2020. In his role at LVN, Samuel’s main focus has been on the optimisation and automation of data handling and analysis, which has included the development of a Python and pandas based tool for automated weekly data analysis. He also manages the world of funding; researching, writing and submitting funding bids. Outside of LVN, Samuel’s main interests lie in tinkering with personal coding projects, reading, gaming, and listening to music.
Samuel.Broomby@lvn.org.uk
Tracey Jacobs, Schools Programme Facilitator
With a career that started in residential lettings and later transitioned to social housing, Tracey has always had a passion for meeting people and building meaningful connections. This personal touch was something she missed when her career evolved.
Tracey decided to embark on a journey of personal development to become a qualified Personal Performance Coach and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programing) practitioner.
Alongside coaching, she also became a certified swim teacher, specializing in teaching babies and toddlers. Witnessing their growth and newfound confidence in the water has been a truly rewarding experience.
Tracey’s role is to deliver our Amplify Me programme & ‘When I Grow Up I want to be’ Primary School STEAM programme and increase community cohesion between young people, businesses, and statutory services.
Tracey’s interests include keeping active and reading.
LVN Trustees
Noël Williams, Chair
A 29-year-old youth and justice consultant to Whitehall, who’s had first-hand experience with the criminal justice system. He sees the value and power of personal experiences and believes that when heard, they can inspire others from all walks of life and help shape policy at the highest level and through local politics. Noel is also a Board Member at Peer Power.
Brian Cahalane
Director of Strategic Alliances for Experian. Brian has over 20 years’ experience in technology leadership roles across North America, Asia and now in Europe. With Experian he is responsible for taking their ethos of ‘Doing Good With Data’ to market via channel partners such as AWS, Microsoft, EY and Deloitte. Brian was previously Head of Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Channels Europe for IBM.
Catherine Ruggles
For the past 40 years, Catherine Ruggles has been involved with the design, development, and management of software products and companies. Catherine began her career in the late 70’s working on the real time operating system to dispatch NYC fire engines. In 1990, Catherine joined Peter Norton Computing, Inc. just prior to its acquisition by Symantec, developing software products such as Norton Utilities and Norton Antivirus. Catherine is now at Google’s London office.
Maxwell D
Maxwell D entered the UK Garage scene in 2000 and his music has since been featured in movies and Netflix soundtracks, and “On the Rise” was former US President Barack Obama’s biggest political campaign song. He is passionate about social change and giving back to the local community and has set up his own Mentoring Company called “Music Through The Bars”. He now delivers music workshops across the county in Prisons, Colleges, Universities and Schools.
Alan Rutherford
Alan is currently a director at S&A Advertising, experts in Google ads and social media marketing. Alan’s previous experience includes managing all types of sales teams in the UK and abroad including direct sales, telesales, b2b, b2c. Alan is passionate about social equality and believes that his experience teaching young people in the Philippines gave him his motivation to continue helping others to improve. Alan has a wealth of experience in training both sales teams and management teams at all levels. This has led to various projects mentoring businesses looking to introduce, retrain or improve sales teams.
Nicole Alcee
Nicole Alcee currently runs JAW Management, a talent agency looking after talent within the entertainment industry placing them on various media platforms and pairing them with relevant brands. She has worked within the media industry for over 18 years, including 13 years at the BBC.
Jules Kirby
Jules has twenty-five years of experience working for a leading management consultancy. He was responsible for helping many private and public sector organisations pull together and implement complex change and growth plans and worked in areas such as strategy, cost reduction, M&A and technology. He brings an eye for detail and deep experience in planning to support LVN’s development.