JON
CO-FOUNDER OF GSL
Jonathan Harper FRSA is CEO of Future Foundations, Founder of CanTeam, Co-founder of Global Social Leaders, Future Solutions Online and Our Future Group. Jonathan is an award-winning social entrepreneur, who has partnered with Vodafone, McKinsey, and Amazon Web Services to develop transformational employee development programmes supporting young people’s life-skills and wellbeing. He has created youth leadership programmes for the British government, partnered with the LEGO Foundation to develop a programme to foster playful learning and advocacy among young people and worked with Global Action Plan and Persil to pilot and scale a UK schools programme focused on developing compassionate values. In 2013, Jonathan co-founded Global Social Leaders, which has equipped over 10,000 young people to deliver 3,500 social action projects in 100 countries responding to the Global Goals. He is passionate about fostering a community of schools and cross-sector partners, committed to building a global movement of socially conscious young people who are equipped to be leaders in their lives and society. He was recognised as global alumnus by Enactus, for the impact he has had on society, and supporting young people to reach their potential. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) and has received a Catalyst Award for Global Social Leaders from the RSA. In 2023, Jonathan was recognised as a Gamechanger in the Big Education Challenge by Big Change, for CanTeam, a new initiative designed to transform schools into community hubs by opening up their canteens to serve food after-school to young people, families and local community. In 2024, Jonathan was announced as Co-Winner.
KATY
CO-FOUNDER OF GSL
Katy is co-founder of Global Social Leaders and holds a Doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she researches leadership, flourishing, and education and is a post-doctoral teaching fellow. Katy is also a Deputy Headteacher.
JUSTIN
ADVISORY BOARD
Justin has a background in leisure and entertainment, corporate finance (M&A), strategic business/corporate development and infrastructure. Justin started his career in investment banking with the corporate finance teams of Close Brothers and Arthur Andersen, with most of his banking life spent in Frankfurt. He has a BSc (Hons) in German and Economics with International Business and French. Having lived and worked in both France and Germany, Justin now spends much of his time in North America and the Middle East. Prior to founding Urban Legacies, Justin established his own management consultancy offering strategic advisory services to private sector companies, including international construction companies and infrastructure investment funds. Justin has been an active member of the Future Foundations advisory board since 2008, contributing to the strategy and planning of the organisation and has judged the GSL Global Goals competition.
tania
ADVISORY BOARD
I am a highly accomplished senior executive with international leadership experience in both Executive and Non-Executive roles. I have a strong commercial, business, and creative foundation having spent over 20 years in Design, Communication and PR; culminating in prestigious roles as Head of Production for Imagination (UK) and as MD of In-house Communications (UK). To take my leadership capability to a next level I trained as a coach and have dedicated my career over the last 19 years to applying my capabilities as a strategic leadership consultant, executive coach, and facilitator. I specialise in senior leadership and board effectiveness. Developing and supporting business leaders and senior teams to lead with purpose, build robust governance, create meaningful strategy, accelerate personal growth, and place humanity at the core of their businesses; and in so doing increase corporate and financial performance. I have built a reputation for transformational performance and thinking. I work with Executive and Non-Executive functions, Directors and Partners developing clear business strategy and meaningful corporate governance, creating successful leadership environments and cultures, planning for effective succession, high team performance and impactful communications. My experience is industry agnostic and spans clients across the public, private and communications sectors, professional and financial services, executive search, charitable, NFP and education. I have sat at executive board level since 1996, and held main board/non-executive, advisory board, and trustee positions since 2004. My approach has it foundations in understanding the intricacies of change and specifically what it takes to lead organisations, manage teams and the delicate nature of being a human centred organisation. I am passionate about creating mindful, purposeful, organisational change believing that when corporate bodies put their energy into good practice, they can change the world for good, better serving the communities of which they are part. Tania has been an advisory board member of Future Foundations since 2008.
CONNY
OPERATIONS & PROGRAMME MANAGER
Originally from Italy, Conny moved to the UK to pursue her university studies in Spanish and Latin American Studies. Her interest in international development led her to begin her career with Oxfam, and over 15 years, she has built extensive experience in project, programme, and grant management across major NGOs, including HelpAge International and Save the Children. Conny lived in Venezuela, Argentina and Colombia, and her work has taken her to Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Palestine, supporting both development and humanitarian programmes across a wide range of sectors. She has collaborated with a broad portfolio of institutional donors, UN agencies, trusts, foundations, and corporate partners. During her time at HelpAge and Save the Children, she led proposal development, donor reporting, and contract management, while supporting country offices to secure new funding, develop donor strategies, and build strong external relationships. She also brings a solid financial skill set, with extensive experience in budget design, financial monitoring, and ensuring compliance across complex, multi‑donor projects. At Future Foundations, she has coordinated programmes such as the Dirt Is Good Project and AWS GetIT, and she currently contributes to the programme management of Global Social Leaders and CanTeam. She offers strong end‑to‑end project management expertise, having overseen full project cycles, developed logframes, designed monitoring tools, and supported evaluation processes both remotely and in the field.
SHENEL
ASSOCIATE & COACH
Shenel is an Education Specialist trained in emotion coaching on a mission to teach young people to be resilient, kinder and more compassionate. With a BSc in Psychology and MEd (Masters of Education) her journey began in the classrooms where she taught for 13 years in both the state and private sector. She was quickly promoted to Head of Department and ran many extra-curricular activities alongside her main teaching role. Her passion in schools was empowering students to be the best version of themselves by explicitly teaching life skills to deal with life’s challenges. Since having children in 2017, Shenel has trained parents, teachers and young people to build mental resilience and emotional wellbeing alongside two leading charities in the field of wellbeing. Shenel is very excited to be part of Future Foundations vision on empowering young leaders through Global Social Leaders and the incredible CanTeam project that is a real life version of the literature on wellbeing.