Team
Adina Claire
Adina’s background is as a highly experienced civil society leader, which includes Interim Executive Director roles at NEON, War on Want and Women’s Aid.
With a career starting in the global humanitarian sector, broadening to a range of other sectors, she has substantial experience of strategic leadership, values-led anti-oppressive practice, and of nurturing high performing teams. She also sits on several boards, including as Chair, of charities and non profits.
Louis Willis
Louis is an experienced policymaker and strategist. He leads ECU’s policy and programmes team, with responsibility for our campaigns and wider change-making work. He’s particularly interested in combining politics and economics to build coalitions for transformative change.
Louis joined ECU from the European Climate Foundation, where he oversaw a programme of grants to build the policy and political mandate for climate action in the UK. Before that, he spent most of his career working in the civil service, including leading the team responsible for aligning trade and climate policy.
Natasha Yorke-Edgell
Natasha is a specialist in social movements and an experienced leader, facilitator and campaigner. She leads ECU's movement building work, with a particular focus on working with new economy organisations and building bridges with other movements. She is especially interested in anti-oppression and finding ways to work across our differences to solve shared problems.
Before ECU she led RSPB's campaigns team, mobilising the public around the climate crisis and nature loss, and led The Climate Coalitions' bridge building efforts between the climate justice movement and charities in the lead up to COP26.
Rachel Heilbron
Rachel leads ECU’s Operations (Finance, HR and Governance). Her role is to ensure the smooth running of ECU’s internal systems and to make sure the organisation is doing its best to help the team thrive.
Rachel has been working with charities and NGOs for over twenty years. Before that she worked in some of the UK’s most prestigious museums running learning programmes for children and adults.
Patrick Calver
Patrick is an experienced communications strategist and campaigner. He is responsible for ECU’s communications work, with a particular focus on press and strategic comms. He’s especially interested in the relationship between media, politics and public attitudes.
Before joining ECU Patrick spent 5 years at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, where he led JRF’s public affairs and campaigning on housing. Before that he was a press officer at HM Treasury, and started his career working in policy and communications at the Bank of England.
Conor O’Shea
Conor is an experienced changemaker who leads ECU’s campaigning, with a specific focus on our cost of living work. He comes with experience of winning housing campaigns in Westminster and across the country with Generation Rent.
He is passionate about driving change and improving lives through positive campaigning, and also has an extensive work history in international conflict in London, Dublin and beyond.
George Edwards
George is a political economist and has expertise in policy analysis, campaigning and communications. His work focuses on ECU’s Invest in Britain campaign and New Economy Brief.
His interests lie at the intersection of strategic communications, fiscal policy and the economics of climate change. He previously worked as a researcher for the Centre for Local Economic Strategies.
Board
Roger Harding
Roger is Director of Round Our Way, an innovative campaign focusing attention on those of us paying the price for climate change in the UK. Roger was previously CEO of working class youth charity RECLAIM and Director of Communications, Policy and Campaigns at Shelter. He has also worked at the JRF, NatCen on the British Social Attitudes report and a communications agency. He’s also on the board of the Future Governance Forum and was previously Vice Chair of Victim Support.
Rebecca Gowland
Rebecca is International Director for Patriotic Millionaires and established Patriotic Millionaires UK. She previously worked in international development, including most recently as Head of Inequality Campaigns at Oxfam. In this role, she led global campaigns on poverty and inequality, with notable success on tax reform in the UK and at the international level. Prior to this, Rebecca worked as a care worker and has always been heavily involved in work on progressive economies and community rights.
Ruby Sam-Kputu
Ruby is a solicitor specialising in finance law and is passionate about sustainable investment and infrastructure development. She previously worked on Plan International’s global legal team and with charities focusing on housing, education and socio-economic development. She holds a Bachelor of Business Science in economics with law specialisation, an LLB from the University of Cape Town and an MSc in Law, Business and Management from The University of Law.
Laurie Laybourn
Laurie is one of ECU’s co-founders and leads the Cohort 2040 project, which explores how future leaders can rise to the challenge of realising a better world as the consequences of the environmental crisis become more severe. He is a Visiting Fellow at Chatham House, an Associate Fellow at the IPPR, and a Visiting Fellow at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter.