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The national charity and leading voice for disabled people in sport and activity

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Team

Our two office hubs are in Loughborough and Manchester. Many of us work remotely across England. Our Board is made up of highly experienced volunteers with a variety of skills to support our charity's strategy, policies and vision.

Please see below the details for staff, Board and Advocates. You can also use the contact us form for general information.

Find a team member

Found 12 team members.

  • Adam Paker

    Chair

    Adam brings over 25 years of leadership experience in the sport and physical activity sector, having driven transformation across national and international sporting organisations.

    His distinguished career includes senior commercial roles at FIFA and Chief Executive positions at Commonwealth Games England and Swim England, where he led major organisational change and growth initiatives.

    An alumnus of INSEAD, the world’s leading business school for strategy, Adam combines a rigorous analytical approach with a passion for turning strategic vision into tangible outcomes. Most recently, at Portas Consulting, the world’s leading sport-focused strategy consultancy, he advised global governing bodies and national federations on governance reform, competition restructuring, financial sustainability, and inclusivity.

    As part of an extensive portfolio of public and private sector clients, Adam has advised International Federations, Sports Ministries, Olympic Committees and funding bodies in the UK, Europe and Middle East.

    Beyond his executive roles, Adam is an accomplished Non-Executive Director, having served on the Boards of Sporting Equals, The Swimming Trust, and the Children’s Activities Association.

    Throughout his career, Adam has been deeply committed to ensuring that the transformative power of sport and physical activity is accessible to everyone.

  • Peter Ackred

    Trustee

    Peter has been involved in sport for disabled people for the last 25 years both at a delivery and strategic level. He has worked with several charities over the years including Interactive (formerly known as London Sports Forum for disabled people). In 2005 he founded Disability Sports Coach, ensuring that disabled people have access to physical activity and sport at the level that they want to participate at. The charity now supports over 5000 disabled people and their support networks each year.

    He has also been on other boards including UK Active kids and Sports Excel (formally UKSA for people with a Learning disability), where he supported them in areas including Business Development, Governance and Inclusion.

    Peter joined the Activity Alliance board in September 2024.

  • Jane Duncan

    Trustee

    Jane is a Qualified Chartered Accountant with over 25 years’ experience in finance. Having started her career in audit, working with a range of clients, including charities, she then moved into a business to focus on delivering strong financial systems and reporting for an organisation.

    While living in Singapore for a few years, Jane got involved with a charity helping to connect new mothers and mothers new to Singapore, moving on to also co-chair the committee. After returning to the UK, Jane began working for Spirit of 2012, the social legacy organisation from the London 2012 Games, and worked with several organisations across amazing projects including Activity Alliance and the hugely successful Get Out Get Active (GOGA) programme.

    Seeing these programmes in action fuelled Jane’s desire for true inclusion and raised her awareness of the barriers placed by society preventing this. It also showed her the benefits of activity on wellbeing for all and the different forms that activity can take. She has put this into action herself in recent years by taking up running and long-distance walking gathering a whole range of medals in the process.

    Jane was appointed as a Trustee in October 2025 and is a member of the Finance, Audit, Risk and Governance Committee.

  • Rebecca Evans

    Trustee

    Rebecca has worked in various sports development roles in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, since graduating in 2004 from University in Sport Science and Management. Latterly working strategically across the county to improve people’s health and wellbeing by supporting them to be active specialising in those facing the most inequalities, particularly disabled people.

    Before a working life began Rebecca competed in disability swimming at national level and up to international level for more than ten years, until 2005. Her proudest sporting achievement was breaking the S8 Short course 1500m World and European record in 2004 and 2005 at the Beds County championships. She was one of the first swimmers to integrate into the county championships and went on to become Beds ASA disability secretary and their President. Rebecca spent a lot of time volunteering at club level and is a qualified level 3 swimming coach and believes she may be the first disabled person to do so. She continues to volunteer in many club roles, but in a different sport having taken up wheelchair basketball in her spare time, “for fun”.

    Rebecca says being involved in sport from a teenager has transformed her life. She is forever grateful for the experiences and friends that sport has offered. It continues to shape her life today. She is passionate about ensuring everyone has the opportunities to reap the benefits sport and activity have to offer.

    Rebecca sits on the Finance Audit Risk and Governance committee.

  • Lindsay Games

    Trustee

    Lindsay’s career has been shaped by a strong commitment to disability sport and inclusion, notably through her 13 years at Sport England, as Strategic Lead for Disability and Equality. She also previously served as Deputy Chief Executive of Interactive, an organisation dedicated to advancing disability equality in sport. Lindsay has worked closely with Activity Alliance throughout her career, building partnerships and contributing to meaningful change in the sector.

    Currently, Lindsay leads the support and impact team at the Football Foundation – the charity of the Premier League, The FA, and Government. She also works as a Subject Matter Expert with Affleck and Co, the UK's only women-founded, women-led sports business consultancy.

    Outside of work, Lindsay is a busy parent and community volunteer. Much of her time is spent supporting her two children and family dog in their sporting and social pursuits. A keen runner, she has completed three marathons and numerous half marathons. She also serves as Event Director at her local junior parkrun.

    Lindsay became a trustee in October 2025.

  • Isabelle Michelson

    Trustee

    Issy is a policy and public affairs specialist at the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). She has a passion for promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in sport and society with a political background spanning Westminster, Cardiff Bay and Holyrood. Her role at the LTA involves managing relationships within the sport sector, government and elected politicians from across Britain. She works to influence key policy areas such as education, healthcare and facilities investment. Her position has enabled her to champion and promote disability tennis to stakeholders across sport and politics.

    Issy has worked in the sport sector for many years, starting out at the charity Women in Sport where she established a political engagement programme and developed systemic policy asks to improve participation of women and girls in sport.

    Outside of work, Issy is a qualified lacrosse coach and has played international lacrosse for Wales for over four years. She also sits on the National Lacrosse Committee and has shadowed the Sport Wales Board.

    She joined the Activity Alliance Board in October 2023 as a Member Nominated Trustee, representing the interests of the National Disability Sport Organisations.

  • Ian Mullane

    Trustee

    Sport has been a consistent thread in Ian’s life. He was part of the coaching team for the Singapore National Cerebral Palsy Football Team, coached at a national level with the Singapore Boxing Association, and spent three years coaching youth football on Merseyside. These experiences have shaped his commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible for all.

    Ian’s career began with 15 years in finance and technology, working with some of the world’s leading institutions. He then moved into entrepreneurship, founding Vanda Sports Group in Asia, a sports marketing firm that worked with clients including Premier League football teams, the ATP Tour, and Formula One. He went on to establish Locowise, a social media analytics platform adopted by many of the world’s largest agencies and brands.

    In 2018, Ian founded Keepme, an AI-powered sales and marketing platform for the global fitness sector. Today, Keepme operates in 13 countries, supporting thousands of clubs worldwide.

    Alongside his executive career, Ian has held non-executive and trustee roles for over 12 years. He currently sits on the board of GymNation, the Middle East’s fastest-growing fitness operator, and served for more than a decade on the Board of the Children’s Surgical Centre, a non-governmental organisation in Cambodia.

  • Rory O'Keeffe

    Trustee

    Rory is a lawyer and founder of RMOK Legal. He has nearly 20 years’ experience helping businesses understand and manage complex legal issues - especially around AI, privacy, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies. He’s worked with global companies and law firms across the UK, Europe, and the US.

    Rory supports Activity Alliance’s work to make sport and activity fairer and more inclusive for disabled people. He brings legal knowledge and clear thinking to help guide the charity’s decisions and strategy, with a strong focus on equity to help drive meaningful change.

    Outside of work, Rory hosts a podcast - Beyond The Fine Print (R) - about leadership, commercial and tech law. He enjoys spending time with his family, cooking Brazilian ‘Pudim’, and having bold, honest conversations.

    Rory joined the Activity Alliance board in October 2025.

  • Reena Parmar

    Trustee

    Reena is a solicitor with 22 years post-qualification experience specialising in debt capital market transactions. She currently works as Counsel in the Global Transactions practice at a leading global law firm.

    A multi-award-winning diversity and inclusion champion, Reena is a passionate advocate of advancing equity, with a particular focus on disability. She is Chair of the Law Society of England and Wales Disabled Solicitors Network, and was formerly a Co-Chair of the disability network at her firm.

    In addition to her professional experience, Reena brings multifaceted lived experience of disability. She is a carer for two neurodivergent children as well as a disabled parent, and became disabled herself over 11 years ago. She found her journey of adjusting as a disabled adult to be isolating and, as a result, developed a passion for ensuring people have the support they need to thrive.

  • Emma Pawson

    Trustee

    Emma is the health and programme director for universal free school meals at the Greater London Authority working for the Mayor of London. She is responsible for a wide portfolio including universal free school meals, mental health, heath inequalities, physical activity, youth inclusion and working with all 33 London boroughs and NHS partners. Prior to joining the Greater London Authority, Emma worked as health policy lead at the Department of Health and Social Care.
    She has also worked in the Chief Medical Officer’s private office as policy lead on obesity.

    Emma started her career as a sports development officer working in inclusion health. She brings extensive experience in policy and strategy, risk management and programme delivery working with a wide range of stakeholders.

    Emma is extremely experienced in managing relationships at a local, regional and national level. She is passionate about inclusion health and activity and has spent many years volunteering with disabled sports in the UK and internationally. She also worked at the 2012 Paralympics in London.

    Emma joined the Activity Alliance Board in October 2023.

  • Lucy Smith

    Trustee

    Lucy works in governance and data protection at British Gymnastics. Her early involvement in gymnastics started as a participant and then she later progressed to coach which led to her pursuing a career in sport. Lucy has covered a wide variety of roles within the sport sector including working in development, safeguarding, HR, equality and diversity and governance, risk and compliance.

    Lucy was advisor to the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique Working Group for the Prevention of Abuse and Harassment. She was responsible for developing a framework to embed safeguarding arrangements at world events and within national federations and supported the establishment of the International Gymnastics Ethics Foundation.

    As a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Lucy is passionate about developing inclusive environments where everyone can thrive. She has lived experience as a parent and carer of the inequalities that disabled people face in daily life and is passionate about ensuring disabled people can benefit from taking part in sport and physical activity.

    Lucy joined the Activity Alliance Board in October 2023.

  • Loretta Sollars

    Trustee

    Loretta’s career includes over 20 years of work in community sports development as well as close to a decade in public health. During the pandemic, Loretta led the Health Inequalities team to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on health inequalities and the publication of PHE’s annual Public Sector Equality Duty report. In October 2021, her role was transferred into the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities which is part of the Department of Health and Social Care. She has responsibility for the health of school-age children which sees her working with national agencies on issues such as physical activity, obesity and mental health and wellbeing.

    Loretta has always enjoyed sport and being active. She initially swam competitively and later took swimming coaching and teaching qualifications with the intention to coach professionally. However, she was diverted into competing in triathlons in the early 90s, representing GB internationally. Throughout her time as a competitor and since retiring from elite sport she has taken on various voluntary roles with local athletics, triathlon and swimming clubs.

    Loretta sees the trusteeship at Activity Alliance as an opportunity to “give something back”. She is also passionate about wanting to make life fairer and healthier for everyone.

    Loretta sits on the Finance Audit Risk and Governance Committee.