Rachel is Head of Leadership Diversity at the Department for Business and Trade.

Rachel has 20 years’ worth of experience across equalities policy and practice behind her. This has included roles as a House of Commons Senior Policy Advisor on Education and Social Exclusion, front line education practitioner as both a classroom teacher and, latterly, as an education consultant. Rachel has worked both in London and across a range of British Embassies overseas. Whilst posted to Oman, Rachel supported British Schools in The Middle East’s delivery of education for all in cross-cultural – including significant progress in PSHE education for girls. Rachel then returned to London to lend her hand to national COVID-19 Response policy. This included the National Shielding Programme and National Vaccination Programme, wherein Rachel’s understanding of diversity and inclusion was brought to the fore in pandemic policy planning; in turn leading the development and implementation of the award-winning Community Champions programme (for communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19) and Community Vaccine Champions programme (for communities affected by vaccine hesitancy and/ or complex accessibility challenges).

Rachel now works across Equalities and Due Diligence in the Department for Business and International Trade. Here she corrals both national and international conversations around the ‘S’ in ESG; from empowering women with the potential for C-suite careers, to efforts to ameliorate vulnerability to forced labour in international supply chains. Rachel (in addition to her day job) remains active in consultancy, on a pro-bono basis, for Oxford and Cambridge University, and Imperial College London; in addition to mentoring at Westminster schools.