El is a community engagement and co-production specialist with extensive experience transforming how large organisations involve people with lived experience in service design and delivery. El is passionate about transforming the way organisations engage with the communities they serve. Having spent years witnessing how public sector and charity organisations often struggle to move beyond tokenistic consultation, El has made it their mission to help create genuine partnerships that redistribute power to people with lived experience.
El's journey began in the NHS, where they worked across children and young people's mental health services, discovering firsthand how meaningful co-production could transform service delivery. This experience sparked a deep commitment to ensuring marginalised voices aren't just heard, but genuinely influence the decisions that affect people's lives.
At Macmillan Cancer Support, El led the organisation's community engagement transformation, managing complex programmes and large teams while always keeping the human experience at the centre. One of their proudest achievements was creating Macmillan's first policy for recognising and fairly remunerating people who share their lived experiences.
El believes that with the right support and challenge, any organisation can transform its approach to community engagement.