Angela joined Business Disability Forum (BDF) in 2013. She leads the knowledge teams to ensure our advisory functions are informed by the latest business and employment policy related developments and ensures our policy work and advice is evidenced based. Angela writes BDF’s responses to Government and other policy related consultations and enquiries and other policy related consultations and inquiries. She is regularly invited to be an advisor on disability and inclusion related social and public policy inquiry or strategy groups and academic research projects.
Angela leads BDF’s advice functions, which includes the Advice Service and our Smarter London SMEs grant-funded project. She is often invited to be a non-academic adviser on academic research groups. She is regularly interviewed by and writes for HR and occupational health related trade publications, and disability related press. She regularly speaks at conferences and panel events and has also appeared on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
Prior to joining BDF, Angela’s career spanned from dementia care services and occupational therapy (mental health and physical rehabilitation) to HR and equalities management. As a HR specialist in disability and health inclusion, Angela focused on disability-related employee casework, workplace adjustments procedures, and equalities data management. She has also been an advisor to senior management teams and governing bodies on equality and discrimination law in practice in the public sector. She has enjoyed serving as a volunteer advisor at local ‘blue light’ diversity working groups on disability, religion and belief, domestic violence, and sexual orientation hate crime.
Angela is academically qualified (BA Hons, PgCert, PgDip, MPhil) in religion and equalities, human rights and discrimination law, and social philosophy, and was trained in law by some of the lawyers who drafted the Equality Act 2010. She has arranged events on social movements, including co-producing a conference titled “Emotional Politics” at the University of Kent, which brought together academics and researchers’ work on the role of emotion in social change related activism.
