A year to test and build solutions to some of society's toughest problems.
Year Here is closing its doors on November 11th. Our passionate team of impact-driven professionals are open to connecting with the community to discuss collaboration and their next steps.
Arabella Peterson
Arabella is the Head of Communications at Year Here. She is responsible for recruiting Fellows, nurturing and growing the pool of talent and development partners, brand management, event management, all external communications touchpoints, and supporting Fellows with branding and comms for their fledgeling ventures.
Previously, Arabella worked in marketing roles in the private and public sectors in Australia and the UK. She has launched and grown several initiatives focusing on community-building on and offline, including her current platform, The Foreword. She has sat on the board of directors for disability organisations and women’s charities and has volunteered for several frontline charities and organisations.
Arabella is interested in the intersection of media and social change, applying creative strategy to purpose-led businesses. She holds a Bachelor of Communications majoring in journalism and qualifications in broadcast journalism, SEO and content marketing. In 2021, Arabella was a finalist in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Media and Marketing category and the 2021 D&AD Side Hustle Awards.
Arabella is looking for communications roles in purpose-driven settings where she can practice creativity and authentic storytelling and meaningfully build communities on and offline.
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Zoë Morgan
Zoë is the Senior Programme Manager at Year Here, guiding our Fellows through their Venture Lab and Incubator phases and supporting them as they research and prototype their social ventures. She is responsible for facilitating inclusive and engaging learning sessions, managing our network of expert faculty and connecting with innovation experts, entrepreneurs, alums and consultants.
Zoë has a background in delivering impactful programmes in the charity and education sectors, and believes in the transformational impact that bringing together individuals with different life experiences can have on some of the most critical problems in our society.
She is especially passionate about empowering and supporting refugees and has volunteered with various international and local charities, including Choose Love, Lighthouse Relief and Year Here venture Migrateful.
Zoë is looking for roles where she can use her creative and organisational skills to empower others to make a positive impact.
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Zoë Stanton
Zoë is the CEO of Year Here. She led the social business through its Purpose Review and is now leading Year Here to close in an intentional and managed way.
Zoë has a background as a social entrepreneur, having co-founded and grown the UK’s first service design agency specialising in health and wellbeing. As Managing Director at Service Design agency Uscreates, Zoë led the business to successful acquisition and joined the new company continuing to lead teams and clients through significant transformation and change, working across sectors from local and central government, health and social care, not-for-profit and social enterprise.
Over her career, Zoë has worked on some of the UK’s most challenging issues including housing, employment, mental health, childhood obesity and social care.
Zoë is passionate about supporting emerging talent and creatively defining new ways of working and models of leadership. She believes we can challenge the responsive, ‘always on’, modern styles of working through modelling the change we want to see within the organisations we build and is an advocate for the 4-day working week.
Zoe is interested in sharing learnings from her experiences of leading through a business closure to enable others to consider and manage this in brave, positive and generous ways.
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Shady Bajelvand
Shady is the COO of Year Here, working closely with Zoe on the Purpose Review whilst providing senior leadership on critical aspects of the business, including people and culture, operations and finance.
Her background is in delivering large-scale, socially-driven programmes and campaigns. This spans from working with government departments such as Defra, FCDO and the Cabinet Office on their behaviour change campaigns to designing and leading youth programmes for the likes of the Big Lottery Fund, Battersea Power Station, and the Greater London Authority. Her career has always involved a focus on inclusive practices and greater access for all. She’s particularly passionate about shaping the future world of work, working on programmes focused on building young people’s skills and confidence, unlocking pathways and opportunities often not accessible enough.
Connect with Shady if you’re looking for freelance / perm expertise and leadership in programme direction, partnership development, or people and culture. She is committed to building thriving, sustainable, impactful and inclusive business moving forward, so any exploratory conversations that hit those notes are really welcome.
Shady is also available for informal conversations with industry peers to share learnings and reflections from steering Year Here, alongside Zoe, in its final months of operations.
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Anna Markland
Anna Markland is the Fellowship Director at Year Here, overseeing the experience of the Fellows over the 10-month programme and our partnerships.
Anna previously worked at UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, where she helped ventures tackling access to employment and solutions for an ageing society ventures to scale their impact. She became their Pioneers Lead, developing a new support offer focused on UK social leaders driving radical system change.
Anna has a background in economics, and began her career as a management consultant for EY, focusing on healthcare sector projects. Her move into social enterprise was through the On Purpose programme. Anna maintained her health focus with a role as the Innovation Lead at the Health Foundation, funding innovative quality improvements within the NHS as well as exploring creative
Anna will be starting at the RSA as the Head of Innovation & Change on their Design for Life work. She is looking to connect with anyone interested in regenerative futures & practices, system thinking for social impact, and radical transformation within business and social enterprise.
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Josh Falconer-Roberts
Josh is Year Here’s Head of Operations and an alumnus of the Fellowship. At Year Here, Josh is responsible for core operational processes for the effective delivery of programmes and partnerships. He is starting a new role as Community Wealth Building Programmes Manager at Ubele in October.
Josh hopes to connect with others using community asset development, collaborative ownership, campaigning and advocacy as vehicles for social and economic justice.
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Andre Johnsen
Andre is the Head of Social Innovation Programme & Equity Lead at Year Here. Andre managed the selection, training, and coaching of Fellows as they deliver innovation projects and services across public and social sector partnerships. Andre draws on a decade of social justice, training and community organising expertise and hopes to take his experiences into the public sector, supporting social innovation from the grass-roots level.
In 2021 Andre completed a Masters in Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge. His research explored practical ways organisations can release agency to under-represented stakeholders. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology, focusing on social policy and social movements.
Andre hopes to connect with others in public innovation, community organising, and justice, equality, diversity & inclusion.
