Kunle Olulode
In addition to his advisory work for Hawthorn, Kunle Olulode is Director of Voice4Change England, a BAME charity and infrastructure support body. Its members number over 400 black community organisations and charities covering everything from criminal justice to migrant rights. He believes it’s time to develop a new narrative around race equality away from deficit models. Working in a sector that, he is acutely aware of how the lack of diversity in thought is crippling serious debate on social policy issues, particularly Race.
Voice4Change have recently published Home Truths, Undoing racism and delivering real diversity. The report highlights the voices and experiences of Black, Asian and Minoritised Ethnic (BAME) people working in the charity sector, many of whom are subject to racism and antagonism that is not faced by white colleagues.
As a trade union activist at Camden Council, he led Camden Black Workers staff group 2002 – 2011 representing over 500 Black and Asian staff members and founding its award-winning Camden Black History Forum.
Kunle also has a long-standing interest in arts development particularly in film. He is part of South Bank’s BFI’s African Odyssey programming board responsible for 2018 Black and Banned Season, which examined censorship in black film. He is a trustee of the English Heritage Trust becoming in 2017, one of its first black board members.
Regular contributor to Radio London, Al Jazeera, Sky TV, RT on debates relating to politics the arts, diversity and race.