When sight loss ended my nursing career in New Zealand, I travelled extensively before settling in the UK, where I re-trained as a programmer. I spent 14 years in IT, working as a Business Analyst and as a Delivery Manager before another change of direction when I became a disability representative on the Hampshire Independent Equality Forum. For 4 years I was the Voluntary Sector and Diverse Communities Officer for Healthwatch Hampshire and sat on the Hampshire Voluntary Sector Consortium.
Shelley is Mum to her daughter April and son Fraser. In 2014 when Fraser was a young baby, the family were told that he has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic muscle-wasting condition causing life-long physical disability.
Shelley’s professional background is in governance, operations and HR, working as a Company Secretary in London. She is also a Rare Disease Patient Advocate for Genomics England, sitting on their Patient Participant Panel and Ethics Advisory Committee.
I am a disabled activist with a solid academic and professional understanding of inclusive disability politics. My lived experience of barriers inspired me to advocate for disabled people rights.
Jo was diagnosed with a progressive, untreatable muscle disease in her late twenties, prompting her to consider her priorities. She now works to enable everybody to feel able to pursue the things that matter to them, regardless of impairment.
Atif Choudhury is an award-winning social entrepreneur, with a background in economic justice and disability inclusion projects. He is the co-founder and CEO of Diversity and Ability (DnA) and Zaytoun CiC (the World’s first Fairtrade Palestinian olive oil cooperative).
Kamran Mallick joined Disability Rights UK as its Chief Executive in July 2017. He is the former Chief Executive of Action on Disability, the Hammersmith-based disability organisation, where he worked for 13 years.
Kamran has also worked for the spinal injury charity Aspire as well as running his own training and consultancy business.
He serves on the boards of the Lyric Hammersmith, Wheels for Wellbeing and Lloyds Bank Foundation.
Tony manages our income streams; training and consultancy, sales income and trust and foundation grants. He originally joined DR UK in 2015 as Fundraising Manager. Previously Tony ran his own business and worked as a freelance writer, trainer and careers consultant. He has written a series of careers guides for disabled people including Into Higher Education, Into Apprenticeships and Into Sport.
Fazilet Hadi is Head of Policy at Disability Rights UK. She started her career as a solicitor in Law Centres, held senior equality roles in local government and was a director at RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) where she developed a membership scheme, expanded advice services and led many successful campaigns to improve laws and policies for blind and partially sighted people.
Fazilet started working for DR UK in January 2020.
Leanne Wightman oversees and supports the delivery of programmes at DR UK as well as leading on organisational impact work. After a number of roles providing care and support in the community Leanne completed a Masters degree in Social Work in 2009 and soon after joined a disabled people's user led organisation to manage projects and provide advocacy. She has also worked at Community Catalysts and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
Leanne joined DR UK in 2015
Michael manages Disability Rights UK's advice services, focusing on the helplines and online content, including our suite of more than seventy factsheets. Michael also looks after DR UK's membership.
Michael has been with DR UK since it's inception on 1st January 2012, and was part of the unification board that formed the new charity, bringing together Disability Alliance (where Michael worked), RADAR and National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL).
Greg currently runs his own user experience strategy, user research & design consultancy, having held previous roles as Head of User Experience at ebay Europe, Director of User Research at a leading digital agency & founded & sold on a retailer of inclusively designed products. Previously he was Head of Strategy, Research and Business Planning at the former Disability Rights Commission.
As well as a Trustee at Disability Rights UK, he is also a Trustee and Vice Chair of SHINE.
