People

Jo Hawley

Executive Director

Jo Hawley is Executive Director of The Britain Project. She spent twenty-five years in the UK civil and diplomatic service, most recently as Deputy Trade Commissioner for Europe and Country Director for France at the British Embassy in Paris. She was previously British Consul-General in Guangzhou, leading UK engagement across the six provinces of southern China, and Director of Trade and Investment at the Consulate-General in Hong Kong. Earlier roles included two postings to the UK Representation to the EU, private secretary to a Minister of State, and public service reform work at the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education. Jo is a prospective parliamentary candidate for her home town of Bracknell. Jo read modern languages at Durham University.

Tim Leunig

Director of Policy

Tim Leunig is Policy Director of The Britain Project. An economist and economic historian, he taught at the London School of Economics for twenty-five years and is a Visiting Professor in Practice in its School of Public Policy. He spent over a decade as a senior civil servant, including working in 10 Downing Street, as economic adviser to two Chancellors of the Exchequer and as chief analyst and chief scientific adviser at the Department for Education. He is credited with designing the furlough scheme, the schools National Funding Formula and Progress 8. He is an honorary professor at UCL and sits in the House of Lords.

Paul Hodgson

Head of Communications

Paul Hodgson has over 20 years’ government and private sector media relations and public affairs experience. Paul was Sir Ed Davey’s Special Adviser when he served as Energy and Climate Change Secretary, and more recently contributed to the 2025 Liberal Democrat policy paper on climate policy: ‘For People, For Planet’.

David Laws

Chair of the Advisory Board

David Laws chairs the Advisory Board. He was Member of Parliament for Yeovil from 2001 to 2015 and served in the Coalition Government as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Minister of State for Schools and Cabinet Office Minister, having been one of the negotiators of the 2010 Coalition Agreement. Since leaving Parliament he has been Executive Chairman of the Education Policy Institute and of the Education Partnerships Group, which works on education reform in some of the world’s poorest countries. He chairs Energy UK and the AQA exam board. He read economics at Cambridge and began his career in investment banking.

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie MSP

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie is the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Northern, elected in May 2026, and is the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for climate, environment and energy. Born in the Netherlands, she has lived in Edinburgh for more than twenty years. Her career has been in the arts, culture and philanthropy, including work associated with the National Galleries and National Museums of Scotland and, latterly, as a philanthropy and fundraising manager at the University of Edinburgh, where she raised money for climate research and teaching and helped establish an ocean leadership programme.

Daniel Elkeles

Daniel Elkeles has spent more than thirty years in NHS management, joining the graduate training scheme in 1995 and working across acute, community, regional and commissioning roles. He became an accountable officer in 2012 for five clinical commissioning groups in North West London, then spent six and a half years as Chief Executive of Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, where he secured backing for a new specialist emergency care hospital and helped establish an early integrated care partnership. He led the London Ambulance Service from 2021 and became Chief Executive of NHS Providers in 2025. He is now a Senior Advisor at PPL.

Nicola Horlick

Nicola Horlick has spent four decades in fund management. She joined S.G. Warburg as a graduate trainee in 1983 and helped build the specialist equity team at what became Mercury Asset Management, before moving to Morgan Grenfell Asset Management, where she was appointed Managing Director of the UK investment business in 1992. She went on to establish SG Asset Management for Société Générale, to run AMP’s fund management business in Sydney, and in 2004 to found Bramdean Asset Management. She co-founded the lending platform Money&Co. in 2013 and leads it as Chief Executive. She read Law at Balliol College, Oxford, where she is an Honorary Fellow.

Mykay Kamara

Mykay Kamara is a chartered accountant and entrepreneur whose career spans large corporates, banking, private equity and start-ups in more than ten countries. He trained with Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse and held senior roles at The Coca-Cola Company, Aviva and Lloyds Banking Group, where he was Corporate Bank Transition Director, having earlier been an Investment Director at the bank’s private equity arm, LDC. He went on to found and build businesses, including A&A Investments and Services, which finances projects in West Africa, and the workplace wellbeing platform Welbot. Since 2024 he has been Chief Executive of Sentinel.

Wyn Evans

Director

Wyn Evans is a leading advocate for Representative Planning and a Director of Shared Voice, an agency specialising in representative and deliberative public engagement. He has more than 30 years’ experience in property and planning communications, working on high-profile development and infrastructure projects for developers, investors and local authorities. He is a regular speaker at property conferences and a Board member of the BTR Alliance. Wyn has extensive political and campaigning experience having chaired Liberal Democrat parliamentary campaigns in Esher and Walton at the 2019 and 2024 general elections. He has been a Director of The Britain Project since its inception.

Cherry Norton

Director

Cherry Norton is an experienced journalist and digital communications strategist. She has worked for both The Independent and The Sunday Times and was a foreign correspondent in Japan. She has delivered successful digital campaigns in both the political sphere and commercial sector. Her early career as a biochemical engineer with ICI in the North East of England informs her specialist interest in renewable energy, and she has published research on climate change narratives in the UK media.

Cherry is a founding partner of Shared Voice, an agency specialising in public engagement across residential, renewable energy and infrastructure projects. She has been a Director of The Britain Project since its inception.