Annual Youth Work Conference 2026

Natasha Irons is the Labour Member of Parliament for Croydon East, first elected on Gorffennaf 4, 2024. As a newly elected MP, she has quickly established a focus on championing young people, youth services, and community-driven initiatives in London. She has taken a leading role in defending youth services, using her position as a backbench MP to highlight the importance of “safe spaces” for young people and calling for increased long-term funding.  

She has been a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee since Hydref 2024. She was appointed as one of 27 MPs to serve as a “mission champion” to support London-wide initiatives, focusing on areas like growth, housing, and, specifically, opportunities for young people.  

Lib Peck was appointed as the Director of the Mayor of London’s newly established Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in 2019.

Prior to that Lib was the elected leader of Lambeth Council for six years, setting the strategic and political direction for the borough. During her leadership, she prioritised Lambeth’s pioneering work on challenging violence against women and girls and supported the development of a public health approach towards violence.

As a London leader, Lib was the deputy chair for London Councils, a body representing all London Councils, and led on Crime and Public Protection. She was also the deputy labour leader of the Local Government Association. Lib was a councillor for 18 years before stepping down to take up her role as Director of the VRU. During her career, Lib has worked closely with and for many voluntary sector organisations.

Dame Julia became Chair of The National Lottery Community Fund in Tachwedd 2024. She has previously chaired Teach First, the National Literacy Trust and Place Matters – all charities working to tackle inequality in those communities who experience the greatest poverty, disadvantage and discrimination. She chaired the National Statistician’s Committee on Inclusive Data and sat on the EMCCA Inclusive Growth Commission. She is Co-founder of the #iwill movement supporting young people into social action through volunteering, campaigning and advocacy.

Dame Julia has served as Board Trustee for the Fair Education Alliance, The Careers and Enterprise Company, the Youth Futures Foundation, Teach for All and as Patron of Right to Succeed. She began her career with The Industrial Society and served as Chief Executive of Business in the Community for seventeen years before working for the then Prince of Wales as his Special Adviser to The Prince’s Charities. 

Margaret joined NatWest Group in Medi 2020 as Group Chief Marketing Officer.

She has significant commercial expertise in marketing and customer experience.  Prior to joining NatWest, Margaret was Chief Marketing Officer at Centrica where she led the function for the Group.

Under her leadership, NatWest has invested £5m of their Levy contribution since Ionawr 2023 until Ebrill 2031, to support upskilling the workforce through the Level 3 and Level 6 apprenticeships. 

Over a 35 year career, she has held global, regional and UK roles spanning multinational corporates such as Unilever, Centrica and Cadbury, to private equity owned business such as Birds Eye Igloo.

Margaret has been recognised in Marketing Week’s Top 100 Most Effective Marketers for the last decade and in 2022, was appointed President of the ISBA and recognised as Marketer of the Year by Marketing Week.

Margaret was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the IPA Council in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the IPA and the agency business generally, as a committed member of the IPA Effectiveness Leadership group and in Hydref 2024 she was appointed as a specialist marketing adviser to The British Heart Foundation’s Marketing Advisory Group.

Dr. Kenny Imafidon MBE is an entrepreneur, author, and social commentator. He is the co-founder & Managing Director of ClearView Research, an agency that specialises in research, strategy, and engagement projects focused on diverse and underrepresented communities. In 2022,  he was featured in the Forbes’ annual 30 under 30 list for Social Impact. 

His debut book “That Peckham Boy” was published by Penguin Random House in 2023, following a 6-way auction for his book.                      

Kenny is a non-executive director of BBC Children in Need. Over the last decade, he has served on numerous boards and held different governance roles. He is also the co-founder of the OnBoard Programme, as well as My Brother’s Keeper, a voluntary group that supports men (mainly serving long-term sentences) in multiple prisons across the UK. 

In Ionawr 2018, Keith Fraser was appointed as a member of the Youth Justice Board. Keith is also the Non-Executive Director/Trustee at The Work Force Development Trust Limited, Advisor for the National Police Chiefs Council Digital Engagement Project for Young People, and Chair of Employability UK. Keith was made a Commissioner for the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities on 16 Gorffennaf 2020.

Prior to this, Keith was a Superintendent and Chief Inspector in the West Midlands Police, having joined as a Constable, during which time he produced the 2016-19 Preventing Gang Involvement and Youth Violence strategy.

Keith also produced the business plan for City of Wolverhampton council where he was the Chair of the authority’s statutory Youth Offending Management Board. He led an innovative preventative project, targeting over 7,000 children and young adults, working with Sport England and was the Strategic Police Lead for the Princes Trust across the West Midlands.