Meet Our Experts
Our team comprises specialist consultants, DEI experts, leadership strategists, and business coaches to provide high-impact solutions
Belinda Riley
Belinda Riley is the CEO and Founder of Beyond the Barriers Academy, with a mission to break down systemic barriers and inequality in the workplace.
She is passionate about creating cultures where inclusion, belonging, and equity are embedded, enabling both individuals and businesses to thrive.
With a background in professional and financial services, Belinda was formerly the Culture and Equality Lead for EY EMEIA in their Strategy and Transactions business, where she was credited with creating a movement of cultural change.
Belinda’s work goes beyond traditional DEIB consulting. She is committed to driving meaningful and sustainable change by addressing the root causes of inequality and its impact on people and business outcomes. She partners with leaders, HRBPs, and DEIB specialists to build confidence and capability, equipping them with the tools to create systemic conditions for long-term success.
Alongside her DEIB expertise, Belinda is also a clinical hypnotherapist, integrating neuroscience, mental health, and wellbeing into her work. She combines these disciplines to support individuals and organisations in overcoming limiting beliefs, fostering inclusive leadership, and driving both cultural transformation and personal growth.
Her commercial acumen, results-driven approach, and deep passion for equality allow her to navigate the complexities of fast-paced, ever-evolving businesses. Clients describe her as impactful, challenging, engaging, and supportive, with a pragmatic approach that builds confidence and capability.
CEO and Founder
Elaine Pearson
DEI Consultant and Executive Coach
Elaine equips organisations with the skills and tools to stand out as an employer of choice for diverse talent.
Driven by the core belief – “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”, Elaine works with her clients to disrupt old ways of thinking and create new, more inclusive perspectives and practices.
In her role as consultant, she partners with organisations to help identify effective DEI solutions, which accelerate sustainable change, for untapped talent to flourish and ultimately enhance business performance and appeal.
As an experienced Executive coach and Facilitator, her work centres around expanding perspectives, encouraging solutions-focused thinking, and influencing behaviour to cultivate cultures, where challenges are seen as opportunities for greater impact.
With Board level experience, Elaine is adept at enabling cultural change to influence inclusion. Her extensive global background is over 20 years in HR and DEI, working across a range of businesses in both the private and public sector, from tech type start-ups to FTSE 100 companies. Her depth of knowledge and breadth of experience, provide her with an understanding of the full complexities of challenges her clients face.
Clare Mirza
With over three years at the helm of our digital media strategy, Clare Mirza is responsible for all our communications and online output across Instagram and LinkedIn.
Originally training as a lawyer, she brings a keen eye for detail, strategic thinking, and strong communication skills to the role, ensuring that our brand’s messaging is clear, engaging, and impactful
Digital Media Manager
Makedah Simpson
Policy Expert
Makedah has over 8 years of policy and commercial experience. Having worked in various policy and commercial roles for the UK government and in the private sector whilst holding a Masters of Research in Public Policy, her passion for policy has transformed into supporting organisations of all sizes with assessing and analysing their policies and processes supporting both their wider goals and to leverage their growth.
She specialises in:
- Policy development
- Policy reviewing and establishing Policy recommendations
- Analysis of research methods
Qualitative research design
Makedah’s client work spans the charity and professional sector with previous clients including well established media companies and the FTSE 100.
Outside of her professional career, Makedah is a trustee for the Patchwork Foundation and since graduating from the University of Birmingham, she has delivered three consecutive years of talks for their Get Ahead in Government Programme and has been part of their Ethnic Minority Mentoring Programme since its inauguration in 2023.
Ali Local
HR Expert and Return to Work Specialist
Ali Local is a Chartered HR Professional and Future of Work expert with over 20 years of experience transforming organisational cultures across professional services firms. She specialises in evidence-based and pragmatic approaches to culture change, leadership development, and organisational effectiveness. Her expertise in developing high-performing cultures and successfully implementing enterprise-wide culture transformations is particularly focused on organisations navigating the challenges of modern workplace transformation.
With expertise in supporting professionals transitioning back to work after parental leave, Ali combines coaching with practical strategies to help returners rebuild confidence and navigate their evolving career paths. Her executive coaching practice focuses on creating sustainable work patterns that honour both professional ambitions and personal commitments.
Tash Koster-Thomas
Tash is an Inclusion and Diversity Consultant, presenter, speaker and LGBTQ+ Activist, who is at the forefront of conversation.
Tash uses her lived experience and identity as a Black queer woman to continue the focus on diversity and inclusion in society and in the workplace.
Tash is also co-founder of ‘Breaking the Distance’, a unique LGBTQIA+ travel and relationship blog which aims to educate and promote positive LGBTQIA+ visibility, whilst also providing a safe space for people to be their authentic selves.
Originally trained as a Musical Theatre performer, Tash’s style of delivery is engaging, fun and positive, as she focuses on providing information in a way that allows participants to reflect and relate the content to their own lives. She is a believer in the power of storytelling and often incorporates her own lived experience into her delivery.
Previous experience includes, supporting Kew Gardens ‘Queer Nature’ Festival. Developing inclusion training for the Institute of Government and Public Policy and speaking at Mercedes Formula 1 for IWD.
Tash understands that embracing diversity is not just a moral imperative, but a strategic advantage. She is dedicated to guiding organisations through a transformative journey that goes beyond compliance, fostering a culture that champions diversity, equity, and inclusion at every level.
DEI Consultant and LGBTQI+ Activist
Harriet Nelson
Executive Coach & Leadership Development Programme Designer and Facilitator
Harriet’s early career was spent in the healthcare industry. First working at Korn/Ferry International to recruit senior talent in Lifesciences and then by joining GlaxoSmithKline
as a member of their in-house executive search team. Harriet moved into talent development when managing GSK’s global programme for high potential commercial
leaders and enjoyed a secondment to Ghana with an NGO before joining the Coaching Centre of Excellence.
As Coaching Director at GSK, Harriet worked globally across multiple cultures and functions, using coaching in a variety of
ways as a lever for individual and organisational success. Harriet has experience in working 1-2-1 with senior leaders,
group & team coaching, bespoke design, transition coaching, global programme management and coaching
capability programme facilitation which includes the training of new coaches.
Harriet now works internationally across multiple industries as an executive coach, programme designer and facilitator. She is an External Tutor with Henley Business School and as a graduate of the Practitioner programme with Coaching
Constellations, she approaches her work with a systemic stance.