People
People
Elizabeth Bananuka
Founder – CEO
She has delivered diversity workshops for agencies including Weber Shandwick; lobbied industry publications to diversify their judging panels, speakers and commentators and in 2019 she organised the first BME PR Pros conference with nearly 30 speakers from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority backgrounds.
Elizabeth is listed in the PRWeek PowerBook 2019 and 2020 and was one of Provoke Media’s 15 to Watch 2020.
Olivia Danso
Project Manager
Olivia has been a Project Manager in the not-for-profit, government, charity, health, education and arts industries for more than a decade. Most recently she ran an environmental programme for the Victorian School Building Authority in Melbourne, aimed at keeping school populations safe from tree fall, and in 2019 she launched and ran the BookTrust Represents project in London, supporting and promoting British children’s authors and illustrators of colour.
She also uses her Ghanaian name to write fiction and creative non-fiction as Maame Blue, and in 2018 she won the Africa Writes x AFREADA Flash Fiction competition. Her work has since appeared in a number of publications, including Litro Magazine, The Good Journal and Black Ballad.
In June 2020 her debut novel Bad Love will be published by Jacaranda Books as part of their #Twentyin2020initiative.
Photo Credit: Abi Oshod
Nyree Connell
Strategy Advisor
Before the GDC, Nyree worked for the Medical Protection Society where she was responsible for raising the profile and influence of the society through strategic engagement with Westminster, Whitehall, academics and a range of stakeholders. She has also worked for the Federation of Small Businesses where she had responsibility for environmental and energy policy as well as corporate social responsibility.
Hashim Ahmed
Research Consultant
Over the last decade Hashim has spent time at NatCen Social Research, Ecorys UK and M&C Saatchi World Services. With fieldwork experience throughout the UK as well as in Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and Uganda, Hashim is very much a global researcher.
Anoucka Burton
Non-Executive Director
Anouchka is an independent communications consultant, passionate about working with purpose-driven businesses, organisations and charities that have a commitment to creating positive social change.
Anouchka started her career in journalism, writing about the arts for Metro, then writing about money for the FT Group, before moving into PR in the mid-2000s. She spent over a decade working for PR agencies from Soho to Westminster, Clerkenwell to the City of London. After roles at several high-profile global agencies including Hill + Knowlton Strategies, 3 Monkeys Zeno and Four Communications, Anouchka launched as an independent consultant to focus on clients who shared the values of inclusion, equality, mobility and innovation. She now works alongside these clients helping to develop communications strategies that deliver impactful messages, improve employee engagement, promote learning and development, and drive diversity and inclusion.
Anouchka is a qualified life coach, working primarily with women from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to support their professional and personal goals. Her coaching practice is rooted in evidence-based positive psychology theory, exploring topics such as happiness, positive emotions, resilience, strengths and hope. As well as private practice, she aims to promote the science and practice of wellbeing within the workplace.
Daljit Bhurji
Non-Executive Director
Daljit began his communications career via an agency graduate scheme, cutting his teeth helping to launch a myriad of start-ups during the dot-com era. Working his way up the ranks, he then at the relatively tender age of 28, launched Diffusion in 2008 with his business partner Ivan Ristic.
As CEO, Daljit is responsible for leading the agency and helping its clients to integrate campaigns across traditional and social media channels, and build collaboration across marketing and sales departments. In 2012 he successfully launched Diffusion into the highly competitive US market, as well as cementing a global partner agency network to help brands implement campaigns internationally.
Daljit’s passion is helping brands to harness the power of PR to protect and enhance the bottom line, through earning influence. At Diffusion, these include the likes of Secret Escapes, Informa, TalkTalk, Hilton Hotels, Primark and USA Today, among others.
He is currently working with clients to help them prepare for the transformations to their business and communication processes that will come from the growing adoption of artificial intelligence and other exciting new technologies, as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Finding and nurturing PR talent at all levels is one of the most rewarding aspects of his role.