Meet our Leadership Team
Board Of Trustees
Hannah Parry
Chairperson
Hannah Parry
Connie Mitchell-Innes
Chartered Accountant
Connie is a Finance Director at Pinnacle Group Ltd a leading provider of housing neighbourhood and community-facing services across the UK; a people first business embedded in the communities they serve. The company manage and maintain communities and places where people live, learn work and play.
Connie is a Chartered Accountant (FCA), and post qualification, spent the early part of she career in Financial Services specifically in Commodity Trading. This required significant travel to set up and support Finance teams at the various origins where the companies traded. Immediately prior to joining Pinnacle Group in 2006, she worked at Virgin.net running their operations from Madeira.
She came across Action Breaks Silence Ltd when looking for an opportunity to “give back” in some way in the latter part of her career and was at once caught up with the passion of Action Breaks Silence and its commendable cause and the determination within to make a difference. Educating against violence against women and girls and making a significant impact on raising awareness and fostering positive change in society and she knew she wanted to be involved in furthering the cause.
Connie Mitchell-Innes
Nousheen Jalal
Chairperson Advisory Board
Nousheen Jalal is a Strategy and Human Capital advisor with a passion for people development, organisation effectiveness and purposeful change. She is grateful for her life experiences of growing up in Bangladesh, Pakistan, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom before the age of 18 and as a young adult in the United States and Germany. Her appreciation for multicultural experiences has grown further through an international career living and working from London, Singapore, and Chicago.
With her Bangladeshi-Muslim heritage, Nousheen has always been curious about multiple perspectives and conscious of the importance of bridging societal inequities within communities. Her current volunteer commitments focus on empowerment for women and girls in the United Kingdom and Bangladesh.
Nousheen has been an HR business partner at Vue International and was in business leadership roles at the Human Capital Leadership Institute and Hewitt Associates in Singapore. She has also held principal client-advisory and client-engagement roles at Mercer and Duke Corporate Education. She has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor degree from Grinnell College.
In 2016, Nousheen, her husband and two sons returned to live in London after Singapore as their home-base for 12 years. As a family, they enjoy long walks, games of tennis, skiing and celebrating multiple cultural and religious events reflecting their mixed-ethnicity, mixed-religion and multi-national family make-up and experiences. With the sons now at university, the family quite likes to engage in constructive and lively exchanges about global politics and economics, cultural values, personal identify, and ethics.
Nousheen Jalal
Chairperson Advisory Board
Debbie Foley
Communications / Marketing Expert
A dynamic and accomplished international business leader with 25+ years’ experience of successfully transforming commercial and operational business performance in a wide range of fast-paced, complex, customer environments. Debbie spent most of her career at Shell where she has lived and worked in the Middle east, Africa, Asia and across Europe, most recently in Amsterdam. In October last year she returned to the UK where she was appointed as Chief Revenue Officer at Pod Point PLC.
Recognised as a courageous, inclusive, empathetic leader who enjoys building high performing, results driven teams where truly enjoys finding and empowering talent. Motivated to continuously challenge herself to grow, be better for herself, her family, her work, and society she is driven by deep-rooted values of unity, truth, and courage. This has led to her involvement in multiple community projects, developing ERGs in the workplace and developing LGBTQ+ and women’s mentoring programmes. During her time living in South Africa, she and her wife Lisa volunteered for community programmes in support of women and children living surviving abusive environments, which resonates deeply with the work of Action Breaks Silence.
Outside of work Debbie enjoys socialising, following Rugby union, theatre and time traveling with our son.
Debbie Foley
Marie Byrne
Throughout my life I've always known that I want to try and make a difference in the world. I can remember in primary school telling my yr 6 teacher that I want to work with children and true to my word I have. My job titles may have changed over the years but the outcome has remained the same and that is making sure that children and young people live in an environment that is safe and that they are the best versions of themselves no matter their own personal circumstances.
I had the opportunity to meet Debi in my current role as DDSL as she came into school to talk about the charity and how ABS can support young people in the understanding of what makes a healthy relationship. It was clear from observing the sessions that the facilitators believed in what they were sharing and I was blown away and knew that I needed to be part of this. I have worked previously with both survivors of domestic abuse and perpetrators, so to be apart of informing young people means that holistic understanding which I believe is so important when talking about this subject. To be a part of this makes me so proud and I am very fortunate to be supporting Debi and the Action Breaks Silence team.
Marie Byrne
Iqra Ilyas
Iqra has an academic foundation in clinical medicine and an MSc in Public Health from LSHTM. Her experience spans international medical education consulting at Lecturio, public health fieldwork in Uganda, and a recent role as a Facilitator and Programme Manager at Mind-Axis, a mental health CIC providing social and emotional support to young adults in the local community. She is currently co-authoring a systematic review on the prevention of online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA).
She is a strong advocate of social justice and ending violence against women and girls, particularly through inclusive education across all genders and age groups, culturally sensitive interventions, and community-led engagement. She is enthusiastic to contribute her skills and lived experience at Action Breaks Silence.
Iqra is fluent in English, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and Gujarati, and leverages her multilingual proficiency to engage effectively within her community.
Outside of work, she thoroughly enjoys a mean cup of chai and is currently teaching herself crochet.
Iqra Ilyas
Ragini Rangarajan
Ragini brings 12+ years of multidisciplinary leadership experience in healthcare, with a focus on driving strategy both in the commercial and non-profit setting.
She is currently a Strategy leader at CEPI, where she sits in the Strategy team and helps shape strategies that enables CEPI to reach its mission of equitable vaccine development and access.
Previously, as an Associate Director at Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company), she advised some of the largest companies within Life Sciences across the asset lifecycle. Having worked across the US, EMEA and APAC, she brings a successful track record in global and inclusive leadership and is passionate about driving everyday inclusivity. She has an MBA from INSEAD and an MSc in Global Health Policy from LSHTM.
Outside work, she is a classically trained singer and multi-instrumentalist, and amateur boxer.
Ragini Rangarajan
Advisory Board
Aliya Kahn
Head Of Strategy
Aliya has extensive experience as a project manager in the not-for-profit sector, having worked across local authorities, higher education, charities, and most recently with the Royal College of Occupational Therapy. She has successfully delivered a variety of projects, ranging from software implementations to organisational change.
Driven by an increased awareness of the extent and impact of violence against women and girls, Aliya is committed to raising awareness in this area. She was drawn to volunteer for Action Breaks Silence because of its focus on education and prevention and is excited to contribute to this work.
Aliya Kahn
Head Of Strategy
Youth Advisory Board
Wura
Wura
Chairperson
Akshita
Akshita
Vice Chairperson
Ayomide (Mabel)
Ayomide (Mabel)
Secretary
Office
Debi Steven
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Debi Steven
Shilpa
Project Co-Ordinator
Shilpa
Pinky
Schools and Corporate Coordinator
Pinky
Schools Coordinator
Melissa
Lead Trainer
Melissa
Primary School Programme