Leadership team
Women’s Aid’s Leadership Team is responsible for the effective day-to-day management of the charity, ensuring that our strategic outcomes are translated into high-quality services and partnerships to deliver positive outcomes for survivors. Collectively, the team provides operational oversight across all areas of the organisation, upholds our commitment to safeguarding and service quality, and ensures that our work reflects the values and principles integral to the domestic abuse sector.
Working collaboratively with the Board of Trustees, the Leadership Team oversees organisational and financial performance, compliance with relevant legislation and standards, and the development of a safe, supportive environment for staff and members.
The team leads our training, accreditation, research and evaluation programmes, ensuring that our work is evidence-informed, sector-leading, and grounded in survivor experience. The team also guides our fundraising efforts, supporting sustainable income generation that enables us to deliver and grow our vital services.
Bringing a breadth of experience spanning frontline service delivery, organisational development, marketing and digital, policy, advocacy, and sector leadership, Women’s Aid’s Leadership Team ensures that our work remains survivor-centred, innovative, and impactful.
Farah Nazeer is an accomplished leader with over 22 years of executive experience in the voluntary sector, specialising in women’s rights, human rights, and social justice. She has driven impactful policy, programme, and campaign interventions nationally and internationally, underpinned by feminist leadership, inclusivity, and anti-racism.
Since 2021, Farah has been CEO of Women’s Aid Federation of England, the UK’s leading charity working to end violence against women and girls. She oversees the federation of 185 member organisations delivering 300+ services nationwide. Her tenure has seen strategic transformation, governance reform, and cultural change, alongside her role as a prominent spokesperson and convenor within the VAWG sector.
Farah’s career includes senior roles at ActionAid UK, Bond, Lumos, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and the Women’s Institute. She has led advocacy on gender-based violence, economic justice, institutional reform, and sustainability, influencing UK and global policy through legislative change, coalition-building, and high-impact campaigns.
A passionate advocate for intersectionality and systemic change, Farah champions diversity and accountability. She holds an MSc in Politics, Environment and Research and a BA in Politics with Eastern European Languages from UCL. She is also an experienced board member and former elected councillor.
Nikki Bradley MBE (hc) is the Director of Delivery and the designated safeguarding lead at the Women’s Aid Federation of England.
Nikki has been a qualified social worker for forty years working across the range of family and children centred statutory services as a practitioner and a manager. As such she has a detailed understanding of the range of interventions and challenges facing the multi-agency professional teams when responding to the impact of domestic abuse. Nikki has extensive experience of representing children in a range of court settings where domestic abuse was a dominant risk.
In 2013 Nikki was awarded an MBE for her contribution to children and families, for her work in developing a Family Intervention model alongside government and several housing providers. A year later Nikki was awarded an honorary doctorate by Middlesex University where she is an alumni.
Nikki has a lot of experience of work towards more effective communication and impact within multi-disciplinary settings including for families with No Recourse to Public Funds and in children’s mental health provision.
Having joined the charity sector several years ago, Nikki is ambitious about the potential for closer collaboration with statutory partners to address some of the serious and systemic issues that impede the protection of children who are at risk of harm.
Sarah Davidge is the Head of Membership, Research and Evaluation at Women’s Aid Federation of England and has worked at Women’s Aid for 15 years in a range of roles within the membership and research teams. Sarah leads a number of projects providing an evidence base for the experiences of survivors of domestic abuse and the specialist services supporting them, including the No Woman Turned Away project which supports women facing barriers to accessing refuge.
Her research has included the 2019 reports The Economics of Abuse looking at the relationship between economic resources and domestic abuse, and Funding Specialist Support for Domestic Abuse Survivors which looks at the investment needed to create a sustainable support sector which is accessible to all women.
Her recent research has included the 2020 report A Perfect Storm: The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on domestic abuse survivors and the services supporting them and more recently Come Together to End Domestic Abuse: a survey of UK attitudes to domestic abuse 2022 which looks at attitudes towards domestic abuse in the UK and Influencers and attitudes: How will the next generation understand domestic abuse? Which explores what influences the attitudes of children and young people.
Isabelle Younane is Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid Federation of England. She joined Women’s Aid in August 2021, and currently leads the charity’s work across public affairs, communications, events and campaigning to ensure domestic abuse is at the top of the public and political agenda.
Prior to joining Women’s Aid, Isabelle has held policy, advocacy and communications roles at ActionAid UK, the British Council and the United Nations Association – UK (UNA-UK), primarily focusing on gender inequality and human rights abuses internationally.
An English graduate from the University of Exeter, she holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights from University College London and sits on the Advisory Council for New Diplomacy Project, an independent think tank that aims to support the development of a progressive foreign policy for the 21st century.
Kate Graves has been working in Accounting and Finance for over 40 years with experience across commercial, social enterprise and charity finance. She has been with Women’s Aid Federation of England since March 2024. She has extensive experience building finance teams, implementation of systems and problem solving in a fast-paced environment.
Biography to follow.
Jo is an experienced training and organisational development leader with over 15 years’ experience across higher education, public sector, and non-profit environments. As Head of Training and Development at Women’s Aid, she leads the strategic growth of a trauma-informed, evidence-based learning offer that supports the professionalisation of domestic abuse practice across England.
Since joining Women’s Aid, Jo has led a major transformation programme, strengthening quality, modernising delivery, and restructuring teams to create a financially sustainable and high-performing function. Her approach centres on collaboration, inclusion, and measurable learning impact.
Before joining Women’s Aid, Jo founded and led Empower – Be The Change, an award-winning leadership and coaching organisation recognised nationally for innovation and impact. She has extensive experience developing leaders, designing evaluation frameworks, and building learning cultures that support confidence, capability and sector-wide change.
Jo holds postgraduate qualifications in leadership, coaching, mentoring and education, alongside Mental Health First Aid and Prince2 practitioner certification.
Priya brings a practical mix of legal knowledge, operational experience and culture-building to her role at Women’s Aid. Known for an approach that is calm, fair and clear, her work has taken her from public and private healthcare to business change and transformation, including supporting large workforces across the EMEA region. Throughout her career she has focused on strengthening leadership, decision-making and the everyday culture people work within.
At Women’s Aid, Priya oversees people strategy, organisational design, operations, and comms and engagement, alongside developing strong, accountable leadership at every level. Her focus is on how culture is lived day to day, not just how it appears in policy. She has led structural and cultural change in varied environments, strengthened governance, and supported other leaders to bring clarity, fairness and respect into the way they manage others. She combines employment law expertise with people-centred design to build systems that help colleagues work confidently, feel supported and do their best work.
Alongside her role at Women’s Aid, Priya is a Senior Lecturer in strategic people management and advanced employment law, and a CIPD IQA Lead. She received a national CIPD Outstanding Achievement Award, recognising one of the highest postgraduate results achieved in the UK, for early work on flexible working in healthcare, undertaken before sector-wide adoption, which helped shape a trial later implemented in practice; a recognition that continues to guide her commitment to strengthening HR thinking and practice through principled leadership and good governance.
Ellie is a purpose-driven leader, who is committed to driving positive social impact. Her varied experience spans the voluntary, private and public sectors, where she has driven national policy change and delivered impactful programmes and services, including for central government.
Before joining Women’s Aid, Ellie held senior positions in policy and delivery roles with a focus on families, education and children and young people. She spent five years working across varied policy areas for the Department for Education and has also held a policy leadership role at an Ed Tech start up, Multiverse. Ellie started her career working with young people in London, where she qualified as a teacher and went on to deliver a programme focused on promoting young people’s positive mental health and wellbeing, working for Barnardo’s.
As Head of Policy and Survivor Services at Women’s Aid, Ellie is passionate about evidence-informed policymaking and ensuring that survivor voice is at the heart of Women’s Aid’s work and amplified directly to national policymakers.
Elena Tognoni is an experienced marketing, brand and digital leader with over 15 years’ experience across international NGOs, health and social care, and mission-driven organisations. As Head of Marketing, Brand and Digital at Women’s Aid, she leads the strategic development of impactful marketing and user-centred digital services that strengthen the charity’s national voice and support women and children experiencing domestic abuse.
Before joining Women’s Aid, Elena spent six years at MSI Reproductive Choices UK, where she transformed marketing and digital capability, led major digital projects (including an award-winning website launch) and strengthened the organisation’s brand presence at a national level. Her work spanned digital strategy, content, service design, marketing, and cross-channel user experience, with a consistent focus on safeguarding, accessibility and audience needs.
Elena brings extensive experience in leading multidisciplinary teams, shaping digital ecosystems, and building clear, insight-driven strategies. She is passionate about strategies that centre survivors’ voices, improve access to support, and drive long-term social change.
