Action for Happiness is a tiny organisation and our core team
consists of one full-time team member (Mark) and five others
involved weekly but not full-time. In addition, we have a
group of amazing part-time volunteers who all play vital roles in
supporting our mission.
Our Core Team
DR MARK WILLIAMSON
Director
Mark has led Action for
Happiness since before its launch in 2010 and has overall
responsibility for our work. He reports to our Advisory Board.
VANESSA KING
Head of Workplaces and Positive Psychology
Vanessa is our in-house expert in
Positive Psychology and leads our work with organisations.
She has been a member of our Advisory Board since December
2010.
ALEX NUNN
Head of Movement Building
Alex works to help grow and deepen the
impact of our movement. He leads the Exploring What Matters course
programme supporting hundreds of volunteers to run local
community-building courses. He has been with us since
January 2014.
SARAH VERO
Head of Communications
Sarah leads our communications activities to
raise the profile of the Action for Happiness mission with the
media and general public. She has been with us since November
2018.
RACHEL FITZGERALD
Head of Operations
Rachel leads on operational activities,
including finance and process management, events and monthly
campaigns, providing website, app and other technical support and
generally ensuring everything is running smoothly! She joined the
team in November 2020.
TANYA BARRETT
Project and Administrative Support
Tanya helps support our local courses and
volunteer course leaders. She has been volunteering with us for
many years and working in this role since October 2016.
GABY DESCHAMPS
Project and Administrative Support
Gaby helps to support the setup and
operation of our local courses. She has been working in this role
since February 2017.
Helpers & Heroes
TRACY AMPAH
Events Team Leader
Tracy leads the amazing volunteer team that runs our monthly
live events. She has been helping since May 2015 and leading the
team since July 2016.
STAN ROSENTHAL
Happy Cafe Network Coordinator
Stan helped set up our very
successful Brighton group and developed the Happy
Cafe concept which he's now helping to replicate in other
towns and cities.
VAL PAYNE
Happiness in Schools
Since May 2014, Val (a teacher and education consultant) has been
helping to develop and roll-out the Keys to
Happier Living toolkit for schools.
PETER HARPER
Happiness in Schools
Since May 2014, Peter (a consultant clinical psychologist) has
been helping to develop and roll-out the Keys to Happier Living toolkit for
schools.
Previous Helpers &
Heroes
KEITH COWLEY
Wellbeing Research Project (former role)
From May 2016 to March 2018 Keith helped us run a research project to
evaluate the impact of our Exploring What
Matters course led by academics at the LSE.
HARRIET OGBORN
Supporting our Advisory Board (former role)
From our launch in 2011 until October 2017, Harriet supported the
Action for Happiness board at our regular meetings as well as
various other events.
LUCY ROBERTS
Supporting Local Groups (former role)
From December 2011 to January 2016, Lucy looked after all our local Action for
Happiness groups and people wanting to run our course.
AMAN HOTHI
Events Team Leader (former role)
From May 2012 to May 2016, Aman led the amazing volunteer
team that ran our monthly live events in London.
NATASHA WARNE
Community Courses (former role)
From December 2014 to March 2016, Natasha led our work on running community
courses to help improve mental wellbeing.
PAUL ADNITT
Events / Wellbeing in Schools (former role)
From May 2011 to August 2013, Paul was head of our Events team and led our
work relating to happiness and wellbeing in schools.
IZZY MCRAE
Strategy, Media and Projects (former role)
From January 2015 to January 2016, Izzy was
involved in supporting various different aspects of our strategy,
projects and media engagement.