Volunteer Management Conference

Elena Laguna is a senior leader in community engagement and social impact with over 10 years’ experience across major UK charities including St John Ambulance, Oxfam, and UK Youth. As Director of Volunteer Experience, she leads national programmes that empower people to connect, contribute, and create change in their communities. Passionate about inclusion and innovation, Elena has driven large-scale transformation to strengthen belonging, extend reach, and enhance the social value of volunteering. She is also a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and a trustee championing youth voice and lived experience in leadership.

As Director of Volunteering and Safeguarding, and throughout his 6 years at RVS, Dave has overseen and supported significant transformation programmes that have benefitted not just RVS but the sector as a whole.  This includes the NHS Care Volunteer Responder Programme, the Big Help Out and RVS’ Digital Volunteering Platform GoVo. This has resulted in proven success around leading volunteering strategies and driving reform in systems, culture, and governance. Wider skills and experience include safeguarding, inclusion, and digital innovation, with a strong record of improving engagement, diversity, and performance. He is driven by values-led leadership that builds trust, strengthens partnerships, and empowers volunteers to deliver lasting impact.

Kate joined Community Impact Bucks as the CEO, bringing over 20 years of extensive experience in local government across Buckinghamshire with her. Throughout her career, she has worked on a wide range of community development initiatives, policy planning, and partnership building. Over the last five years, Kate has worked closely with charities, voluntary and community organisations, and statutory and non-statutory partners to drive community-focused projects that strengthen local networks and improve lives. Kate is dedicated to fostering collaboration and supporting a thriving voluntary sector throughout Buckinghamshire.

Dr Juliana Mainard-Sardon is a Senior Research Fellow at the VCSE Observatory at Nottingham Trent University.  A qualitative researcher, her work focuses on voluntary sector organisations, volunteers, and workers. She uses digital storytelling to amplify under-represented communities in the UK and Global South, driving social change by giving voice to marginalised groups.

Juliana was part of a national research team that conducted the largest UK study on Covid-19’s impact on the voluntary sector. She is Principal Investigator for an evaluation on how under-served groups are represented in NHS research and co-investigator for evaluations of two local infrastructure organisations in Medway and St Albans. She worked with the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, City Bridge Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and Henry Smith Charity to explore equity in funding practices.

Beyond academia, Juliana served as Funding Manager at the Peepul Centre, one of the UK’s largest BAME social enterprises, leading fundraising, partnerships, and grant management. Previously, she spent 10 years as a youth worker and community activist in Argentina.

Currently, Juliana is a Governor at The Herewoode Academy, Leicester, a school at the heart of a community with high deprivation, medium migration, and diverse backgrounds.

Elena Laguna is a senior leader in community engagement and social impact with over 10 years’ experience across major UK charities including St John Ambulance, Oxfam, and UK Youth. As Director of Volunteer Experience, she leads national programmes that empower people to connect, contribute, and create change in their communities. Passionate about inclusion and innovation, Elena has driven large-scale transformation to strengthen belonging, extend reach, and enhance the social value of volunteering. She is also a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and a trustee championing youth voice and lived experience in leadership.

Felicitie (Flik) Walls is a passionate advocate for accessible and meaningful volunteering for all, drawing on two decades of experience across the public and voluntary sectors in volunteer management and community participation. As the Volunteering Manager at WCVA (Wales Council for Voluntary Action), Flik enables organisations to deliver high-quality volunteering programs through access to grants, guidance, and guidance. Flik recently played a pivotal role in the development and launch of the New Approach to Volunteering in Wales, a vision and implementation plan designed to explicitly respond to the evolving landscape, to address and remove barriers, ensuring safe, supported, and sustainable volunteering is embedded and can thrive in national life. Committed to keeping her expertise on the frontline, Flik recently completed a challenge to undertake forty different volunteering experiences before she turned 40, giving her direct insight into the journey of a prospective volunteer.

Volunteero is a pioneering volunteer management software company dedicated to simplifying and enhancing the volunteer experience for both organizations and volunteers. Founded by three friends who faced challenges in managing their own volunteering, Volunteero collaborates directly with charities to develop intuitive tools that streamline recruitment, communication, and reporting processes.

Trusted by over 150 organizations across the UK, Europe, and the US, Volunteero’s platform empowers charities to save time and boost volunteer engagement. With a mission to make volunteering simple and accessible to all, Volunteero seeks to boost the overall impact achieved through volunteering.

Maddy Mills is the Founder and CEO of Family Volunteering Club, a national charity which creates opportunities for children aged 0 – 9 to get hands-on helping important local causes with their families, and learn from a young age why it’s fun and important to help in their community. Originally from Cumbria, Maddy has a background in the arts and culture sector, having held roles including Producer at the Southbank Centre, Festivals Manager at Kew Gardens, and Director of Entelechy Arts. She also spent ten months in Azerbaijan producing cultural programmes, and amongst her voluntary work, she is a Parent Governor at her son’s school, and runs a free, family Winter trail where she lives in south London.

Kate Oboussier is the Communities Programme Manager at Westminster City Council, leading programmes that promote local engagement and foster inclusive community development. Drawing on extensive experience in the voluntary sector, Kate has delivered community-led projects, built partnerships with charities and grassroots organisations, and championed initiatives that strengthen and empower communities. With expertise in strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and programme delivery, Kate focuses on aligning resources to maximise impact and create opportunities for meaningful participation. Central to her approach is enabling communities to lead in tackling the issues they face, ensuring they are supported with the tools, insight, and platforms they need to drive change from within. Passionate about collaboration and resilience-building, Kate works across teams to ensure communities have a strong and influential voice in shaping local priorities and designing solutions that work for them.

Ruth Leonard is Chair of the UK’s Association of Volunteer Managers whose day job is Head of Volunteering Development and Operations at Macmillan Cancer Support.

For Ruth, involving volunteers is about building relationships to empower and enable people to bring creativity and ingenuity to a solution to make a difference in their community.

Her current role is to consider strategically where volunteering can add value to developing innovative solutions and to ensure a supportive infrastructure so people who want to give their time can have a quality experience.

Having been involved in volunteer management for 2 decades she has significant experience at providing leadership on involving and engaging people and is committed to ensuring others are able to develop these skills.

Co-author of a book on Volunteer Involvement Volunteer Involvement: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, regular public speaker and partner on Vision for Volunteering, Ruth is a credible voice on volunteer management and passionate advocate for those who carry out this important role