Richard is our Programme Lead at Academy.

He’s nurtured early-career software engineers at startups like Starling Bank and Improbable; he’s taught and mentored in communities underrepresented in tech through Black Valley and Coding Black Females, and he’s built courses for Code Your Future and Coders of Colour.

Outside of Academy, Richard is an Advisory Board member at eWorker, a Fellow at Included VC, and an open-source developer (e.g. Riduce). He originally trained as a maths teacher with Teach First.

“Academy was a unique opportunity for me to combine purpose with scale, working on a mission with deep personal resonance.

Increasing opportunity in tech for non-traditional tech backgrounds has always run through my work with organisations like Code Your Future, Coders of Colour and Coding Black Females. It’s a privilege to be at Academy with the remit of tackling this problem at scale, collaborating with other aligned people and organisations to do this.

It’s personal, too — I fluked my way into tech through a chance opportunity at a startup, and have found it to be such an empowering world. I’m determined to pass on that agency to as many others as I can, and Academy is the perfect place for me to do this.”