The Team
We are a small, primarily part-time core team with a steadfast commitment to remaining small in size but with vast ambitions for transformative impact.
Surrounding our core team is a broad network of partners, allies, and collaborators, each playing a crucial role in our collective mission. Together, we are dedicated to enhancing civil society's capacity to navigate endings and transitions.
Iona Lawrence, Co-Founder and Chief Deceleration Officer
Iona spends most of her working week overseeing The Decelerator’s day-to-day operations and works with the team and our wider networks to steward our vision and strategy. Her passion for bringing endings out of the shadows and putting them on the table emerged gradually over a decade working in civil society organisations. Over this time Iona was part of some suboptimal endings, some better ones, and even some pretty good ones. Iona brings with her experience across civil society, from being founding Director of the Jo Cox Foundation, to being a community organiser in the refugee camps in Northern France, to being a trustee of the Rural Coffee Caravan, and many other things in between.
Louise Armstrong, Co-Founder
Louise plays a strategic role in The Decelerator, bringing her expertise from across civil society and philanthropy to our work. She dedicates approximately one day a month to our work. In her current 10 year cycle she’s wanting to make a contribution to reframing the culture and practices around how we view and value loss, grief, death and closures as part of the natural cycles of life and the overlooked part of transformation. Louise plays multiple roles in different parts of the change ecosystem - including Thirty Percy Foundation and School For Systems Change - and sees herself as a change maker, facilitator, systems change designer, coach and process doula.
Michael Pitchford, Hotline Navigator
With a background in community development within Gypsy, Traveller and refugee communities, Michael has worked with community organisations and campaign groups for over 30 years in local and national roles. He spent over a decade working with Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust as the lead for their Rights & Justice work and, most recently, was CEO of a local charity in Kirklees. He is a qualified coach and has worked with civil society & public sector leaders over recent years. He is on the boards of Just Treatment and IVAR.
Hiranya De Alwis Jayasinghe, Hotline Navigator and Finance Director
A rainbow baby, Hiranya holds space for transitions. Throughout her 20+ year career in charity finance - including at ZSL, Citizens Advice and Changing Faces - she has been drawn to ventures in the winter-spring of their life cycle. As a senior leader and trustee, she has witnessed - and contributed to - the good, bad and ugly of endings. Training as an end-of-life doula introduced her to the concept of a “good death,” something that can be translated to the sector in the form of “good endings”. Hiranya draws inspiration from nature, having hiked around the Welsh coastline and released an album, Frangipani & Daisy Chains. She wants to see the sector think more ecologically: valuing the need to compost what no longer serves, and getting comfortable with the space between endings and new beginnings.
Fidelis Neba Chebe, Hotline Navigator
With a background in Peace and Conflict transformation, Fidelis has worked in the international development, refugee, and migration sector for over 20 years in both frontline and senior leadership roles in various organisations in and outside the UK. Fidelis is currently CEO for Migrant Action- a grassroots migration justice organisation. I am also an executive coach and passionate about transformational leadership.
In these times of growing uncertainty, he is passionately curious about how ‘we’ collectively build resilience to navigate change and transform the systemic upheavals and personal challenges we face to re-imagine and envision hopeful futures. It seems to him, we start from a place of our shared humanity by listening deeply with care, love, kindness, and solidarity. Then with courage, purpose and hope, work together with what emerges towards creating something beautiful including endings, transitions, and new beginnings.
Outside work, he loves spending time with his family, enjoy football, walking and participating in various forms of community activism.
Adina Claire, Hotline Navigator
Adina’s background is as a highly experienced civil society leader, which includes Interim Executive Director roles at NEON, War on Want and Women’s Aid.
With a career starting in the global humanitarian sector, broadening to a range of other sectors, she has substantial experience of strategic leadership, values-led anti-oppressive practice, and of nurturing high performing teams. She also sits on several boards, including as Chair, of charities and non profits.
Zoe Greenfield, Oversees The Hotline and Empowering Endings in Scotland
As the Decelerator's Hotline Lead, Zoe keeps the Hotline running smoothly, making sure people get the right support at the right time as well as spotting ways to improve things and sharing our learning and insights. In addition she is the project manager for the Empowering Endings work in Scotland where she supports infrastructure and support staff across the sector to work more confidently and directly with organisational endings. Zoe has spent more than 15 years working in civil society, predominantly with network and membership organisations. She brings experience as a small charity CEO and a trustee. She has a practical approach, grounded in a belief that thoughtful support and strong governance enable people and organisations to navigate complexity with confidence. As a freelance consultant her work spans governance, operational development and fundraising; often working with leadership teams and boards as they navigate uncertainty.
Holly Donaldson, PA
Holly is our highly organised and efficient PA who has over a decade of experience in helping organisations run smoothly. She works for us part time and coordinates our meetings, provides administrative support and ensures smooth running of day-to-day operations.
The Council of Elders
The Council of Elders is a group of experienced advisors who are committed to supporting the impact of The Decelerator by providing strategic guidance, oversight, constructive challenge, and support both on a one-to-one and group basis.
John Hitchin
John Hitchin is a strategist, facilitator and researcher who has worked across the social sector for over fifteen years. He was previously CEO of Renaisi and developed influential thinking on place-based and systems change there. In a new partnership, Stories of Change, he supports organisations on questions of impact, collaboration and efficacy and how social change is understood and achieved. He is a single parent and poet.
Poppy Mardall
Poppy Mardall founded Poppy’s Funerals in 2012 to bring a fresh approach to an outdated and unregulated trade. Poppy has helped thousands of people to create a funeral that works for them and, in 2021, appointed a CEO to lead ambitious growth plans to normalise great care when someone dies. As Founder/Chair, Poppy guides the direction of Poppy’s and also has time for life, parenting and important projects like this one.
Linda Craig
Between 2024-2026, Linda was part of The Decelerator Hotline team fielding and providing calls to members of civil society considering organisational endings. Now as one of our esteemed Elders, she brings her immense experience as a long-term and interim manager in the voluntary sector, having covered senior positions in a variety of organisations such as Vauxhall City Farm, Suzy Lamplugh Trust, Doteveryone, the International Longevity Centre and Switchback. Her permanent roles have included Co-Director at Drugscope, General Secretary of Quaker Peace and Social Witness and Director of Pesticide Action Network. Linda is a Quaker and works in a range of ways to support the evolution and transformation of meetings across the UK.
…not to mention countless others!
The Decelerator stands on the shoulders of many visionary leaders, committed activists, and generous collaborators.
With extra special thanks to…
Linda Craig who was our very first member of The Decelerator Team and whose contributions spanned operations to holding 100 Hotline calls as a Navigator between 2023-2026. We’re very glad she remains involved to this day as a member of our Council of Elders.
Sabrina Jones who brought her creativity and flair to the Council Of Elders in 2025-2026.
Max St John who brought his care and energy to this work as the team’s Supervisor for 2 years from 2024-2026
Dame Julia Unwin DBE for her leadership via the Council of Elders in 2024-2025 before stepping down to take up the role of Chair for the Charity Commission for England and Wales in late 2025.
Sieske Valk who brought her wisdom in endings in veterinary care to help progress our work in 2025-2026.
Josephine Knowles, our first Hotline Navigator, who led the design of the Hotline with care and creativity in 2024–2025.
Lily Piachaud, who helped lay the foundations of our finance and operations systems in 2024, before joining our Council of Elders in 2024-2025.
Cassie Robinson, founder of Stewarding Loss, whose powerful insight — that closures deserve far more attention and care than they typically receive — sparked the idea for The Decelerator. Her work was supported by an Ideas and Pioneers Grant from Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 2019, which enabled us to begin exploring this space.