Our Team

Yvonne is a seasoned and multi award-winning social entrepreneur who specialises in developing creative, research-led programmes to improve healthcare and transform lives. Most recently (2021/2022) Yvonne won the Women in Social Enterprise Award 2021 and recognised on the WISE100 UK’s top 100 most inspiring and influential women in social enterprise, impact investment and mission-driven business! Yvonne has been working in the arts and health sector for thirteen years and during that time has been responsible for leading teams to design and deliver ground-breaking work across the UK and abroad.

Yvonne has gained international recognition for her work in the sector and frequently delivers keynote speeches at health, arts and social enterprise conferences and events globally. She has co-authored papers published in peer-reviewed medical journals and has delivered a Tedx Talk about her work at Breathe. Under Yvonne’s leadership, Breathe has won multiple national awards and gained recognition as a service provider to our National Health Service. Prior to working in the arts and health sector, Yvonne held multiple creative roles at the BBC and ITV.

Lydia has over 10 years’ experience in fundraising and development for the arts and health sectors, whilst at Cardboard Citizens, The Big House and The Anna Freud Centre, amongst others. She is passionate about supporting organisations to survive and thrive financially and boosting organisational resilience.

Lydia holds a BA in Arts Management from London South Bank University and participated in Clore Leadership’s Emerging Leaders programme.  Lydia also sits on the Board of Trustees for interactive theatre maker, Coney.

Hannah has worked in the creative industries since 2008, bridging into the arts and health sector in 2017. During this time, Hannah has designed, developed and delivered large scale impactful programmes, locally, nationally and internationally, with schools, universities, NHS Trusts and a wide variety of community groups. Whilst using the arts and creativity to improve health and wellbeing, Hannah ensures a commitment to artist quality, participant safety and inclusion remains of paramount importance.

Hannah has produced work for English National Ballet, King’s College London and Candoco Dane Company, as well as developing inclusive dance projects with The British Council in Vietnam, Senegal, Armenia and Nigeria.

Hannah is on the Board of Trustees for South Asian dance company, Akademi and holds an MA in Creative and Cultural Management from Chester University and a BA in Dance, Drama & Theatre Studies from Liverpool University.

As Head of Scalability, Lorna works on creating sustainable programmes at scale in a strategic way to benefit more individuals and communities on a local, national and international level. She has designed and delivered training packages for the World Health Organisation and continues to manage all of the different strands of our Breathe Melodies for Mums programme, including our research partnership with King’s College London.

Lorna has over 10 years’ of project and event management experience in the music and charity sector, most recently in public engagement for the international charity ActionAid UK and before that as General Manager of the Music Publishers Association. She brings significant experience in project and event management to Breathe, as well as a strong sense of fun and passion for the power of arts in health. Lorna has a BSc in Natural Sciences from the University of Bath and is Breathe’s Mental Health Champion.

Georgia has worked in arts communications since 2015. She loves to inspire people to take part in creative activities to improve their health and wellbeing. She is also a professional Dance Artist.

After graduating from Trinity Laban, Georgia joined Verve Dance Performance Company, touring globally. Following this, Georgia worked with Dance Umbrella, influencing the digital strategies and channels, and fuelling her passion in promoting the arts to wider communities. 

Georgia has extensive experience in performance and engagement work, and teaches across a range of community, health and educational settings, including English National Ballet. Recent work includes Danielle Teale Dance, Dancing with Parkinson’s Programme and the Royal Opera House MS Society residency. 

Georgia joined Breathe in 2019 and leads on digital, marketing and communications across the organisation. 

Alex joined Breathe in 2023 in the role of Development Manager. Alex started his professional career as a musician and aspiring pop star and songwriter.

He took a 2 week freelance job at the Financial Times within its editorial conference business, which evolved into a 5 year tenure where he became the Global Head of FT Bespoke Events. Following this, he relocated to New York City to work for Bloomberg and co-launch their in-house editorial events division. Alex continued his career in prominent media organisations including Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, until the onset of the pandemic when he decided to change career direction.

Following 2 years of training, Alex became a certified professional Personal Performance Coach, and enjoys helping people navigate their career strategy and work/life balance, alongside his role as Development Manager for Breathe.

Lilli has over 7 years’ experience in marketing and events, the last 3 years specifically in the Health and Social Care Sector. Lilli is passionate about raising awareness and supporting people to achieve positive outcomes through various projects.

Lilli has always had a keen interest in the entertainment sector, from quizmaster to hospitality events manager during the Rio Olympics and Carnival. Lilli worked with a prestigious Samba School in Rio, she organised Carnival Workshops and Team Building events which included costume design, Samba & music workshops and a Carnival parade.

After moving back from Brazil, Lilli started working in the Health and Social Care Sector, as the marketing and events manager for a learning disability provider. She arranged events across the UK, for the people she supported to encourage them to achieve amazing outcomes, such as learning to sing, dance, play an instrument, play sport, get a job etc. Lilli also organised an event at the House of Commons to launch a new positive behaviour support initiative.

Lilli joined Breathe in 2021 to support on digital, marketing and comms for the Breathe Melodies for Mums programme.

Jo has over 18 years of experience working in theatre access and education, designing and managing programmes for young people facing barriers to arts engagement. In her previous role for Mousetrap Theatre Projects she launched relaxed performances in West End theatres, created and delivered theatre access schemes for young people with sensory impairments, and developed many participatory drama projects for young people with disabilities.

Beyond Breathe, Jo is happiest walking her dog with a podcast in her ears, singing with her choir or sat in a theatre.

Drew has worked within the arts sector since 2014, and most notably has worked for two national touring dance organisations, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and English National Ballet.

Drew has a passion for creating high quality and inspirational arts experiences for children, young people and the wider community and has produced large-scale participatory projects and programmes across the education and health sectors.

Drew is on the Board of Trustees for Corali, a leader in dance created by artists with a learning disability, and holds a BA in Dance Studies from the University of Roehampton. Drew joined Breathe in 2021, working across all the different programmes under the Breathe Magic umbrella.

Tim combines nearly 3 decades of experience in the health and disability world with his lifelong interest in the arts. Before joining Breathe, he worked extensively for organisations supporting people with long-term conditions, life-limiting illnesses and physical and emotional difficulties – both in the NHS and the charity sector.

Beyond the day job, he has a particular passion for puppetry as an art form, writes creatively, loves samba and makes stop-motion animation clips.

Tim has been with Breathe since the beginning and has worked across all of the company’s programmes.

Becky joined Breathe in 2023 following a year-long Social Innovation Fellowship where she gained first-hand experience of social prescribing in a primary care setting, and innovative approaches to co-design with NHS staff.

Becky holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology and has worked on multiple projects bringing creativity into community and healthcare settings. She is proud to continue this work through Breathe’s Performing Arts Programme in Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals.

Vinitaraj (Vinny) joined Breathe in 2024 as Communications Assistant to support on digital, marketing and communications across the organisation.

Vinny graduated with a First Class BA in English and Theatre, University of Warwick in 2021. After graduating, Vinny, went onto assistant producing for touring theatre productions and creative arts festivals. In 2022, Vinny, was selected and announced as one of the new BBC Asian Network Represents Presenters where she presented her own shows which aired on national radio.

As well as her love for radio presenting, Vinny also hosts live events and is an actor and performer who is currently a member of the Belgrade Theatre’s Ensemble and Birmingham Rep’s Critics Circle. Vinny is also the producer and presenter of The 184 Podcast where she discusses all things creative from books, theatre, film and more.

Han has been working in the arts sector for over 10 years, managing multiple departments at independent theatres, theatre companies and arts organisations. Her passion is administration, efficiency and being adaptable to the daily needs of busy, thriving organisations.

Throughout her career, Han has seen first hand the full power that the arts provide for under-represented groups and feels strongly about the importance of amplifying lost or marginalised voices. Han has also worked in SEN support roles for schools and drama skills workshops.

Han joined Breathe in 2021 to provide administrative support to the busy teams and wide range of programmes. In 2023, Han obtained a CIPD qualification in People Practice to further support the Senior Management Team with HR administration.

Claire brings multiple years of experience within the arts sector to her work at Breathe, as a performer, teacher and published researcher. After completing her BA in Music Performance, Claire pursued her keen interest in health and wellbeing within the arts through an MSc in Performance Science and an MSc in Psychology at the University of East London. This developed her ever-growing passion for combining the arts, health and empirical research.

Outside Breathe, Claire can be found teaching crafty workshops and scouring beaches for sea glass.

Alongside filming and editing his own personal work, Dieter is also a Senior Teaching Fellow on the MA in Ethnographic and Documentary film at UCL and the co-founder of Yarrow films, a social enterprise that specialises in collaborative filmmaking as a tool to tackle stigma.

Their aim is to empower groups facing complex social, economic and educational challenges through their inclusive documentary production process. Their collaborative projects combine skills learning with a therapeutic approach that focuses on the empowerment of participants.

His films have been shown across the world and won several awards. One of the most recent collaborative films he created alongside a group of LGBTIQ+ refugees living in Brazil, premiered at the BFI Flare film festival in 2020 and has since screened at multiple festivals.

Marjan has a First Class Honours Degree in Business and Economics. For many years she has worked in the City as a sales trader, and since 2015 she is also Head of Accounts at Air-Edel, a music management company.

Marjan has worked for Breathe since 2013 looking after its accounts.

Becca joined the Breathe Magic team as a Magic Trainer in 2015 and continued to volunteer until she joined the team as one of the Clinical Leads in 2021.

Becca has experience across a range of settings including specialist and mainstream schools, private clinics, charities, acute and community paediatrics; assessing and working with children with varied strengths, needs, and diagnoses. Becca now works for the Evelina Children’s Hospital in the REACH team (specialising in the upper limbs). She is the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Lead for the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) Specialist Section – Children, Young People, and Families, and hosts regular courses for Occupational Therapists on diverse topics. Becca’s specialist interests are early intervention and neurological upper limb differences. She is passionate about holistic and evidence based approaches, supporting young people and their families to be able to do what matters to them.

Rebecca has over 16 years of paediatric experience as an Occupational Therapist. Rebecca assesses and treats children with a wide range of clinical diagnoses and functional difficulties. She has worked across a range of acute, community and education settings as an advanced clinician and clinical lead across NHS, charitable, not-for-profit, and private sectors. Rebecca has been actively involved with Breathe Arts Health Research since 2016.

Rebecca has a wealth of experience working with children and young people with neuro-developmental conditions, neurological and congenital upper limb injuries and individuals who have sustained congenital or acquired brain injuries.

Rebecca’s clinical specialisms and specialist interests lie in upper limb splinting and delivering intensive therapy and early developmental programmes which bring together; evidence-based practice, family and child-centred care and arts in health interventions to meet the holistic and psychosocial needs of the young people and their families. Rebecca is passionate about sharing clinical practice and knowledge with other professionals and has spoken and lectured at multiple UK courses and conferences.