Dame Julia Cleverdon, DCVO, CBE, is a passionate and practical campaigner who has gained an international reputation for “connecting the unconnected”, inspiring individuals and organisations to work together for the common good. During her extensive career, she has consistently championed long term cross sector collaboration in the poorest communities, supporting community leaders, headteachers, encouraging young people’s engagement and building local capacity and a more robust civil society which values diversity, sustainability and contextual local solutions.
Dame Julia has chaired Teach First, the National Literacy Trust and Place Matters – all charities working to tackle inequality in those communities who experience the greatest poverty, disadvantage and discrimination. She chairs the National Statistician’s Committee on Inclusive Data. She is Co-founder of the #iwill movement supporting young people into social action through volunteering, campaigning and advocacy. She has served as Board Trustee for the Fair Education Alliance, The Careers and Enterprise Company, the Youth Futures Foundation, Teach for All and as Patron of Right to Succeed.
She began her career with The Industrial Society and served as Chief Executive of Business in the Community for seventeen years before working for the then Prince of Wales as his Special Adviser to the Prince’s Charities.
Business in the Communty’s place programme
Business in the Community’s (BITC) Place Programme is about bringing everyone together in a place to act collaboratively. To act on long-term goals, based on a common agreement of the challenges, opportunities and solutions and drawing on the strengths of everyone in that community, whether they are a business, a community organisation or from the public sector.
Our mission
To facilitate meaningful connections between businesses, communities, and local councils to reset economic ambitions and collaborate on new, innovative solutions that will deliver long-term, transformative impact.