Our Team
Jael Williams
is Development Director at JEM Associates. She is a specialist in creative participation, impact and change with over 20 years’ experience leading innovative programmes, partnerships and strategies. She is passionate about the value of art and culture in driving change and is inspired by people who are willing to take a risk, or question ‘the usual way of doing things’, quite often a role played by her own children. Jael has worked with a range of clients from, Cairngorms National Park Authority, to Arts Council England, to Eureka! and a variety of museums, libraries and archives. She is a keen walker, maker and natural environment enthusiast and is currently renovating her house in the beautiful hills of Holmfirth.
jaelwilliams@jemassociates.org
07981121540
Emily Wilson
is Programme Director at JEM Associates. She is an experienced project manager and communicator, and is really good at translating complex ideas into understandable language. She has 15 years’ experience working with communities in the cultural sector and an MA in cultural management. Her clients include Moving Memory, Cairngorms National Park and Power to Change. Emily is passionate about making a difference to the Climate Crisis and is currently working to develop JEM Assocaite’s offering in this space. Alongside all this, she is training for her first marathon!
emilywilson@jemassociates.org
07834529753
Mandy Barnett
is Company Consultant at JEM Associates. She is an accredited Social Return On Investment analyst and social impact consultant with an MB from London Business School. Mandy worked in the arts and museums sector, before specialising in partnership working and organisational success. She is now at the forefront of evaluation of social impact and wellbeing. She sits on the SROI UK Council and has provided practical guidance to Government, the Arts Council and the former MLA. Mandy is Smartsheet obsessed and is endlessly honing JEM Assocaite’s systems to help make ours and our clients lives easier. When she’s not doing all of the above, she returns to her creative roots, designing and altering clothes and upcycling furniture.
Our Associates
Grace Iredale
Grace is JEM’s Core Operations and Evaluation Support Associate. She ensures everything runs smoothly behind the scenes across all projects and contributes to evaluation through data analysis, area profiling, facilitation and research. She brings strong digital skills and is currently training in Power BI and the Social Value UK’s practitioner programme.
With a background in video production, she has worked with organisations including Leeds Playhouse, Opera North and Dementia Action Alliance, often with community engagement teams to document participation and impact.
Grace is also passionate about embedding an inclusive, neurodiversity-aware practice across our work.
graceiredale@jemassociates.org
07498622289
Charlotte Eade
Charlotte is an evaluator and accredited Social Return on Investment (SROI) practitioner, working alongside organisations to develop and deliver robust evaluation programmes. She is an accredited coach, trainer and facilitator specialising in workforce and personal development and working with all levels of seniority and abilities. Charlotte has designed and delivered development programmes across a range of sectors and supported cultural organisations with developing a delivery framework for young people. She has partnered with JEM to develop Culture Cubed and her clients include Transported, Ideas Test and Medway. Charlotte champions neurodiversity and has a keen interest in positive psychology and wellbeing.
Jess Harvey
Ruth Melville
Ruth has over 20 years of experience in research design and analysis within the cultural, regeneration, environmental and social inclusion sectors. She has expertise in strategy and evaluation development, having designed major cultural programme evaluations with a focus on embedding approaches that lead to internal and external change, and Cultural Strategies which put the public and creatives at the heart of the process. She also works with a variety of organisations from small creative industries to large cultural organisations to support change management to new financial and business environments. Her strengths include her strong commitment to ensuring evaluation systems fit the user and her cross-sector analysis expertise, being able to bring together economic, tourism, social and cultural impacts.
Viv Niblett
Viv has worked for over 12 years in research and evaluation in UK public policy, both as a senior researcher in a busy consultancy, and leading evaluation and research in-house in the charitable and public sectors. She worked for five years in the research team at Arts Council England who led a programme of commissioned and funded studies to deepen understanding of the role of arts and culture in health outcomes and how they can be delivered. Viv is building the quality of our project research and has recently written about the importance of qualitative research for one of our clients.
Lizzie Trotter
Jenny Willis
Jenny has extensive experience working in research, participation and stakeholder engagement and has a degree in Politics and Education and a Masters in Development Studies. Her early work focused on international development where she was instrumental in the development of BOND from its early years to its establishment as a nationally important network for international development NGOs. Jenny enjoys the challenge of working with people with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints, and gets satisfaction from identifying and achieving shared outcomes in a good humoured and practical way. She has worked with JEM on workforce, SROI and rural engagement issues. Jenny’s family also run a small upland farm which keeps her busy in any ‘spare’ time!