Volunteering in 2025 and Beyond - Speakers

Emily Hughes has worked in the voluntary sector since 2005, with a particular focus on empowering volunteers to contribute to the sector.

She held strategic volunteer management roles at the National Autistic Society and Parkinson’s UK.

She is passionate about what organisations of all sizes contribute to the sector and spent 2010 volunteering in Zambia with VSO, supporting a community organisation to work effectively with volunteers.

She is also a trustee of AVERT, a small international HIV/AIDS charity based in Brighton. Since 2016 Emily has been Head of Volunteer Experience at Girlguiding, leading a department that takes a partnership approach to supporting 75,000 volunteers to deliver great experiences to girls across the UK. She has a Masters in Voluntary Sector Management from Cass Business School (now Bayes).

Rob Jackson is Director of Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd, a consultancy and training company that helps engage and inspire people to bring about change.

Rob has almost 30 years experience working in the voluntary and community sector, holding a variety of strategic development and senior management roles that have
focused on leading and engaging volunteers.

Rob has run his company since 2011 working with a wide range of clients in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the USA and Canada.

Rob is co-author of The Complete Volunteer Management Handbook (DSC, 2012 and 2019) and From The Top Down - UK Edition (Energize Inc., 2015)