Who we are
The Bikeability Trust aims to get more people cycling, more safely, more often.
Executive team
Emily Cherry – Chief Executive
Emily has spent over 25 years in the children’s sector, largely at the NSPCC, but also at the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s. She has experience of running safeguarding services, policy, comms and is a well-known media voice on children, especially in the field of online safety. Emily has worked in practice in Young Offenders Institute, New Traveller sites and with children in care. She is also strategic advisor to the United Nations Peace One Day campaign, Trustee of My Black Dog (peer–to–peer mental health charity) and Chair of the Breck Foundation (online safety education). Emily lives in Cambridge with her primary teacher husband and two children.
Fun fact: Emily is a keen scuba-diver and especially enjoys diving with sharks.
Benjamin Smith – Director of Development
Benjamin has the pleasure of leading the brilliant development team, working on lots of the new projects as well as reviewing existing products to ensure they are the best they can be. Whether it’s new research, instructor training or alternative ways to develop or improve the reach and quality of national standard cycle training, it all comes through the development team.
Fun fact: Benjamin’s likeness can be found on the Battle of Britain monument on the Victoria Embankment, a sculpture he modelled for and helped (a little bit) artist friend Paul Day to create.
Sue Brown – Director of Finance and Compliance
Sue looks after the finances and compliance of the Trust ensuring that all the boxes are ticked. She joined the Trust in July 2021 and has worked in the charity sector since 2010. She works with the grants team to ensure that all funds are spent efficiently and effectively to maximise the number of places available for cycle training.
Fun fact: Sue loves animals and is often found knee deep in mud whilst tending to various livestock.
Kieron McNab – Director of Training and Quality
Kieron first entered the Bikeability world as an Assistant Instructor in 2008. Since then he has progressed to becoming a Tutor, Internal Quality Assurance lead and has managed two Training Providers.
Kieron will help to quality assure the qualifications delivered through The Trust’s RDC as well as working closely with colleagues to help monitor and raise Bikeability delivery standards.
Fun fact: Aside from cycling, Kieron is a keen runner, regularly running half marathons. His favourite race was the Loch Ness Marathon.
Partnerships team
Aaron Tillyer – Partnerships Manager
Aaron is our Corporate Partnerships Manager and looks after all of the Trust’s incredible corporate partners, whilst also building new partnerships that align to the Trust’s mission and values. Aaron, who joined the Trust in November 2023, has over 13 years’ experience working in the charity sector and in that time has helped charities build partnerships with the likes of McDonalds, Proludic and Lincolnshire Co-op. Within his role, Aaron works closely with the Development and Promotion & Communications teams.
Fun fact: An avid sports fan and rugby player in his youth, Aaron once played rugby alongside Bristol Rugby, Newcastle Falcons and England international Garath Archer.
Training and Quality team
Head of Bikeability Quality – Mike Holwill
Mike first trained as a Bikeability instructor back in 2011. He has many years of experience delivering all aspects of the Bikeability programme. Mike joined the Trust in 2020 and is now excited to be leading on Quality, maintaining and improving the high standards seen across the industry and ensuring that quality is right at the heart of Bikeability
Fun fact: Mike loves all things cycling, riding and racing across a few different disciplines. He has recently found his way into the world of multisport, so can now also be found regularly donning a wetsuit for open water swims!
Amy Norton – Get Cycling in Schools Manager
Amy is responsible for leading the delivery of the Get Cycling in Schools programme. From managing relationships with schools, organising course bookings, to working with suppliers and reporting. With her experience as a teacher and as a Scout leader, she feels passionately about children (and adults!) gaining valuable life skills, of which she believes cycling ranks very highly.
Fun fact: Amy enjoys spending time outdoors, always eager to discover new spots to explore, whether she’s walking or cycling.
Laura Lansley – Get Cycling in Schools Administrator
Sarah Dewfield – Quality Officer
Sarah is the first point of contact for the Trust responding to general enquiries via email and telephone. A member of the operations team, Sarah supports the Quality programme setting up External Quality Assurance visits with training providers and supports the wider Trust team with all things admin.
Fun fact: To get over her fear of dogs, Sarah agreed to adopt a dog and ended up with a Doberman!
Karina Avey-Poynter – Administration Officer
Alison Boyle – Training Coordinator
Alison is our Centre Administrator responsible for all administrative duties within Bikeability Trust Recognised Delivery Centre (RDC). As key contact for the Satellite RDCs Alison’s role is instrumental in ensuring centre compliance with 1st4Sport (the awarding body) and smooth delivery of the Bikeability offer.
Alison is based in the Peak District and works closely with Kieron, Cate and Clive.
Fun fact: Alison once completed the Kinder Barrel Race.
Cate Read – IQA Tutor Assessor
Cate comes from a background in education and training, and has considerable experience delivering to a wide variety of learners across a range of different training environments.
She loves to share her passion for cycling and has been working in the Bikeability industry since 2016 as instructor, tutor and IQA lead.
Fun fact: Cate is a keen open water swimmer and enjoys marathon swim challenges and ice swimming.
Clive Eve – IQA Tutor Assessor
Clive is a first Tutor Assessor with both enthusiasm and a passion for developing cycle skills within the industry.
Clive is a lifelong cyclist with extensive experience of Bikeability delivery and is looking forward to supporting of Head of Centre and workforce at a local level.
Fun fact: Clive competed in the first ever Dragon Duathlon in a time of 22 hours 47 minutes and 58 seconds and he came last!
Diini Muse – IT Project Officer
Diini is our Project Officer, working on projects to streamline the Bikeability services. Diini joined the trust because he believes in the positive impact of bikeability and how it improves mental and physical health as well as encouraging people to be aware of their carbon footprint.
Fun fact: Diini enjoys cooking, trying out new recipes and experimenting with all types of food to create something new.
Shannon Hastings-Payne – Helpdesk Administrator
Development team
Patrick Jarman – Senior Development Officer
Having enjoyed many years as a Bikeability instructor and lifelong utility cyclist, Pat brings valuable experience, challenge and insight to the Trust’s development team. He works closely with colleagues and the wider Bikeability industry to develop and improve the cycle training programme. He is also involved in active travel campaigning in Kent.
Fun fact: As an avid admirer of gulls and buoys, Pat’s free time is spent adrift with his kayak in the big blue. Find him catching waves between the coast of Kent and Rotterdam.
Strategy team
Jessica Nelson – Head of Promotions and Communications
Jessica has six years experience in leading marketing and communications in the leisure, tourism and charitable sectors. She is passionate about using communication to inspire behaviour change and encourage active lifestyles. Her work at the Bikeability Trust focuses on inspiring every child, and their families, to cycle with confidence.
Fun fact: Jess visited 12 countries in 12 months, as part of a personal challenge shared on her travel blog.
Adam Freeburn – Senior Social Media Officer
Adam handles all things social media for the Bikeability Trust. He creates engaging content for the Bikeability channels, and promotes Bikeability through exciting campaigns. He is responsible for keeping the Trust up to date on trends, and sharing stories from the Bikeability family across the country.
Fun fact: Adam is an animal lover, and in a previous job was a dog walker. He could be frequently seen in the park with a pack of cavapoos.
Sally Watson-Jones – Communications Officer
Sally is responsible for keeping the communications from the Trust interesting and engaging, with a focus on industry facing comms. She writes news stories and updates for the website and puts together newsletters and email campaigns. She also makes sure the website is kept up to date.
Fun fact: Sally is a keen gardener and also works at a community garden, running therapeutic horticulture sessions and taking advantage of the continuous supply of tea and biscuits.
Kat Kynes – Communications Assistant
Kat is a communications all-rounder. She assists the wider communications team with the production of content for the website, blog and newsletter, and makes sure the website content is up to date. She also handles general administration and is always happy to help.
Fun fact: Kat is a mushroom hunter, plays a sport called roller derby and lives on a narrowboat.
Rosa Shirm – Research and Insights Analyst
Working closely with her strategy team colleagues, Rosa supports the Trust’s activities through research, data collection and project evaluation. She passionately believes in the power of cycling to combat many of society’s key challenges and works to evidence the value that cycle training brings to this table.
Fun fact: Rosa has fully immersed herself in the world of cycling having chosen to live in (arguably) the world’s number one cycling city: Utrecht. In her free time, you can find her speaking double Dutch with friends whilst traversing the city’s infinite cycle lanes.
Dan Bishop – Research Director
Dan is an applied psychology researcher at Brunel University who has published widely on attention, perception, and cognition. He is also a practitioner psychologist who has helped hundreds of national- and international-level athletes to achieve their ambitions.
As our Director of Research, Dan is responsible for ensuring we add to the growing body of evidence which shows the effectiveness of the Bikeability programme and how the training increases parents’ and carers’ confidence in their child’s cycling ability. Specifically, he will help us to demonstrate how Bikeability training supports riders to cycle in accordance with the National Standard for Cycle Training, how it develops their confidence to cycle independently on roads, and how it increases their cycling propensity.
Fun fact: Dan ran the 2006 London Marathon in 2 hours 44 minutes and 33 seconds – and then won a trail marathon 11 years later at the age of 42!
Finance & Compliance team
Alison Orrell – Head of Grants
Alison is responsible for the allocation and distribution of funding from Active Travel England (ATE) and the Trust’s own Innovation Fund to grant holders in England. She makes sure that funding is paid to them for delivery of Bikeability training and checks, analyses and reports on how, and where, the funding is spent. She believes that young people should have the opportunity to learn the skills to enable them to become confident cyclists.
Fun fact: Alison can often be found running with her local running and triathlon club where she coaches children and encourages them to get fit, take part in races and have fun.
Joanne Metcalfe – Grants Officer
Joanne is responsible for ensuring that all things grants related run smoothly. From grant allocations, instructor bursaries to payment of claims, Joanne works closely with the grant recipients to help and support them. Joanne is also heavily involved with the Link system, ensuring it is operating as it should and working towards improvements.
Fun fact: Joanne is pet crazy with two cats and a crazy cockerpoo called Floki. Floki often makes an appearance on Teams calls and can be heard grumbling in the background of phone calls.
Annie Malone – Finance Officer
Splitting her time between the grants and finance teams, Annie looks after purchase ledger and the preparation of grants payments while working across the Trust to provide accurate management reporting. Annie has over 30 years’ experience within finance and has run her own successful business during that time. Having seen the benefits of her own children learning the life skill of cycling through training at school, Annie was delighted when a role became available with Bikeability. Being part of a charity that inspires and motivates everyone to get cycling, gives her great job satisfaction.
Fun fact: Annie loves being outdoors in whatever from that takes, hiking, cycling, paddleboarding and canicrossing are all sports that she participates in.