MEET THE TEAM
75% of our core team have lived experience of living with one or more long-term conditions or caring for a loved one.
We bring this experience to all we do. You can read more about us below.
OPERATIONS
Gabriela Matouskova - Chief Executive Officer
Gabriela leads on business development and growth. She loves all things crossing arts, health, creativity, community and research.
Gabriela has over 25 years business support experience across Europe. She leads on delivering our growth strategy in Coventry and beyond. Working with us aligns with Gabriela’s personal and professional principles, in particular her interest in social enterprise spin-outs from academic research for economic and sustainable societal impact. She also leads our Hope Culture programme. Gabriela cared for her mum, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2013. Her personal experience of caring and loss fed into development of content for our Hope Programme for Carers.
In 2022, Gabriela was named amongst the Natwest WISE 100 Women in Social Enterprise and awarded a Highly Commended award at Start of the Future category, for a CEO or leader showing star qualities relatively new in their social enterprise career, with three or fewer years of leadership experience.
Dr Anna Lynall - Head of Partnerships and Projects
Anna leads on Hope projects delivery and managed key partnerships. She is a proud Brummie and enjoys music, documentaries and spending time with her family and friends.
Anna brings with her an extensive experience of managing, monitoring, and evaluating projects and conducting research at national, regional and a local level. She has worked extensively across the NHS and charity sector and is trained to facilitate workshops with multiple stakeholders. Anna also works part time in the research team at Victim Support working with victims affected by crime and brings with her a wealth of knowledge around working with vulnerable people. Her PhD completed at Coventry University focussed on development of an online self management intervention to support men with cancer.
Dr Bethan Alper - Quality Assurance Lead
Bethan leads on training, assessments of our online facilitators and manages quality assurance for the Hope Programme. She loves music, dancing and fancy dress.
Bethan completed her PhD at Coventry University and worked in the healthcare sector for number of years until 2018 when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. In March 2020, Bethan completed our online Hope Programme. She has since trained as a Hope Facilitator and used her expertise to develop quality assurance processes for our online delivery in line with QISMET accreditation.
Jen Scoble - Course Co-Ordinator
Jen loves cats, cooking delicious vegan food and going to see live music.
Jen joined us from a busy customer facing role at a worldwide organisation. She now co-ordinates and administers all of our Hope Programme courses across the UK. Jen brings with her and plans to expand her passion for promoting health and wellbeing in the workplace by training as an accredited Hope Programme facilitator.
Board of Directors
Prof Andy Turner - Non-Executive Director - Research
Andy is passionate about research that makes a meaningful difference to people’s lives. He is a keen tennis player and loves hats and beards.
Andy Turner is the Founding Member of our social enterprise and Professor of Health Psychology at Coventry University. Andy is also the co-inventor of the Hope Programme. Andy has developed, delivered and researched health behaviour coaching and self-management programmes for over 25 years and has written over 70 academic peer reviewed journal articles, papers and book chapters. He lives with grade 4 arthritis in both of his knees and has learnt to manage his pain through playing tennis.
Gabriela Matouskova - Executive Director
Gabriela is the Chief Executive Officer of Hope For The Community CIC.
In 2022, Gabriela was named amongst the Natwest WISE 100 Women in Social Enterprise and awarded a Highly Commended award at Start of the Future category, for a CEO or leader showing star qualities relatively new in their social enterprise career, with three or fewer years of leadership experience.
Matt Shield - Non-Executive Director - Legal
Matt comes from a legal background and provides pragmatic, commercial and legal support to Hope. He is an avid fan of cricket, gardening and travelling and a keen interest in American politics.
Matt has almost 20 years experience working in the legal sector, and qualified as a solicitor in 2007. He specialises in commercial law and has considerable experience of supporting business development from his time working as an in-house lawyer. Matt joined our board in April 2021 and is enthusiastic about supporting Hope as it works towards providing support to an even wider audience.
experts and AdviSors
Dr Tim Robinson - Hope Programme Clinical Advisor
Dr Tim Robinson has 30 years of experience in General Practice with a specialist interest in Long COVID. Dr Tim Robinson is Hope For The Community’s named Clinical Safety Officer.
Dr Tim Robinson is Hope Programme Clinical Advisor at Hope For The Community with responsibilities that include advising on the safety and efficacy of our programmes and digital products and services, focusing on the wellbeing of people living with long-term conditions and their carers. His current appointments include NHS England Long Covid GP Clinical Lead South West Region, NHS Dorset Post Covid Service - GP Lead, NHS Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire Long Covid Service - GP Lead, NHS Torbay South Devon Long Covid Service - Clinical Lead.
Matthew Jones - Tech Development Lead
Matt is a web developer and database architect with over 21 years of experience. He leads the work on the Hope digital wellbeing platform.
Matt’s detailed technical portfolio includes: Mobile first web design specialising in HTML5, CSS and Bootstrap 3/4. Programming languages include VB, ASP.Net architecture (VB.Net and C#). Forms and MVC, Java, PHP, SQL and T-SQL Scripting languages include JavaScript, JQuery, VBScript, XML/XSL, Json. Database background SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL (and MariaDB) and MS-Access . Web Service Technology (WCF and REST). Other skills include MS Server Administration and Cisco Core Networking (CCNA Program).
Dr Liz Sparkes - Mindfulness Practitioner
Liz delivers live mindfulness practice session on our Hope Programme courses. She moved from academia to run her business Dr Liz Sparkes spiritual coaching.
Liz is a HCPC registered practitioner Health Psychologist with a PhD in Pain psychology. Liz developed a Masters course at Coventry University in Mindfulness and Compassion. She is Health Psychologist, Accredited Spiritual Coach, Meditation & Reiki practitioner. Trainer & Coach for Heart-based living. She runs workshops supporting people who are in pain both emotionally and physically.
Mascot
Harry the Dog
Harry is our mascot and one fearless Jack Russell terrier.
Our dog Harry is a lovely Jack Russell terrier. He embodies the spirit and values of our organisation by being a breed of dog which is tenacious, energetic and enthusiastic. Jack Russell Terriers are the biggest dogs you'll ever meet in such a tiny package. They can run all day and keep coming back for more. They are sharply intelligent and absolutely nothing gets past them. There is no fooling Harry.