Sara Kedge

She . Her . Hers
DEI Design Thinking Strategist and Neurodiversity Coach
Business and Management faculty at Oxford Brookes University

Award category:

Business and Finance

Sara Kedge (she/her) works with corporate leaders to create inclusive, healthy and more productive workplaces that work for everyone.

A published and award winning DEI Design Thinking Strategist, Coach and Trainer, Sara blends curiosity and playfulness with deep cross-functional knowledge. She prides herself on helping teams move out of stressful dysfunction to create human-focused workplace cultures where critical thinking – and people – are encouraged and valued.

Sara carries the collective experience of the neurodivergent community into the solutions she co-creates with her clients. As the founder and curator of How 2 Entrepreneuro, an online community supporting neurodivergent entrepreneurs, Sara is constantly learning and hearing from the people she supports, most of whom have suffered burnout within the corporate or public sectors.

Sara’s clients vary in reach from global to local, across a range of industries including academia and training institutions, public and third sector, technology, bio-medical and international development.

Sara co-creates bespoke solutions for each new client challenge, drawing on years of change management consultancy and her current role as a lecturer for the Business and Management faculty at Oxford Brookes University.

Sara’s commitment to delivering a playful, human-centred approach to transition and culture development, makes her an outstanding – and refreshingly unusual – asset to her clients.

Supported the community to participate in the Buckland Review – Parliamentary Select committee into Autism and Employability, and in the Lilac Review – Disability and entrepreneurship.

You can achieve whatever vision of happiness you have. There is no shortcut to living an awesome life- making consistent and incremental changes, keeping going and surrounding yourself with awesome humans will get you there. One decision at a time.

Q&A

Sara Kedge
Take no shit. Know what your boundaries are. What acceptable looks like to you and hold to that. Life is too short to be unhappy. You can hold firm boundaries with kindness and compassion- inviting people along with you on the journey. However, sometimes this means letting go of people, opportunities and things. On the plus side this creates space for better to come.
In my corporate work I have supported large businesses to develop non-hostile work environments. Helping businesses develop the critical thinking skills to bake inclusion into every corner of the work they do. As a coach I have supported tens of neurodivergent entrepreneurs shape their businesses in a way that works for them and their brains. This means they are able to generate income that helps them live a life of their choosing. In my lobbying and voluntary work I have campaigned for people to understand the needs of the Neurodivergent community. And I am a passionate advocate for helping ND folx to hold experiments in re-structuring their worlds to remove friction- modelling that being ND is not something you have to suffer, but can thrive with.
Launching the Worth Ethic program- supporting ND people to re-define their worth and create a life they don’t want to escape. Launching the How 2 Entrepreneuro in-person networking model- supporting a ND inclusive way of entrepreneurs to create connection, community and support their businesses to thrive. Publish the third and fourth book- How 2 be Neurodivergent- supporting people through their awareness journey and How to be Neuroinclusive for Businesses- supporting corporate environments to develop non-hostile systems, processes and workplaces. I want to support millions of people to live in harmony with their neurodivergence, with access the resources and support to achieve their definition of full potential and aspirations for a happy life.
Long-distance walking, mid-distance running, pole dancing, rock climbing, painting, amateur dramatics,
nature bathing, gardening, being by the sea, looking after my animals- chickens, bees and cats. I love spending time with my most important people which include my best friend Sally, my partner Rachael and my team- Carole, Claire, Pete, and Sara.
People’s ability to use critical thinking- we are systematically removing decision points from life and that is restricting people’s ability to think about the impact and influence the decisions they have on their lives (and the lives of others). It is done in a mission to create ease, but is a massive contributing factor to misery and depression in the modern world.
We need to transition away from a victim and victimising mentality. Creating more visible role models of success (in all ways) so people can see what is possible for them. We need to remove barriers of access to support that levels the playing field for people with disabilities- PIP, Access to work, Blue Badge etc processes are life-changing= if you have the privilege of time, resources, support to get through the processes to get them.

Areas of expertise

Accessibility, Business, Charity, social enterprise, Community, Cross Sector, Disability Advocacy, Equality, Health and wellbeing, Television, radio, podcast

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Image credits: Purple Pom