Meet Ruth

I grew up near Bristol, went to the excellent Backwell comprehensive school and from there to Cambridge University. I worked for 12 years in financial services marketing, communications and publishing in London, ending up as head of branding and business marketing at the investment banking arm of global bank UBS.

My husband is also from this part of the world, so when he and I had our first daughter and had the chance to relocate, it was back to the west for us. House-hunting with a small baby was tricky so we applied to go on Escape to the Country, which we thought was like a free property search service. It isn’t, it turns out, but we did feature on the first ever episode! Once we’d worked out that we didn’t actually want to live in the country and set our sights on Bath, we found our home in Bathwick where my second daughter was born and where we still live.

For the next ten years I helped co-run my husband’s data science consultancy, using spatial data analysis to provide insights for government, businesses and non-profit organisations. As well as business development, tenders and online content, I led some analysis projects, and enjoyed de-mystifying the process and outputs of complex data models into useful written content for the lay person.

We pioneered some work on how harm from gambling particularly affects some demographics, on environmental inequalities arising from climate change, and on ‘food footprints’ showing the amount of land a town would need to feed itself in a post-oil economy. Environmental concerns are still a big subject for me and we try to live pretty simply, treating things like growing veg, composting, buying second hand and holidaying in the UK as positive choices.

I was also freelancing as a content marketer when I first encountered youth charity Mentoring Plus. Then, as now, the charity recruits, trains and supports 40-50 new adult volunteers from our community every year to mentor young people. Putting this opportunity in front of people was my first role.

Nearly ten years later, I’m the CEO and I still never miss a mentor training weekend. If you’re feeling doomy about the state of the world, come and meet a roomful of enthusiastic, generous human beings ready to support a child or young person struggling with tough challenges at school or at home: it will cheer you up no end.