Our Trustees

Samantha Stimpson B.Ed MA (she/her), is a multi-award winning consultant and the founder and CEO of SLS 360, an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion consultancy firm who support, challenge and empower individuals and organisations, to be bold and brave in their work to eliminate injustice and discrimination and affect positive change.

Samantha is also a Violin & Viola player with a mission to ensure greater representation of musicians across all genres but especially classical music, so children and young people of colour don’t experience being ‘othered’ as the only one or one of few.

Her research on the importance of representation and her work with over 150 organisations in the UK and worldwide, has highlighted the importance of recruitment and retention which focusses on valuing diversity and not just optics. A focus that goes beyond the ‘business case’ for diversity and has a foundation built on trust and respect within an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.

Samantha is a passionate advocate of EDI and is on a mission to ensure as many individuals and organisations as possible, are empowered to take action to disrupt the status quo and embed the principles of EDI in all the work they do.

Norton York is founder and chairman of RSL Awards, the world’s specialist contemporary performing arts examination board. He started out as a trombone player performing in bands while studying music at Sussex University and latterly as a session player with artists including Billy Ocean, Paul Jones, Ruby Turner and Edwin Starr. His work in education started in his mid-twenties when he founded Europe’s first pop music summer school, Brighton Rock in 1988, prompting attention from the UK’s media to its mix of performing, production and business education which has been a hallmark of Norton’s courses ever since. Norton moved onto write and edit Oxford University Press’ first book on the music business ‘ The Rock File’ and created a ground breaking set of pop music courses at West London Institute of Higher Education. This led to the founding of RSL Awards, first through its Rockschool graded music exams, and subsequently to launching the Commerical Music department of the University of Westminster in 1992.

Since then, many of Norton’s students and RSL alumni have succeeded and include leading figures in the music industry such as Luke McGrellis (Universal) and Sam Winwood (Kobalt), and artists as diverse as Ed Sheeran and Jess Glynn, bands including Reef, The Feeling and Rudimental, Mercury nominated jazz saxophonist Denys Baptise, gospel star Muyiwa Olarewaju, as well as producers and songwriters including Fraser T Smith, Matt Prime, and Paavo and Jono of Above & Beyond.

In 2021 Norton wrote ‘Pop Music Education in the U.K. 1960-2020’ in which he accounts for the development of teaching pop music in all its styles from schools, further and higher education institutions to community settings for the first time, including the pioneering contribution of Sound Connections.

Norton is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Esther “Estée Blu ” Lenda Bokuma is an R&B-Jazz Artist, Writer, Music Executive and Founder of BLU WAV Artist Wellbeing from London, UK.

Since launching her career as an Independent Artist in 2015, she’s been supported by Help Musicians, AfroPunk, COLORS, the MOBO Awards, NME and Camden Roundhouse.

She has been involved in Wired4Music since 2017, co-producing and hosting various events for young musicians and music professionals. Estée has a background as a qualified French Teacher and currently has over 8 years of experience working across the music industry as an Artist, educator and music professional, with key skills across artist development, facilitation, consulting, major label brand partnerships and indie label operations. She also has several features in publications such as Music Business Worldwide, PRS Magazine, Music Week and MixMag.

Estée sits on various executive boards including Sound Connections, The F-List and The Richard Antwi Scholarship promoting equality. In 2022, Women In Music 2022 Roll Of Honour inductee Christine Osazuwa nominated her as a Music Week Rising Star, due to her activism. In November 2023, she completed a 6-month fellowship with the Creative Impact Research Centre Europe based in Berlin, and published a report about the mental health, wellbeing and working conditions of Black Artists in Britain.

Flo is a cultural learning and participation professional, currently leading the Royal Albert Hall’s Engagement programme, which aims to enrich people’s lives and offer fairer access to the arts. Coming from a musical background herself, Flo is passionate about the transformative power of music and the arts, and is committed to widening inclusion and removing barriers to participation. She also sits on the Tri-borough Music Hub governance board and has worked in partnership with many music education charities and organisations throughout her time at the Hall.

Gemma Knox is an experienced marketing & business professional with over 14 years of brand and communication experience across Europe. Gemma has worked in both large networks and small independent companies in the creative industries in London and Amsterdam.

Gemma is Managing Director, Northern Europe for Virtue, a full service creative agency born from VICE, the fastest growing youth media and entertainment company. Gemma is responsible for leading and growing the business within the UK, the Nordics and Europe.

In her previous role at Sunshine, Gemma spearheaded Sunshine’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction partnership, orchestrating a string of retail, media and talent partnerships. Outside of work, Gemma is a trustee for the charity Sound Connections and an active mentor at Bloom, a professional network for women in communications. She is also in the process of launching a jigsaw business.

Nanret Senok is a solicitor at the Competition and Markets Authority. She completed her undergraduate law degree at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and LLM at the University of Law. Nanret’s legal expertise extends across competition law and regulation, consumer law, and public law. Nanret also has a keen interest in music, theatre and art and has previously worked as a gallery co-ordinator at a community interest company art gallery.

Sasha currently works in advocacy for special educational needs and disability in a variety of settings and has a background in psychology. She works for Islington Special Education Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service as a community engagement and Young People’s worker. As well as this Sasha works as a freelance dance artist for Corali Dance Company and Share and has just completed her mentee role working as a musician at the Royal Brompton and Harefields hospital. Sasha is also part of the young artists collective at Siobhan Davies Dance.

Music was a big part of Sasha’s life, growing up in the north of England and playing percussion in many different brass bands. Her practice is currently exploring how to bring together psychology, music and movement together to enhance wellbeing.