Our Team

Christine Hemphill

Location: Geneva/London

Christine is co-founder and Managing Director of Open Inclusion. She ensures that the client’s business objectives are understood, managed and fully met through great collaboration, clear focus, prioritisation and an uncompromising eye for quality and practical usability of work produced.

Christine has a background of over 20 years in designing and making products, services, teams or businesses, or making them better. The last 5 years have been solely focussed on customer and workplace inclusion, digital design and inclusive brand experiences.

She loves looking for, building and empowering the best team to support clients embed inclusion so effectively we are no longer required! Then finding and engaging new clients where we can add significant value and do it again. Each time widening the circles of inclusion and deepening business and user benefits.

She works closely with the research team, regularly engaging with our panel or other user groups to better understand how diverse customers really experience brands. This informs our work with clients to improve the experiences for all: tactically through product improvements and more strategically, building role-based awareness, tools and skills. As an economist by training and human-centred designer by practice, she also leads the economic value research for Open, assisting our clients understand the potential financial benefits of more inclusive approaches.

When not managing the growth and delivery quality of Open, she can generally be found in a café with her husband, kids or friends or on a mountain cycling, running or skiing some Alpine trail.

Tom Pokinko

Location: London

Tom is an inclusive design and user experience research specialist who helps clients inform the design of their products and services with usability insights from customers with diverse needs. He is passionate about organising and facilitating user-centred research with “edge case” users such as people with disabilities and older adults with cognitive decline as a way to help businesses realize their inclusion goals and create better user experiences for everyone.

With over five years’ experience working in multidisciplinary design and research settings, Tom is familiar with a wide range of research methods including mystery shopping, heuristic review, usability testing, semi-structured interviews, user surveys, focus groups, personas, card sorts, task analysis and contextual inquiry.

Tom has a Master of Arts and a Master of Design in Inclusive Design. Originally from Ottawa, Canada, he has provided inclusive research and design solutions spanning digital and built environment accessibility for both public and private sector clients including the Government of Canada.

When not working for Open, Tom is an accomplished artist, with an impressive portfolio of illustrations, portraits, caricatures and other cool stuff you can check out on his website.

Graeme Whippy

Location: London

Graeme is a recognised accessibility advocate and expert in workplace and digital accessibility. He was awarded an MBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours List for his services to people with dementia and disabilities. Previously his success campaigning for, developing and implementing best practice within a major UK bank led to him being recognised in the 2009 Financial Sector Technology Awards for 'Outstanding contribution by an individual to the industry'. He has also been a contributing author of the British digital accessibility standard, BS 8878, the Business Disability Forum’s Accessibility Maturity Model and their Accessible Technology Charter.

Graeme started out as a developer, who by the early 2000s was pioneering digital accessibility by adapting existing standards into non-technical “business-friendly” formats for practical use. Using hands-on skills he demonstrates that accessibility, functionality and aesthetic design are not mutually incompatible. Later, armed with a better understanding of access needs and appropriate, efficient adjustments for people with disabilities, his focus broadened to inclusion in the workplace.

When not solving specific client inclusion requirements, Graeme shares his knowledge and skills through a range of industry bodies. Graeme represents the banking sector on the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge and personally lead the creation of a cross-industry Dementia Friendly Financial Services Charter. He is also an invited, active contributor for the Business Disability Forum, Disability Rights UK, EHRC, Dept of Work & Pensions, British Standards Institution, the EU Commission and International Labour Organisation.

Outside work Graeme is a self-taught guitarist who first picked up a guitar at the age of 45. More recently, as if his wife hadn’t suffered enough, he decided to learn the banjo as well. He has documented his journey via monthly videos uploaded to his YouTube channel that hopefully show that being middle aged is no barrier to learning to play music.

Robert Hemphill

Location: Geneva and London

Rob’s role at Open Inclusion is to lead the development of new product opportunities such as Open's Inclusive Design Canvas. He also works with the research and operations teams to support the delivery of great client projects and strategic business management.

Rob has over 20 years of experience leading teams to design, build and run digital products and innovative solutions. He has led teams primarily in the financial services industry to both improve and enable the innovation processes and culture as well as to build and deliver new initiatives aimed at improving the customer experience and operational excellence.

Rob is passionate about the opportunity to bring more diverse perspectives to our clients to better enable ideation, and improve proposition development and the value of the innovation. This will deliver better solutions to all their customers, including those with specific access needs. There remains a significant opportunity for companies to differentiate their products and services through genuine inclusive design thinking and an approach that engages with, and delivers to, people with lived experience of disability.

When not focusing on helping to enable the growth of Open, Rob is usually spending time with his family or enjoying the great outdoors.

Lucy Pullicino

Location: South Africa

Lucy has nearly two decades of experience in digital accessibility, inclusive user experience research and design of web, mobile and TV products and services. At Open she designs and conducts inclusive research projects across a range of qualitative approaches. She works with clients to embed this insight into their design and development process to help them improve and innovate. 

Initially at BBC, Lucy started her career in accessibility and user experience within the Future Media & Technology department. As the BBC Senior Accessibility Specialist, Lucy became passionate about engaging with disabled and older users at every stage of the design, development and release cycle; running focus groups, usability testing, surveys and diary studies to capture the needs and challenges of the BBC’s diverse users.

Keen to have an ongoing point of reference, Lucy set-up their first panel of disabled users to support user research and inform the BBC’s digital strategy. Lucy worked alongside developers and designers providing accessibility guidance and support across the BBC’s entire digital portfolio including interactive TV (bed button services), BBC Homepage, News, Weather, CBeebies, CBBC, and on the iPlayer from its concept to its launch and beyond. She also chaired the BBC Accessibility Standards and Guidelines group; creating BBC accessibility policies, which have since become a point of reference globally across the digital industry. 

In 2010, Lucy went out on her own as an accessibility user experience consultant, providing training, user research, policy and strategy. Her main aim was to help digital product teams embed accessibility insights into their Agile project management processes. At this time Lucy worked for clients including Sainsbury’s, Sky, Channel 4 and Barclays. As well as research bodies such as the Research Institute of Disabled Consumers (RIDC), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), and Which?  

Lucy holds a BSc in Psychology.

Lucy joined Open after a career break to start a family and is now based in Capetown South Africa. This is where you will find her in her spare time by the pool or on the beach enjoying the sunshine with her two young sons and husband, James.

Jemma Queenborough

Location: London

Jemma is a User Researcher at Open Inclusion. She helps support Open’s qualitative research including focus groups, co-creation, mystery shopping, usability testing and surveys. Jemma specialises in capturing insights from research to discover the critical points (positive or negative) in disabled peoples’ user experiences and to learn how users feel about products and services. She provides excellent thematic analysis and insights from a wide range of research methodologies.

Jemma trained as a human rights lawyer working mainly for disabled and older people. Later she changed career to inclusive design and research. Jemma worked previously with DEMAND and Remap designing and making customised products for disabled and older people, and with MERU and a product design and engineering consultancy making mass market disability products. Her goal is always to ensure that there are beautiful, affordable, and useful products, as well as good systems and services empowering and improving the day-to-day life of disabled and older people.

Abi Turner

Location: London

Abi is a seasoned user experience (UX) consultant. She loves leading product design teams, carrying out user research or problem-solving to deliver beautiful consumer experiences.  She has extensive research and design experience in both digital and physical product areas across business sectors, including specifically designing solutions for people with diverse needs.

Abi is super-focussed, organised and immensely collaborative. She works effectively across research and design, helping ensure quality delivery by sharing leading practices across multi-disciplinary teams.  She is outcome-led, believing user research and business goals should be at the heart of product and service design.

Abi has a 1^st Class Hons in BSc in Computer Science with Human-Computer Interaction. Besides being a working mum and family go-to organiser, Abi is an active STEM ambassador and mentor to encourage growth for women in tech.

Ricardo Garcia

Location: Madrid and London

Ricardo brings over 15 years of international experience in disability inclusion and universal accessibility. Before joining Open he worked for leading organizations like ONCE (the Spanish Blind Peoples' Organization) and the Centre for Inclusive Design and Innovation (CIDI) at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in a range of roles from consulting, project design and management to business development, partnership building and training. He has worked on projects in Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, and the USA. Through these, he has helped companies, universities, non-profits and governments, design and develop accessibility and inclusion programmes.

Ricardo is an IAAP Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) and holds a Master of Arts in Economics. He's a regular presenter at international conferences and events on topics around digital accessibility, inclusive education and employment of people with disabilities.

When not working, Ricardo likes hitting the trails for a run or mountain bike ride and playing tennis with his son. Otherwise, he may be watching YouTube content ranging from entrepreneurship and personal development to retro ski and ADCD live concerts.

Sarah Bunnell

Location: London

Sarah has been with the Open Inclusion team almost from the beginning, helping in client and team management. She improves our delivery quality and clients’ experience as they engage with us for inclusive research or design solutions. Sarah brings a wealth of experience in business communication and systems management. With a global background and a degree in business, she has successfully worked in the third sector, finance and banking technologies, digital user experience, project management, and start-ups. Sarah ensures our clients and their projects are well managed from start to finish at Open.

Originally from the United States, Sarah is London based and has lived in Europe for almost two decades. She is an accomplished pianist, a travel enthusiast and a busy mother of three. In her spare time she loves to paint, ski, and listen to anything from Tchaikovsky.

Isabella Sewell

Location: London

Isabella is engaged in many aspects of supporting the research design and delivery at Open. She has a 1st in psychology at university and has gone on to use it to great effect supporting the inclusive research and design here at Open. She works across the business, helping the research team with quantitative and qualitative research planning and analysis.

Previously she has worked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health services assisting in the development and assessment of ASD and ADHD programmes.

In her spare time she loves ballroom and Latin dance.

Jaine Wills

Location: United Kingdom

Jaine is responsible for keeping everything up to date and in good shape at Open Inclusion from a finance perspective. She works with the Managing Director and Operations team to ensure that we are running smoothly as a business. Jaine brings a strong and practical background in accounting and finance. She has been a Business Adviser for the Young Enterprise Company Challenge and successfully coached her team representing Wales in the UK final in 2015.  She has written for various curriculums on finance and accounting and has marked external exams for the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT).

Jaine knows the value of presenting both the bigger picture as well as the detail, supporting strong business management. She also has a knack for being able to find the best and often simplest option for any issues. She loves what she does particularly due to the nature of Open’s business. Jaine supports a partner with a neurological disorder, so she has personal insight into the importance of inclusive environments, services, and products.

When she's not keeping track of all things financial, she loves learning new stuff. Just now she is learning DIY as she is currently renovating her home. She makes jam, sloe gin, and vodka and has the most adorable chocolate miniature poodle called Dylan Thomas Wills.

Martyn Sibley

Location: Cambridge

Martyn Sibley writes about living life with a disability, he is a life/career coach, and advises organisations on inclusion. He’s Co-Founder of Disability Horizons/United/Academy. In 2016 he published his travel memoirs and is now trying his arm at some fiction writing. You can read more about his adventures on his blog (www.martynsibley.com)

Martyn was recently voted 3rd in the ‘Disability Power 100‘ list 2016 that covers successful, influential disabled people in politics, media, sport and entertainment.

Lynn Cox

Location: London

Lynn is an established Disability/Visual Equality Trainer, who has been working for nearly two decades with commercial, public and third sector organisations. With a wonderfully combined creative and technical background including a BA and MA in Fine Art as well as Mathematics and Computing degrees and experience, she has worked with major disability and arts organisations including Tate Britain & Modern, the Serpentine Gallery and The Ambassador Theatre Group.

She is the Open Inclusion lead for Visual Impairment community and has firsthand experience of disability through her own visual impairment. She is also experienced in other impairment perspectives, issues, technical and personal solutions through her integration with the other panel leads, and research undertaken, as well as qualifications in Equalities training and Life/Career coaching. Her passion is effective integration and inclusion for disabled people through increased business and community awareness, skills and confidence.

She has served for some time as trustee and then Chair of Extant and Vice-Chair of The Audio Description Association and Director of Disability and Inclusion for MAMOMI Initiative

David Richardson

Location: East of England

David represents the community of older adult panel members over 60, who are also the fastest growing population in the UK. As an older person himself, David believes passionately that ageing is not an illness and, while aspects of ageing can be challenging, older people are an integral part of our society, and should be included in all aspects of life. Digital technologies are now an intrinsic part of our lives, in our communications and relationships with others, and are central to how we carry out our daily activities and how we spend our spare time. Over half of the over 65s in the country are adopting a digital lifestyle. The challenge is to ensure that others are not left behind.

David has enjoyed a varied career, from teaching Chemistry, through a commission in the Royal Air Force to 20 years of senior management experience in the Third Sector, the last eight years with Age UK. David has a passion for helping older people to enjoy the benefits of digital technologies by overcoming often very real barriers to access the benefits that being online can bring to all aspects of their lives.

When David is not working, he likes holidays in Italy, and struggling with the language; he is also busily exploring his new surroundings in Cambridgeshire.

Samantha Fletcher

Location: London

Samantha represents the community of neurodiversity panel members who are involved with Open Inclusion by supporting them with their research and making their roles interesting and exciting where possible. Samantha also provides advice to Open Inclusion on access needs in all the dys’s (dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia) as well as autism spectrum and other learning and cognitive diversity. She keeps our team and panel up-to-date with relevant and interesting recent news, new policies in these communities, as well as bringing insights into new research, new assistive technology and other adaptive tools.

Samantha has dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADD herself, she was diagnosed when she was 16, not long after this she got involved with in her local dyslexia charity “dyslexia association of Bromley, Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham” with which she was, until recently, a trustee of for over 10 years. Samantha also has an MA in disability studies and has worked in the disability third sector for over 11 years, as well as sitting on advisory group for people with Aphasia who looked at if technology could provide them access to a community, and the British Dyslexia Association New Technology committee. Samantha current role is working for the RSA as Head of Fellowship Services.

When Samantha is not working, she normally is listening to Rod Stewart, (the love of her life) or watching F1 while knitting or sewing. In addition to these hobbies Samantha loves holidaying with her partner, particularly to South East Asia.

Edward J Richards

Location: London

Edward is a Community Lead helping us consider research design and outcomes through the perspectives of people with hearing loss and BSL users. He also keeps us up to date with new or changing issues, challenges, interests and practices across this community.

As a native Deaf British Sign Language (BSL) user Edward can understand potential barriers from a deaf perspective and suggest solutions. Edward is a strong advocate for equality and sits on various forums, committees and access advisory panels within the Health, Council, Museums and Galleries sectors. He has also sat on a major NHS procurement panel with his expertise as a deaf service user. When not working with Open, Edward is a Director of Cutting Edge Design. Originally he worked as an IT software programmer before moving to design. He has a passion for inclusion, and loves looking at issues and thinking about how to resolve them through design and technology.

He enjoys sports and ten years ago, returned to playing his favourite sport, hockey and became a qualified Level 1 Umpire earlier in 2016. He is the Captain of Wapping Hockey Club MX (known as the X-Men) team. He regularly put himself forward to challenge his own abilities which has allowed him to do things he never thought he would, including being part of the London Paralympics Opening Ceremony aerial team in 2012. He regularly gives talks using BSL in museums and galleries across London.

Evian Davies

Location: London

• Working with Audiology specialists to conceptualise the future of hearing aids and break down disability stigma
• Mapping out the future doctor-patient experience in hospitals to make it a better experience for both parties
• Designing a product system to improve health and, consequently, independence of the elderly population

Martin McConaghy

Martin has been making the built environment more inclusive since 2001. He originally trained as a building surveyor before undertaking an MSc in Accessibility and Inclusive Design. Martin has core expertise in the details of the British Standards, Building Regulations and the Equality Act 2010. Driving forward the inclusive environment agenda with estates managers, architects and other property professionals is where he is happiest.

He has provided expert advisory services for disputes under the Equality Act and contractual disputes regarding accessibility. He has developed particular experience with heritage environments having advised on World Heritage Sites, Scheduled Ancient Monuments and dozens of listed buildings. He’s currently working on projects for clients including St Paul’s Cathedral, English Heritage, Lincoln Cathedral and a variety of other Heritage Lottery funded projects. As well as being a member of the National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC) he is an active member of several organisations including the British Standards committee responsible for BS8300, the RICS working group on inclusive environments and the Access Association.

Outside of his professional work, he loves nothing more than a night under canvas, preferably at a music festival. That is if he can persuade his wife and children that it really is warm enough!

Yacoob Woozeer

Location: Nottingham

Yacoob is passionate about all things inclusive and accessible, always looking for new and improved ways of simply making systems and processes available for as many people as possible. Having worked closely with a wide range of users he’s slightly obsessed with the variety and quality of user journeys and experience! Backed with some theory from having completed a Master’s Degree in Digital Inclusion and many years practicing making it real, he is now usefully dangerous in his mission to eliminate bad or broken journeys from the world around him.

With experience in Government, Policy and Strategy, corporate client-facing roles and several years prior IT experience, Yacoob always looks to balance business and customer needs to ensure a practical way forward.

A self-confessed geeky dad (and Sci-Fi addict), he’s always looking for new ideas, innovations or methods to identify how we can reduce the digital divide, help those that most need it and ensure all can appreciate the fun and function of a connected world.

Graham Armfield

Location: London

Graham has a web developer background, and has been involved with web accessibility for the last 15 years. He has built, or contributed to accessible websites for many large organisations and charities – including HSBC, RBS, NatWest, Tesco Compare, Citizens Online and ALLIANCE Scotland. He has also performed web accessibility reviews for many organisations – reporting on their websites' compliance to WCAG 2.0 standards.

When developing accessible websites, Graham uses WordPress. He is a member of the Make WordPress Accessible Team – a group of volunteers who use their knowledge and influence to improve the accessibility of the world's most popular CMS.

Graham likes to spread the word on accessibility and has trained designers and developers on accessibility techniques across the globe – both in formal training courses, and in more informal workshops, and through numerous presentations and webinars.

At rest, Graham can often be found performing his own songs at open-mic nights in his local area, or recording his next album.