By Jake Porway, Founder & Executive Director, DataKind
It’s with a bittersweet note that we wish a fond farewell to Emma Prest, the Executive Director of DataKind UK.
Emma has served valiantly as the leader of DKUK since 2014, when she joined this fledgling charity as a general manager, staffed to keep the lights on and the work of the board moving. Over the years, Emma excelled in her role, launching new programs, like the DataKind UK’s long-term DataCorps projects, keeping the community energized and effective through a clever volunteer committee structure, and opening up new funding opportunities with organizations like Marks & Spencer and NESTA.
More than Emma’s individual accomplishments (of which there are too many to enumerate), we should all appreciate her ability to maintain DataKind’s culture at DataKind UK, positioning the charity as a thought leader that has thoughtfully created data maturity models for the social sector, informed government actions through its work with Global Witness, and built community-led codes of ethics. Her work has set DataKind UK up for long-term success in the practices she established, the financial support she brought the organization, and the great new staff she has brought in.
We always say that a DataKinder is someone special, in that they embody a rare combination of technological skills and humanistic values that drives them to thoughtfully bring good into the world. Emma is even a step above that, in that she empowers others to live that life, through DataKind and beyond. She’s a true rarity, and her contributions to DataKind UK, the DataKind Global Network, and the mission of using data science thoughtfully in the service of humanity will never be forgotten. Thankfully, we’re honored to have the inimitable Giselle Cory taking the reins at DKUK to lead the organization onward into its next phase as Executive Director succeeding Emma.
From all of us at DataKind across the world, we salute you, Emma Prest, for all of the incredible work you’ve done at DataKind UK, and we wish you the best of luck in all your adventures to come. Keep an eye out — no doubt, Emma will be continuing her journey in creating a stronger civil society in bold and important ways.
We’ll be cheering for you all along the way!
