Every day I am grateful that I get to work with the Beam Team - as smart, empathetic and passionate a group as I could ever imagine. I’m thrilled to announce that our first Beamer, Seb Barker, is today joining as our cofounder.
Beam brings together two worlds that have rarely met before: the startup world and the homelessness world. My background is in tech startups, so it’s fitting we have a cofounder who brings deep knowledge and experience in homelessness to Beam.
Seb built his reputation in the homelessness sector working in rough sleeping and substance misuse services in London, first at Thames Reach and then at Turning Point - both Beam partners. Seb also worked on the world’s first ‘social impact bond’ in homelessness - an experience that opened his eyes to the benefits of a flexible user-centric approach.
Prior to Beam, Seb helped to develop personalised health budgets for NHS England. This grounded him in an approach that is highly aligned to the personalised employment budgets that we are now pioneering here at Beam, and has contributed to a very strong set of early outcomes.
Seb has been working shoulder to shoulder to me from a very early stage, with unbelievable focus - I think of when we were frenetically exchanging comments on a Google Doc on Christmas morning. He’s taken the lead on building an award-winning operational model and driving it through countless thoughtful iterations. He holds key relationships with our amazing charity partners, including St Mungo’s, Shelter, The Big Issue among many others. He’s built new relationships with forward-thinking boroughs across London. He leads and continues to grow (see our 10 open roles) an incredible Member Support team that changes lives day in, day out. He’s a self-confessed tech nerd, who’s been crucial in our work to built world-class technology for the homeless people we support.All that and much more. He’s also pretty damn good at ten-pin bowling.
"I'm incredibly excited to formally join Beam as a cofounder. We've barely began our work to create a society where anyone can achieve their potential. With an amazing team, partners and technology, I firmly believe we will have a huge positive impact on the lives of countless thousands of disadvantaged people in our society."
Please join me in wishing Seb massive congratulations!
Onwards,
Alex
