Speaker: Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of the Kids Company

Camila Batmanghelidjh is an amazing woman and will live in your memory forever once you hear her speak. She is a true inspiration in every sense of the word.  Camila is the founder of two children charities – The Place 2 Be (now national) and Kids Company, where she currently works with some of the most traumatised young people living in London.

Kids Company was set up in 1996. It employs 336 staff, benefits from 5,600 people volunteering annually and reaches 13,500 children a year with therapeutic and social work support in three centres based in Southwark, Lambeth and a newly opened centre in Camden, as well as working in 37 inner-city schools. Camila and her team have raised £60 million over the years to help London’s most vulnerable children.

She trained as a psychotherapist, engaged in 18 years of psychoanalysis and has become an advocate for vulnerable children. In 2009 she was named Business Woman of the Year for the Dods and Scottish Widows Public Life Awards. Camila has also been awarded Social Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young, and Coutts and the Most Admired Chief Executive by Third Sector Magazine. She has also received 10 honorary degrees.  Kids Company has been awarded the Human Rights Awards by Liberty & JUSTICE.

Camila considers herself very privileged to be working with what she describes as extraordinarily courageous and dignified children.