Fearless Futures (FF) is a DEI solutions consultancy – delivering education and consultancy – founded in 2014 by Algerian-British Hanna Naima McCloskey (she/her), a former investment banker who transitioned from global finance to social justice with an unflinching commitment to building a more equitable world. Her vision for FF was born from a deep dissatisfaction with performative diversity initiatives that failed to address the structural conditions producing inequality. Hanna, joined shortly after by CLO Sara Shahvisi (she/her), had an unflinching commitment to building a better world through systemic transformation – not surface-level changes in representation. What began as a grassroots effort to reframe inclusion has, over the last eleven years, grown into one of the UK’s most respected equity and inclusion consultancies, widely recognised for its rigour, originality, and courage.
At our core, we are a team of equity educators, strategists, socio-political analysts, researchers and systems thinkers. We do not shy away from complexity and our clients seek us out because we bring depth, clarity and consistency to equity building – regardless of context and often are invited because of the complexity of the situation. We name systems like racism, sexism, disablism, classism and transphobia etc and we support organisations to address these not at the surface level but at the root: in policies, processes, skillsets, data systems and decision-making structures.
Over the last eleven years, we have trained thousands of leaders around the world through our flagship Design for Inclusion programme and worked with organisations across six continents. This 2.5 day programme is the deepest DEI capability programme out there. Harley Marjoram, Global Inclusion Business Partner at tms describes DFI as: “essential training for anyone who wants to advance equity and drive change. Fearless Futures frameworks and tools will be nothing short of transformational for my approach”.
Our clients who seek out our services span industries from multinational banks to global charities, leading universities to disruptive tech firms. What unites our work is not sector but substance: we equip clients with the tools to interrogate power, transform systems and embed equity in everything they do.
In 2024, we launched our White paper DEI Disrupted: The Blueprint for DEI Worth Doing (Rubie Eilìs Clarke, Lead Researcher and Author). It is a landmark publication that responds directly to the global crisis facing equity and inclusion work – one of political backlash, budget cuts and ideological attacks. Rather than retreat, we doubled down on our commitment to depth, clarity and courage. Among the 14 powerful recommendations, we advocate for what we coin as an ‘Issue-Led Approach’ over ‘Identity-Led Approach’ to DEI, one that centres scaled systemic transformation and moves beyond often slow, piecemeal approaches. Another recommendation is for companies to develop a DEI Theory of Change (ToC) – a much needed framework that ensures DEI work is mapped coherently and demonstrably capable of delivering measurable material outcomes for marginalised communities. 88% of delegates from our inaugural DEI Disrupted retreat specifically said our unique DEI ToC model made it easier to identify tangible points of intervention across recruitment, progression, and pay structures, for example. Beyond this, testimonials on social media from those delegates (https://rebrand.ly/zewett7, https://rebrand.ly/uwiclx3) describe it as: “the clearest DEI framework I’ve seen,” “a necessary reckoning with power,” and “finally, a methodology that makes structural change achievable”.
We also deliver conceptual analysis publicly through our newsletter and LinkedIn: grounded, deep analysis of complex societal issues that have a knock on in the workplace and have a body of writing to serve as public education for anyone grappling with them. This includes how we are to understand the function of transphobia across the 2024 Olympics to the recent UK Supreme Court ruling; the contours of the 2024 UK racist riots; and even the aftermath of October 7th 2023 and the way media and others have dangerously and falsely positioned Palestinian and Jewish life as inherently in conflict. We refute commonly held hierarchies of suffering and oppression, we see all life as precious, and always seek to analyse and educate towards the deepest of solidarities.
We’ve been profiled and published in Inc., HR Magazine, The Business Journals, DiversityQ, Creativebrief, and CPO Strategy, among others. But more than recognition, what drives us is impact: shifting how inclusion is understood, measured and done – and supporting our clients to create workplaces that deliver equity, not just optics. You can hear from some of our clients here:
From alumni of our DFI programme – https://rebrand.ly/6x8v2ja
From a client who has benefited from our intersectional data analytics – https://rebrand.ly/4lr2fy5
