Team | Fika | Mental Fitness

We’re on a mission to mainstream Mental Fitness.

Everyone in the Fika team is driven by our mission, believing in the importance of the change we’re bringing to the world.

Our PhD research and psychology leads are responsible for our evidence-based foundation. This enables continuous product innovation, built on decades of scientific evidence, combined with our own proprietary research programme. And all underpinned by data science and AI to enhance the human experience.

Nick Bennett

Co-Founder

Nick co-founded Fika to help solve the global problem of poor emotional health. With a background in fundraising, team building and product leadership in consumer and B2B, you’ll either find him on his mountain, screaming the Fika mission to the sky or in his boots, making pots of coffee for the team.

Gareth Fryer

Co-Founder

Gareth co-founded Fika determined to change the way we think about ‘mental health’. With a background in digital products, service design, growth strategy, research, leadership and psychology. Gareth brings his experience of developing the people, products and businesses of global organisations to Fika.

Meet the Team

Sean Valentine

Head of Product Design

Sean joined Fika to design a product fit for purpose, to mainstream Mental Fitness. And his extensive experience with global technology and sports brands has armed him with the skills he needs to fulfil his part in this mission. After hours you'll find him on court, trying to keep up with his professional squash playing dad.

Dr. Fran Longstaff

Head of Psychology

Fran has an academic and applied background in sport and exercise psychology. She brings 13 years’ experience of helping others get emotionally fit to Fika, where she’s excited to help mainstream Mental Fitness. Fran’s also addicted to long-distance running and is secretly a budding singer-songwriter.

Kevin Pond

Head of Content

Kev brings over 20 years' experience in content creation and copywriting to Fika. He's also 'The Voice' of our Mental Fitness courses as well as a yoga teacher and mindfulness addict on the side. With Fika, he’s realising a lifelong dream to do work that he loves, with people he loves, that really helps people.

Dr. Zoe Dimov

Head of Research

Zoe is an expert in human-centred design research with a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction and 10 years’ experience working within government, public and private sectors. Her mission at Fika is to gather and transform evidence into an exceptional user experience. Her alter ego is a talented mixed martial artist who loves reggae.

Rose Wilkinson

Head of Communications

Rose is a trained journalist with nine years’ PR experience. Her mission at Fika? To raise awareness of our Mental Fitness agenda. She’s fascinated by psychology and neuroscience and passionately believes in the power of smart tech and communications to change lives. Rose is addicted to yoga, swimming, running – and coffee.

Lauren Salter

Head of Training

Lauren is an accredited executive coach who brings her background in psychology, coaching and graduate engagement to Fika. She’s travelled the country working with students from all different backgrounds. Lauren is passionate about positive psychology and daily emotional exercise. She loves travelling, turtles and live music.

Kate Walker

Client Success Manager

Kate brings extensive experience in client services, operations and project management to Fika. Her mission is to provide organisational and empathetic solutions to client and in-house challenges. Kate is also addicted to socialising with friends, exercising, exploring new restaurants and bottomless brunching at the weekends.

Phil Kemp

Director of Client Success

Phil’s got tons of client experience in health, education and corporate sectors. He joined Fika to make sure we deliver positive outcomes for all our partners and clients. He's passionate about the benefits of Mental Fitness on performance and health. He loves to play sport and nowadays you’ll find him chasing his two young children.

Alistair Banks

Senior Product Owner

Alistair brings a wealth of experience in managing digital products to Fika. His mission is to evolve and innovate with Fika’s products to put Mental Fitness training in the hands of many. Outside work you’ll find him on his bike in the hills, on or off road, or quite likely stopped in a cafe.

Alex Stroukov

Head of Engineering

Alex joined Fika to build our Mental Fitness platform and make it an industry-leading product. He’s got a passion for creating great software and brings a wealth of experience in building cloud, web and mobile products. You might catch him carving up the concrete waves on his skateboard or fishing for trout in the countryside.

Fika Advisory Committee:

Christine Ohuruogu MBE

Christine is former Olympic, world and commonwealth 400 metres champion. Gold in Beijing, silver in London and world titles in 2007 and 2013. With double graduations in Linguistics and law, Christine knows the challenges of high performance and academia well and is passionate about inspiring positive mindsets in young people so they can reach their true potential.

Abi Chamberlain

A retired international Rugby player who hung up her England shirt after helping her team secure Olympic qualification in 2015. Abi Chamberlain had the great fortune of captaining her country, and now enjoys the privilege of transferring that experience into positive people solutions that orientate around understanding and unlocking the unique brilliances in individuals.

Abdul Buhari

Abdul is a retired London 2012 Olympian now working in a private bank focusing on Sports Media and Entertainment. He’s co-founder of the British Athletics Alumni and a board member of the UK Athletics Athletes' Commission. He’s passionate about helping athletes transition from sport to industry.

Dr. Willem Kuyken

Willem is a research clinical psychologist with his PhD from Kings College London and his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the Salomon's Clinical Psychology Training Programme. He is the Ritblat Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science and Director at the University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre.

Dr. Roger Bretherton

Roger is a Clinical Psychologist working at the University of Lincoln. His pet subject is character strengths and their relation to psychological well-being. Recently he’s been training volunteer mental health workers in positive interventions and working with a theatre company teaching resilience to young people.

Greg Bateman

Greg is a professional rugby player with Leicester Tigers. When his playing career ends, he’ll move into consultancy and professional coaching. He recently talked openly about his own mental health journey so that his story might encourage others. Greg is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for unlocking human potential.

Jason Sinclair

Jason is a sector-leading expert in student employability and career planning, and a Director at Worktree.org. He’s an educational mentor and champion of equality, diversity and inclusion. A huge believer that good emotional well-being and mental health is linked to how life affects us, how we cope with it, how we engage with others and the choices we make.

Dr. Ben Chamberlain

Ben is a data scientist leader who specialises in customer profiling, machine learning and AI. He’s led the data science team at ASOS on the full spectrum of data science projects for e-commerce. He has over ten years’ industrial experience applying machine learning to business problems using big data and distributed algorithms.

Brian Southward

Brian is an experienced CFO and Non-Exec Director and has spent the last 10 years helping to transform SMEs with high growth and disruptive business models. Brian has a TMT background and is currently working in the Intelligent Automation space.

Toby Raincock

Toby is CEO at Shard Capital, an independent financial services company. Previously he held a number of senior management roles within the Financial Services industry, most recently as Head of CASS at Barclays Capital and Barclays Wealth. He’s also a member of the GB Rifle Team, competing successfully all over the world.

Nick Finegold

Nick entered the financial services industry in 1987, joining Deutsche Bank in 1995 to set up their Equity Division. In 2000 he set up Execution Limited which was successfully sold in 2012. He then founded Curation Corp, a business that studies the world’s most disruptive trends and the risks and opportunities they create.

Bobby Sethi

Bobby is Cofounder & Partner at ES Ventures, a global venture capital firm focused on seeding amazing entrepreneurs. He’s worked with great brands such as Citi, AmEx, Dr Pepper, NY Times and Dow Jones and brings a wealth of experience in business growth and creative thinking for digital platforms.

Joy Poole

Joy is an accomplished business leader with more than 20 years’ experience in consulting, sales and digital marketing. Most recently, she served as a Director in Facebook’s Global Brand Partnerships group, leading teams to drive growth and digital transformation for some of the world’s largest brands.

Rachel Armstrong

Rachel is Studio Partner for Globant. She has a unique ability to unearth customer insights that transform strategic thinking and rapidly develop breakthrough solutions for global clients. Rachel brings nearly 20 years of knowledge, expertise and award-winning experience in digital and UX.

Brian S. Posner

Brian is the Founder of Point Rider Group LLC. He has more than 30 years of experience as a senior corporate executive, investment professional, and director on public, private and not-for-profit boards. He is a trustee of Northwestern University and an advisor to Northwestern’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy.

Charles Andrews

Charles has more than 30 years’ experience in both large corporations and small businesses. He’s worked on multiple global go-to-market campaigns for both new and existing products and services. And he’s achieved growth in complex fast-moving environments through innovative consumer propositions.

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