Julian Blake
Julian Blake is the head of MDI’s Board. He is a public benefit lawyer, with national firm Stone King, working with social enterprises, charities, and mission-led businesses, especially on public service innovation.
He has written charity law tests and co-authored “The Art of the Possible in Public Procurement” , and its successor subtitled “New Horizons for Empowering Innovation”.
For the social enterprise organisation E3M, he contributed to “The Procurement to Partnership Toolkit” and “Vitalising Purpose: the power of the social enterprise difference in public services”.
He is a member of the VCSE Crown Representative’s Advisory Panel to Government.
He helped establish the charity and is an original trustee.
Christina Pribichevich-Zoric
Christina Pribichevich-Zoric has worked as a broadcaster for the English service of Radio Yugoslavia in Belgrade and the BBC in London, and was Head of Conference and Language Services at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
She is an award-winning translator of over thirty novels, short story collections and non-fiction books from Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and French.
She lives in London where she continues to work in the field of literary translation.
Verica Rupar
Verica Rupar is a professor of journalism at the School of Communication Studies, AUT, New Zealand, and a former Chair of the World Journalism Education Council.
Her academic work includes studies of the relationship between journalism, media and democracy, as well as communication practices around key social issues relevant to the promotion of social inclusion.
Her publications include Inclusive Journalism, Journalism, Themes and Critical Debates, Getting the facts right: reporting ethnicity and religion, Scooped: Politics and Power of Journalism in Aoteraoa New Zealand and Journalism and meaning-making.
Eric Heinze
Eric Heinze is Professor of Law and Humanities at Queen Mary University of London, he is currently serving as General Rapporteur on the Criminalization of Hate Speech for the Académie internationale de droit comparé. He was Project Leader for the four-nation EU consortium Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspectives (2016-19), and has been a Fulbright Fellow (Utrecht), DAAD fellow (Berlin), and Chateaubriand Fellow (Paris), as well as holding grants from the Nuffield Foundation and from Harvard University.
Heinze’s books include The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (MIT Press, 2022), Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Concept of Injustice (Routledge, 2013).
Paresh Solanki
Paresh Solanki specialises in championing social change and amplifying marginalised voices through the positive power of media, technology, and creative ideas. He is a photographer, producer/director, and producer of communications and media campaigns.
Empowering communities with impactful projects have led to accolades in media, events, and advocacy. He holds a Fellowship of the Royal Television Society and The Institute of Leadership.
Paresh was a senior executive and producer/director at the BBC, where his roles included Managing Editor, Network TV BBC Birmingham; chairman of the Board, BBC Relocation; editor, Asian programmes; Foreign Affairs journalist; Executive Producer; and producer/director of international documentaries, events, and media campaigns.
One of his biggest successes was the creation of the BBC Mega Mela festival, which, for the first time, featured diverse ethnic talent in multiple genres on national media, opening life-changing opportunities for so much new talent.
