Diane Mullen
Partner and Co-founder
Diane has been a professional in Further and Higher Education and ELT for more than 25 years. She spent seven years heading the Business & Community Development operation at Lambeth College, five years with City University developing, generating income for and managing Creative Industries projects, and five years as International Director (then Advisor) to the national trade body for Further Education, the Association of Colleges (AoC). This experience has given her a comprehensive knowledge of the policy environment and regulatory/eligibility framework of a wide range of UK, EU and international funding programmes (from which she has generated and managed significant resources and multi-partner projects) as well as government agendas relating to skills and innovation.
Diane previously worked with several third sector organisations and a Training and Enterprise Council and she served as National Education and Employment Advisor to Refugee Action during the 1990s. Her work during more recent years with the British Council and the Association of Colleges focused on global vocational partnerships and their role in international education systems reform. This includes promoting the UK education sector overseas and engagement in policy dialogue. She has also served on a number of related national committees and has worked closely with senior government officials in the UK and abroad.
For the decade leading to 2022, Diane was the Director of the St Giles Educational Trust which offered professional development to teachers in the UK and overseas in partnership with other charities, universities and government agencies. The Trust worked in a total of 16 countries.
Since the beginning of 2022 Diane has assisted Film London with the expansion of the Agency's work on skills for the screen sector. This has included covering the post of Head of Skills for 8 months.
Fabricio Chavarro
Partner and Co-founder
Fabricio has more than 20 years’ experience of raising public finance through UK and EU funding programmes for companies and organisations in both the public and voluntary (NGOs) sectors in the UK and Spain. He has particular expertise in the development and management of multi-partner initiatives which focus on innovation, enterprise development, creative industries, education & skills development and economic regeneration. He holds an MA in Knowledge Management from the University of Granada, Spain.
Fabricio’s employment history includes policy, business development and operational management roles: he has worked as a Senior Economic Development Officer with Wandsworth Borough Council in London and as Programme & Contracts Manager then Deputy Head of the Business & Community Unit at Lambeth College. Fabricio subsequently spent 4 years as Principal Development Consultant with London-based consultancy Rinova Ltd where he led the development and contract compliance of the company’s European projects portfolio: this comprised a range of projects in the fields of employability and enterprise skills (funded by the Lifelong Learning, Erasmus Plus, Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs and Creative Europe Programmes) which involved partners from 20 Member States.
Since 2019, Fabricio has coached and mentored over 600 early-stage startups through accelerator programmes at Barclays Eagle Labs (Funding Readiness programme), Hatch Enterprise and DOHE Go Together. His support spans a diverse range of sectors, including digital health, software, creative industries, financial services, EdTech, e-commerce, AI-native and social impact, helping founders secure innovation grants and other funding opportunities. As a trainer, Fabricio also delivers webinars on grant funding for these accelerators and ConceptionX (UK’s leading PhD deeptech venture programme), many of whose founders have gone on to validate their products and secure further investment to advance their missions.
