We've selected our new Global Leadership Team!

Today, Emil Bender Lassen and Raphael Eder are stepping back from their roles as CEO and COO of Project Access and handover the leadership of Project Access to our new Global Leadership Team. In this post, Emil has written some reflections on how we got here, and will introduce the new Global Leadership Team led by Ingrid Sundvor, our new CEO

Me and Raphael. Press shot by The Collective Foundation, one of the amazing impact accelerator programs we’ve been fortunate to participate in

4-and-a-bit years ago in a pub in Oxford, Anna Gross and Rune Kvist were discussing the state of university access in the UK - and inequalities in access to high-quality education more generally. Looking around the university environment they were both part of, it was evident that there was a certain group of students who always made it into universities like Oxford, while other groups of students seemed to be completely missing. And how these inequalities persisted not just at the university level, but throughout society’s leadership - from entrepreneurship to academia to business to the hallow halls of Westminister.

The discussion turned into a longing for action, which turned into an idea, which turned into a plan. Project Access was born. A little while later - which I will always be grateful of - Rune reached out to me and asked if I wanted to join as a co-founder and help shape the newly born organisation, an offer I could not say no to. And off we went!

What happened next was truly amazing: we asked the student community at the UK’s top universities if they wanted to play a role in tackling the inequalities we described, and my god they did! Within days, we had recruited more than a hundred mentors for our very first mentorship program, which aimed at replicating the support a more privileged student receives from their school, community and parents, and - by offering this support to less privileged students for free - level the playing field in access to top universities.

Armed with nothing but our energy, the tech-skills we could pick up on Youtube, and an army of dedicated volunteers, we started building Project Access into the movement it since became. We expanded to 8 universities in the UK. And not much later, upon her graduation, Anna was able to go full-time on Project Access, thanks to generous support from the McCall-MacBain Foundation and our victory at the WeWork Creator Awards

About a year later, in October 2017, Rune decided to step back to our Board and Anna decided to dedicate her energy to our work in the UK and our new contract with Cambridge. This meant that I was given the opportunity to step up and lead the international work of our charity. Accepting that challenge has been the best decision in my life so far.

What we’ve achieved over the last couple of years - particularly after Raphael joined me full-time in September 2019 as our first COO - is mind-blowing to me: we’ve supported more than 3,000 applicants from less privileged backgrounds in pursuing their dreams; more than 60% of them have received offers from their dream universities; we’ve expanded Project Access to the US; we’ve received recognition from the likes of WEF, UN Women, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and funding from generous supporters including WeWork, the McCall-MacBain, Hempel, Tuborg and Otto Mønsted Foundations; and much more.

None of that would’ve been possible without an amazing team of volunteers, who’ve proved time and time again that the unwritten rules about what volunteers are “supposed” to be able to do can be broken, if you create a setup around an important cause in which you treat your volunteers as team members. A setup, where you give them ownership, challenge them, set real expectations to them and ask them to set real expectations to you, give them real feedback, celebrate their successes, and share in their failures while recognising that failure is as important in an entrepreneurial movement as success.

I am therefore also super proud that our new Global Leadership Team is completely volunteer-driven - and I can’t wait to see where they will be able to take our movement! Here they are:

It’s been the pleasure of a lifetime to serve as the CEO of Project Access. And, luckily for me, the ride doesn’t end here. As of Wednesday last week, Project Access International is an officially registered UK Charity, and I have the honor of chairing our Board of Trustees.

We’ve taken the first important steps towards a world where passion and potential define a young person’s future and ability to access top universities. I can’t wait to contribute to the next chapters of that journey - and I’m immensely proud to see such a strong and diverse team leading the charge. You guys are rockstars!

Thanks to everyone who’s been part of the journey until now - advisors, friends, donors, team members! Particularly those of you who’ve constantly reminded me that this was impossible, not a “real” job, a waste of time, and so on - proving you wrong has been as rewarding as seeing the impact we’ve been able to create ;)

/Emil