The Team

Having graduated from King’s College London, Binda joined Pure Potential in summer 2009. Prior to working for Pure Potential, Binda gained a great deal of experience working with young people through her charity work with the Time Bank and Diana Award, where she is now a Trustee.

Binda shares her experiences of university life with Pure Potential students to encourage them to apply to top universities. Working for an organisation which makes a difference has always been an important factor for her – knowing that Pure Potential is doing just that, encourages her to work hard to inspire like-minded students to go on to appropriately competitive universities and careers.

Dan graduated from the University of Leeds after completing a Law degree. Having worked with Pure Potential at various events throughout his degree, Dan joined the team straight after graduating in September 2014.

Having built up valuable experience with both employers and young people as Pro Bono Secretary and later President of Leeds Law Society, Dan is able to draw on a range of experiences when offering university and careers advice to aspiring students.

With a passion for social mobility, Dan uses his first-hand experience within law firms to assist students wishing to pursue a competitive professional career, as well as manage partner employer relations.

Brooke joined Pure Potential in September 2014 after meeting the team through career workshops at the Bridge Academy in Hackney where she was studying for her A-Levels.

Brooke completed a summer internship and impressed the team so much that we carved out a role especially for her! Prior to working at Pure Potential, Brooke had worked at a criminal solicitors firm, but her passion lies in running events for young people.

Brooke is excited to help other students with their career paths, just like Pure Potential helped her.

Sibyl studied Linguistics at UCL, graduating in 2003 and went on to work in the charity sector. She completed an internship at national charity Crisis, marketing and organising their annual Square Mile Run.

After two further years working as an Events and Marketing Manager, as well as volunteering at Marie Curie, Sibyl joined Pure Potential to pursue her passion for helping others. She is using her events, marketing and management experience to help bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds with applying to the best universities and most competitive careers.

Sibyl is currently on maternity leave.

Graduating from Mansfield College Oxford in 2001 with a degree in Maths and Philosophy, Marc (Sibyl’s brother) went into strategy consulting at Mars & Co. After two years there he left to help turn around an education business in London.

Seeing that there were a large number of students from the state-sector who were not receiving adequate support at home or at school and anticipating a strong interest in providing that support from the private sector, he co-founded Pure Potential in 2005, growing the organisation’s client list to 25 firms and nine partner universities including Imperial, LSE and Harvard.

Professor Julia King (CBE, FREng) graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences. Remaining in Cambridge, she completed a PhD in Materials, and took up a research fellowship. Julia joined Rolls Royce where she held a number of senior executive positions in engineering and manufacturing. In 2002 she became Chief Executive of the Institute of Physics, returning to academia in 2004 as Principal of the Engineering at Imperial College, London. In this time, she received a CBE for her services to Engineering in the 1999 Queen’s birthday honours and was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Julia has been Vice-Chancellor of Aston University since 2006 and is a passionate supporter of initiatives to widen participation in university education.

David Phillips (OBE) is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Senior Science Ambassador at Imperial College, London. He graduated with a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Birmingham and has continued his academic studies ever since having written over 580 publications including over 400 refereed research papers and many textbooks. He is an inspiration to young scientists and is passionate about the availability of educational opportunities irrespective of background, having started Imperial’s Outreach initiatives 20 years ago. He has received many awards over the years and was recognised for his vast contribution to science with an OBE in 1999. He spoke at the 2007 Pure Potential event at Imperial College and became the first member of our Advisory Board later that year.