The Social Mobility Podcast

Kwame Kwei-Armah is the artistic director of the Young Vic in London. An actor, writer and singer, he previously led the World Festival of Black Arts and the Center Stage in Baltimore. He received an OBE for his services to drama in 2012, and the Urban Visionary Award in 2016. In this in-depth conversation, he shares his early memories of racial injustice, from playground division to watching Roots and tracing his ancestry to find a name that “represents the tribe we originate from”; describes the challenges of changing the notion of theatre from high arts to popular pastimes so that everyone has access; and explains how telling stories through a “cultural lens” results in socially relevant productions that truly matter to the community.Your host is Tunde Banjoko OBE, founder of Making The Leap.

Justine Greening is MP for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields. She has held a number of posts in government, including Minister for Women & Equalities and Secretary of State for Education. Upon returning to the backbenches in 2018, she established the Social Mobility Pledge, a scheme aimed at broadening social mobility and opportunity in Britain. In this in-depth conversation, she reflects on her own experience of “climbing up the career ladder” from a working-class background, describes education's role in “firing up children's imaginations” about the wider world, and explains how the social mobility pledge is helping to close the achievement gap by encouraging employers to value talent over connections.Your host is Tunde Banjoko OBE, founder of Making The Leap.