ICane Founder –  Yvonne Davis

MBE for Services to Education, FCCT (Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching)

Yvonne Davis

Yvonne is an Educationalist FCCT (Fellow of Chartered College of Teaching) with over 40 years of experience in education in the role of Early Years Leader, a Headteacher in two different Primary schools, a Primary School Adviser and Ofsted Inspector. She has a long history of working in the voluntary sector teaching in Saturday schools for African Caribbean organisations and consulting Early Years practitioners.

She is a Listener for the Samaritans and honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. Retiring from Headship in 2020 she is now mentoring and coaching School Leaders for the future, a School Governor, a member of Leaders for Race Equality and Regional Lead for South East BAMEed.

Yvonne believes in the motto, ‘Each One Teach One’- (the late Dame Jocelyn Barrow DBE) and is passionate about using her skills and competencies to support the development of young people to reach their full potential. The Early Years phase is her specialism hence a history of working with parents in creating a rich and relevant dialogue to create a better future for all our children. She strongly believes in investing time and quality provision at this phase in providing a culturally rich environment, understanding how children learn and the connections with later learning to enable our early year citizens to flourish.

She quotes: “Let’s open our eyes to the problems in society and work together to eliminate the barriers which impact on our children.” — Yvonne Davis

Miles Davis – Director

CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst)

Miles Davis

Miles Davis, CFA graduated from Richmond, the American International University in London with a first-class honour’s degree in Finance. Following graduation, Miles accumulated nearly eight years of banking experience across Treasury, Markets, Corporate & Investment Banking. In his current capacity as a CIB Banker, Miles covers multinational corporations headquartered in the EMEA region within the Energy & Infrastructure sector. Miles is responsible for supporting clients with raising financing across loan markets, public/private capital markets, transactional banking requirements, risk management and corporate finance transactions.

Outside of the workplace Miles is a sports enthusiast with a particular passion for Basketball, which allowed him to represent England, and in his high school and collegiate years, it provided him with the opportunity to move to the United States to continue his progression in the sport as well as continuing his advancement in education.

Miles will primarily support ICANE Foundation in the capacity of Treasurer and use his experiences gained across education, work and sports to mentor and coach young talent.

ICane Advisers

We have a team of advisers skilled in their field and education.

Lunda David –  Learning/Mentor

(BSc) PGCE

Lunda David

Lunda David is a dedicated, empathetic and experienced Primary teacher based in Hertfordshire. She is passionate about advocating and developing the curriculum to represent diverse cultures and ethnicities in children’s literature; an approach that uses varied texts that immerse all children into different worlds.

A member of the Chartered College of Teaching, she believes that in order to succeed,  BAME educators need strong advocates and mentors.

Joann Rickard Noble – Mental Health/Talk Therapy

(BSc) PGCE

Joann Rickard Noble

Joann is an educator having worked in education,  as a Senior Learning Mentor, engaging with the local authority to look at the attainment of Black and Ethnic minority pupils.

As well as creating initiatives, strategies and organising role model days to raise the attainment of pupils.  She gained an LLB Honours degree in Law and would describe herself as a long-life learner who is self-motivated and is always pursuing knowledge.

One of Joann’s strong motivations is to help and empower others whether that is via talking therapy, providing a safe and welcoming environment for the vulnerable and lost members of our society or assisting individuals to reach an amicable solution to a dispute.

One of her favourite quotes is from  Dr Mae Jemison the first black female astronaut who said ‘Never be limited by people’s limited imaginations.’

Pianki Assegai – Media Consultant

Pianki Assegai

“I am an experienced secondary school teacher for more than ten years teaching Media studies and Business Studies. Experience as Head of Department for Creative Arts. Entrepreneur, Videographer and editor”.