CEO, Footwork
Bio
Naomi is CEO of Footwork, a collaborative non-profit that facilitates community-led neighbourhood transformation by supporting local leaders across England who activate and steward land and buildings with their communities, for the long term.
A trained architect, Naomi worked in Copenhagen, New York & Chicago before settling in London. Throughout her travels, Naomi witnessed the importance of social justice in building community resilience. Having worked for several years designing & delivering social housing, she turned her attention to the social purpose of regeneration and continues to develop ways in which Footwork can strengthen the connections between people, place & wellbeing.
Since 2022, the organisation has worked across 30 neighbourhoods through their People and Place programme. Facilitating a peer-led model of support to community leaders from Wigan to Plymouth, Coalville to Grimsby, so they can respond to acute local challenges by taking on or shifting power around assets. Ideas have included bringing disused spaces to life, repurposing church-owned buildings into social housing and turning streets into green energy. Footwork contributes to a wider movement across the UK shaping what a future funding and enabling ecosystem for locally-led neighbourhood transformation might look like.