Director of Learning and Influence, Social Investment Business

Policy Fellow Alumna, Centre for Science and Policy

Gen has spent the last ten years working with social programmes that are committed to the informed use of information and data to improve their work. She began her career in academia with a doctorate in politics and philosophy. She has lectured at Oxford University, Roehampton University, the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, Birkbeck College London and the University of Cambridge.

She was formerly Head of Evaluation and Impact Measurement at Power to Change. At PTC Gen spearheaded the development of the insights platform Twine and the use of banking data to model local economies and spending patterns in partnership with the marketing company Reward Ltd. Prior to PTC, she was Director of Research at the social impact lab Osca, Head of Social Impact at The U, a social venture developed by the Young Foundation, and founder and director of GLUE, a social enterprise working with young people excluded from school.

Gen is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Youth Impact and an associate lecturer at the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation and a member of the SVUK advisory board.

Gen has published widely on evaluation and social measurement, the social economy and data use. She has written a regular column for Civil Society News and has published articles for the Guardian, Charity Finance, Feedback Labs, The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, The Centre for Youth Impact, the Alliance 4 Useful Evidence and New Start Magazine. She has also appeared on Newsnight and Dispatches, and has given evidence on impact measurement practice to the House of Commons and the House of Lords.