THE UK Black Pride Board of Directors
 

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah
(Director)

As a co-founder, and now the Managing Director of UK Black Pride, it is safe to say that Phyll Opoku-Gyimah is one of the leading lights behind the amazing celebration of Black LGBT communities that we enjoy today.

A former volunteer for BLUK (Black Lesbians in the UK), Phyll uses her immense talents to support people within the Black LGBT community who either feel vulnerable or desperate to burst out of themselves and demonstrate pride in their ethnicity and sexuality.

Phyll has worked tirelessly to bring together LGBT activists, artists, volunteers and supporters from within the LGBT community and beyond to support UK Black Pride and other such events. Phyll’s voluntary endeavours led her to be nominated as Woman of the Year at the Black LGBT Community Awards 2007.

A Civil Servant by profession, Phyll is currently on secondment to the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Trade Union where she is trailblazing as the only Black female lead negotiator within the Law and Justice bargaining areas.

Phyll’s commitment to workplace equality and social justice has secured her a seat on the TUC Race Relations Committee, in addition to a number of positions within PCS, her union, and PCS Proud, which is the representative voice for LGBT members within the civil service.
 
Phyll is a strong, very family-orientated Ghanaian African woman who understands the Twi and Fanti languages. This connects Phyll to her rich cultural heritage and enables her to charm all who orbit around her with her good natured warmth and fun. Phyll’s love of people is abundantly clear and enables her to bring together men and women to support a common goal that advocates for unity and equality.

As the visionary behind UK Black Pride it comes as no surprise that Phyll cites this quotation from Dr Maya Angelou as her maxim: “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.”

Khi Rafe
(Logistics & Operations Director)

Khi Rafe has been a long-standing Black LGBT community activist at the forefront of campaigns to challenge discrimination and to advocate for all forms of equality and inclusion. Khi is a co-founding member of UK Black Pride and is currently Director for Logistics and Operations. She takes great pride in seeing how far this community-led venture has come in a matter of just a few years.

Khi works as an employee and industrial relations’ specialist in local government and is very active within the trade union movement. Khi holds a number of elected posts including that of assistant branch secretary within Lambeth Council, as well as the role of vice chair of the National Black Members’ Committee of UNISON, the leading British public sector workers’ union. Khi was elected to the TUC LGBT Committee where she advocates for the needs and aspirations of Black LGBT sisters and brothers.

When she has some spare time, Khi enjoys writing floetry and representing her native London in numerous sporting events. Khi is also a proud mother, daughter, sister and recent grandparent.

Khi says: “UK Black Pride fills me with immense pride because it is one the few genuinely community-led initiatives that enables all sections of the African, Asian and Caribbean LGBT community, as well as those who support us, to come out and show our unity, our strength, and our beauty. There is much for to celebrate, and we should continue doing so in pride.” 

Lila Rowe
(Finance Director)

Lila Rowe is a qualified accountant and Fellow of the ACCA. With her background in the private banking and commercial finance sectors, as well as some work in the public sector, it will not come as a surprise to state that Lila has successfully served as UK Black Pride’s Director of Finance and Commercial Sponsorship since 2006.

In recent times, Lila’s work has revolved around enabling companies and organisations to grow from small enterprises to medium sized concerns. There are many challenges when an organisation is new and expanding, which is why Lila has developed her own financial consultancy group business. Lila is adamant that she is a far cry from the stereotype of an accountant in a darkened room crunching historical numbers. 

Lila acknowledges that the private sector displays different traits to the public sector because on a day to day basis the culture can markedly different; few social journals and magazines exist, the density of trade union membership is lower, and contact with Black LGBT colleagues can sometimes be difficult. For Lila then, UK Black Pride has been an excellent way to connect with Black LGBT people and to demonstrate to Black LGBT others, whether they are working, or seeking work, in the public or private sector that they have many skills and talents that can be of use to the wider community.

Whilst UK Black Pride takes up much of her spare time time, Lila does enjoy watching film and theatre, as well as travelling, whenever she can. She is also a big football fan and loves the game!

UK Black Pride is important to Lila because it is focused on achieving key social and economic objectives. Lila says: “I want us to build on our achievements to date to offer the whole Black LGBT community, friends and supporters, a truly amazing experience every year, and pass this legacy on to the next generation”.

Bisi O
(Marketing Director)

Details coming soon ...

Beverley Duguid
(Company Secretary)

Beverley has been an attendee of UK Black Pride since the first event and assumed the pivotal role of Secretary to the UK Black Pride Board in early 2008.

Now approaching the culmination of her PhD on ‘Women’s Perspectives of Travel in the 19th Century’ Beverly is writing up her thesis with the mantra, “Almost finished. Almost there!” chiming through her head.

Prior to pursuing her academic interests Beverley worked in the education and public sector too. She has long held an interest in gender equality issues, particularly in education, and has fulfilled a number of rewarding placements in the voluntary sector supporting women’s organisations. Beverley is also very creative and has had her literary works published in Chroma (2004).

Beverley is inspired by Audre Lorde’s analysis of difference in Sister Outsider: ‘history conditions us to see human difference in simplistic opposition to each other, rejection of difference is an absolute necessity, we have all been programmed to respond to human differences between us with fear and loathing’. This dissection of the human condition has moved Beverley to work with UK Black Pride to achieve its objective of reaching many nationalities and groups within the rich spectrum of the Black LGBT community. For Beverley, perhaps this challenging goal surpasses all others.

Pav Akhtar
(Community Liaison)

As the head of diversity in a government department Pav Akhtar is one the youngest senior civil servants in Britain. He is also UK Black Pride’s Director with responsibility for Community Engagement since 2009.

Pav is also an elected Labour Party politician representing Stockwell ward in the London Borough of Lambeth where he is vice-chair of the Children and Young People's Service.

Pav is a former graduate of the University of Cambridge where he was elected the first-ever Black president of the students' union. He is also the former NUS Black Students’ Officer and former National Race Equality Officer for UNISON which is Britain's largest public services trade union. Pav is currently the Campaigns Officer for the National Assembly Against Racism and an active member of UNITE the Union.

Pav has a long-standing commitment to the LGBT community serving as a gay rights advisor to Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London. He also serves as an elected BME community representative to the Board of Pride London, and is the elected Chairperson of Imaan, a support group for LGBT Muslims, their families and friends in Britain. Pav is active in his community's faith forum and is a regular speaker at conferences on LGBT rights, human rights and employment rights.

Although Pav is not a natural festival person (he prefers the Archers on BBC Radio 4 to anything with a drumbeat, with a few exceptions) Pav is proud to have joined the Board of UK Black Pride which he has supported since its inception and says: “UK Black Pride is a real opportunity for our diverse communities to celebrate the greatness within the British LGBT community. It is a safe space for us to relax and share with others our own identities, as unique as they are, and as far away and removed from the stereotypes that are often projected upon us by the mainstream”.

Jon Dennis
(Website & Graphics)

Jon Dennis is our website designer who has been working in the computer and entertainment industry since 1985.

He has also designed websites for Yo Sushi!, Rootstein Mannequins, The Wig Party, Evolved Events, Trademark Art, Balston Landscaping.

Patrick Lilley
(PR Consultant)

Patrick Lilley has worked for UK Black Pride as a volunteer for the last 3 years in a variety of roles including marketing and event consultant.

Patrick is a veteran of London’s club scene and an award winning Club Promoter, Event & PR Consultant who has worked with black audiences for over 20 years. Patrick opened Queer Nation 19 years ago and it is London’s longest running continuous club event and voted “Club of The Year” at the Black LGBT Community Awards in 2007. Patrick Lilley presents WORK @ AREA is Britain’s biggest weekly gay rnb & bashment event and the night was nominated “Club Of The Year” in 2008.

Patrick has contributed features, interview and columns to a number of gay titles including Gay Times, Attitude and QX magazine. Patrick has worked with a range of artists as PR consultant or manager including Norman Jay MBE, Duran Duran, Divine & Sinead O’Connor.

In 2002 Patrick created a photographic exhibition titled Queer Nation 02 (a photographic history of lesbian and gay clubbing since World War 2 in collaboration with 02 the mobile communications network).

In 2006 he hosted a Vogue Ball “Singstar Extravaganza with Sony Entertainment Europe that brought legendary vogue father Benny Ninja to London raising funds for Body & Soul (the charity supporting children & families affected by hiv).