We extend our congratulations to Kennedy Scholar Beth Kume-Holland (Harvard, 2018) and are delighted to share that both Beth and her company, Patchwork Hub, have been listed in the prestigious Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 for 2024, the UK’s leading awards for disabled leaders, trailblazers and change makers.
Beth started work on Patchwork Hub during her time as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard because of her own experience of living and working with a disability. Through her disability advocacy work, in the US and when she returned to the UK, she realised many talented disabled people, in the UK and globally, are excluded from work or working unsustainably due to accessibility barriers.
This led Beth to found Patchwork Hub, a disabled-led employment platform, training and consultancy service that connects inclusive employers with talented disabled and neurodivergent jobseekers, while helping those employers to improve their approaches to accessibility and disability inclusion.
“It was during my time as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard that I first had the idea for my company, Patchwork Hub. Through the opportunities and the sense of possibility that the Scholarship afforded me, I got very involved in disability advocacy work while out in the States, including meeting with Congress in Washington DC, representing Massachusetts to lobby for much needed policy change. It was through this work and meeting so many incredibly talented individuals unable to work due to unnecessary barriers, that I first developed the vision for Patchwork Hub. Without my time at Harvard and the doors that opened to me as a Kennedy Scholar, I don’t think I would have had the confidence and belief to start out as a disabled entrepreneur. I came away from my time in the US believing anything was possible and took that belief into the work that I still do today.”
Beth has also won the Changemaker of the Year award at the Foundervine Future Awards. The Award celebrates founders who have made a transformative and lasting impact on their industry and Beth received the award for her work around disability inclusion, inclusive recruitment and disabled entrepreneurship.
