At Moonshot, we are very proud of our company culture and values. We believe that building a diverse team with a range of experiences and expertise helps us better understand online harms and violent extremism and enables us to design and deliver the effective work we do to counter them.
Our Moonshot Team Spotlight Series aims to shine a light on what it’s like to work at Moonshot, the different projects we work on, and our company culture and values from the perspective of our team. The series will feature members of the Moonshot Team with a variety of backgrounds, skills, and experiences — not everyone joins us from the online harms or violent extremism sectors. While the profiles will be anonymous due to the sensitive work we do, we hope that the series will provide a snapshot of the Moonshot Team, our work, and our culture and values.
Moonshot Manager
Moonshot Managers lead on project, client, and team management across our work in online harms and violent extremism. Our managers are experts across multiple areas of harms and geographies, and across our proprietary tech.
Managers are critical to the work we do at Moonshot. They are essential to developing new methodologies and tech solutions, and coordinating the design and delivery of our projects, from insights and threat monitoring to interventions and capacity building.
Our Manager this week has worked with Moonshot for a year leading on our work globally on Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA).
What is your background/what were you doing before joining Moonshot?
For six and a half years, I worked for the London Metropolitan police. I spent two years in uniform, then became a detective specializing in safeguarding. I focused on cases involving gender-based violence (GBV), domestic violence (DV), or child protection, before moving on to focus on Serious & Organized Crime. This involved human trafficking cases, modern slavery, and child sexual exploitation and abuse (including organised grooming gangs and online paedophile rings). I joined Moonshot because I wanted to work in space where I could make a direct impact in terms of policy, insights, and research, while applying my expertise from working in the police.
What does your current role entail? What is the most interesting part of your role?
I lead Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA) programming for Moonshot. My responsibilities include designing and delivering projects, developing insights, and campaigns / interventions, providing technical expertise on the topic of CSEA, building relationships with external partners and stakeholders, and working on bids for new projects. I also help out with projects related to other online harms, for example, I am currently carrying-out semi-structured interviews for another project. Since joining Moonshot, I’ve learnt a lot about external communications and risk management in designing and delivering online interventions, which is really important in the CSEA space.
What is the toughest/most challenging part of your role?
CSEA is a new area of work for Moonshot within the online harms space, and we are working hard to lead and collaborate on important efforts to end this type of online harm. However, as with all new areas of work, the biggest challenge is navigating the design and implementation of new programmes and finding new solutions appropriate for tackling CSEA online.
How would you describe the Moonshot culture?
Above all else: Moonshot positivity and kindness. Every member of the Moonshot team is willing to help each other, and go above and beyond in making each other feel part of the team and looked after, which is so important in the work that we do. Everyone who works here is also solution oriented and always looking for a new way of doing things or the next biggest challenge. The innovation and ambition embedded in the Moonshot way of doing things is both motivating and inspiring.
In your opinion, what is the most significant trend to watch in the online harms space at the moment?
CSEA is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, online threats. But so much is still unknown and under researched. There are over 30 million known images of child abuse online. COVID-19 lockdowns increased the risks too, with children spending more time online, and more apps being created with under-resourced moderation. However, it’s promising to see how Moonshot can work and collaborate with stakeholders, including government and tech companies, designing new projects and providing recommendations on how to tackle the issue.
Finally, when you were younger what career did you dream of pursuing?
An orchestra conductor.
Learn more about our company culture and values.
Interested in a career at Moonshot?
Please visit our website for information about our current vacancies.
