St. Vrain Valley Schools

The Innovation Center is the next step in public education. We are a catalyst, incubator, and bridge between education, industry, and our community.

Assistant Superintendent of Innovation

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consultant

Chief Technology Officer

Adams 12 Five Star Schools

Director of Instructional Technology

Boulder Valley School District

Senior Operations Manager

Carrier Access Corporation

Sales Engineer & Technical Trainer

#leadership  #personaldevelopment #technology #edtech

Joe McBreen

Behind the Facade

As both a charity CEO and visual storyteller, I bring a unique perspective to documenting social change and community initiatives.

With extensive experience working across sectors - from grassroots charities to corporate ESG teams - I understand how to capture authentic moments that tell powerful stories. My background leading a multi-award-winning charity gives me firsthand insight into communicating impact effectively through visual media.

Photography and film are powerful tools for social change. I'd love to help you document your journey of making the world a better place.

Documentary Photographer, Filmmaker & Storytelling Consultant

Award-winning London-based digital film production company specialising in the production of documentaries and commissioned short films. Our first major documentary, My God, I'm Queer, won the award for Best TV Programme of 2021 and distributed by Film4 and Channel4 in the UK. 

Types of video we produce:
- Documentaries (Human Interest Stories)
- Videos for small and medium sized businesses. 
- Videos for social media and online

Director & Filmmaker

Naz and Matt Foundation

I lead a multi-award-winning charity that works to reduce the early causes of suicide and homelessness, and remove the barriers that prevent conservative parents from accepting their LGBTQI+ child.

Naz and Matt Foundation was set up in 2014 following the sad loss of my fiancé Naz, who took his own life two days after his deeply religious family confronted him about his sexuality.

Naz and Matt Foundation exists to empower and support LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex) individuals, their friends and family to work towards resolving challenges linked to sexuality or gender identity, particularly where religion is heavily influencing the situation.

We deliver front-line, grassroots support to both LGBTQI+ individuals and parents. We deliver films, books, talks and workshops about the dangers of religious & cultural homophobia to schools, colleges, universities, corporations, public sector and government. Our award-winning campaigns and film (My God, I’m Queer) and are designed to open closed hearts and minds through storytelling.  

Publishers of the LGBT+ illustrated children's book, Salim's Secret.

CEO & Founder

Bona Parle

Social impact platform for purpose-driven Creators and Influencers. As Creative Director I'm responsible for developing the brand, content and product design strategy, sourcing eco friendly partners, establishing relationships and designing new products.

CEO & Creative Director

Colour Grading London

Colour Grading London is a service that delivers Hollywood quality, cinematic colour to independent filmmakers, agencies, non-profits and corporate video teams. Our small, boutique colour grading studio is based in North London. 

We deliver high quality, beautifully rich, delicately powerful colour for Films, Video, TV Commercials, Corporate videos and Documentaries. 

Offering both colour correction and colour grading services, using the same Emmy award-winning tools used in many Hollywood blockbusters.

Senior Colourist

cxLoyalty

As a client-facing, Lead UX Consultant I was responsible for producing the Online Team's UX (User Experience) deliverables.  Key tasks included leading site mapping sessions, UX story card development, sitemap development, idea and mind mapping. My core deliverables were fully functional, interactive wireframes and prototypes produced using a range of tools including Axure, Sketch, Adobe XD and good old fashioned pen and paper. 

I introduced into the organisation "Video Prototyping" - a highly engaging process for producing video demos of new digital products long before UX, UI or even full requirements had been scoped out. This was highly effective at getting clients onside... and persuading our internationally diverse project teams to emotionally buy into the project from the beginning.  

Exceptional project delivery requires continuous, open dialogue at all levels with across the project from by team members. On a daily basis I worked very closely with the client, internal business teams, UI Designers, UI Developers, Project Managers and analysts. 

My main clients included RBS, NatWest, Ulster Bank, Barclays, 5th 3rd Bank (US), Lloyds.

Lead UX Consultant

University of Derby

Visiting Lecturer

JobPage

In January 2011 I started a new social enterprise called JobPage - the UK’s first crowd sourced jobs network designed to help young people under 25 find work and employment. Shortlisted for the Onrec "Technology Innovation Award” three years in a row, JobPage was proud to be the winner of the prestigious award in 2014, and featured on the cover of Recruiter magazine in December 2013 as one of the 'game changers' of the recruitment industry.

As the UK's first crowd sourced jobs network our technology powers both JobPage and Tech City Jobs - the leading job board for London's Silicon Roundabout and Tech City.

One of the core objectives of the project is to use technology to make a positive difference to the lives of young people, and give them a helping hand in starting their career.

JobPage is a crowd sourced social jobs network where the community helps each other find work. Jobs are contributed by the community, not just employers and agencies.

Founder and CEO (tech startup)

Recruitment Entrepreneur

Personally hired by James Caan (BBC Dragons' Den), one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs and investors, to help him launch his new company, Recruitment Entrepreneur, and brand five of his startups.  My brief as interim 'Head of Technology, Digital and Innovation' was to design and roll out a scalable digital recruitment platform that would allow the business to operate and expand quickly.

I had full responsibility for strategy, sourcing suppliers and negotiating contracts, plus devising and developing the company branding and websites for 5 new companies, sourcing and implementing a new cloud-based office software stack, setting up a cloud based VOIP phone system, procuring and launching a new best-in-class Recruitment CRM, and integrating a new marketing CRM with the public facing website. I reported directly to James Caan, and the company board and worked closely with senior stakeholders within the group.

Recruitment Entrepreneur is now one of the fastest growing new recruitment businesses in the UK, and the latest addition to James Caan's Hamilton Bradshaw portfolio - one of the world's top 30 recruitment businesses, with over 800 staff, 26 offices, and a turnover in excess of £350 million.

Head of Technology, Digital & Innovation - 6 month post (recruitment startup)

Affinion Group

After successfully delivering the MBNA Options loyalty and rewards website in my first three month contract, my consultancy company was contracted for a further 3.5 years to manage the build of several large scale consumer digital web projects for Barclays, Lloyds Bank, TSB, RBS, NatWest and American Express. I introduced an enterprise level UX process into the organisation to help improve quality and speed up delivery of the digital projects. I was responsible for recruiting and interviewing new staff members (contract and permanent) into the online team.

E-Commerce Consultant / UX Project Manager (Financial Services integration software company)

PageDo

In 2010 I co-founded (and fully coded) PageDo, a simple but very yet effective online tool for building landing pages for email and paid search campaigns.

Sponsored by the government's UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) organisation, we travelled to Austin, Texas to launch PageDo at the world famous SXSW (South by Southwest) technology festival. 

PageDo went on to win the prestigious Mini Seedcamp London competition and a was hand-picked as a TechCrunch Europa's awards finalist in the same year.

The innovative technology developed for PageDo evolved into the JobPage social recruiting platform.

Founder & CEO (tech startup)

In July 2014, I lost my fiancé to suicide after his religious family rejected him for being gay. That devastating moment taught me the true power of authentic storytelling and its ability to create real change.

Today, I'm on a mission to help 10,000 purpose-driven brands, charities, and funders transform their social impact from invisible to impossible to ignore.

THE CHALLENGE:
Many organisations with social impact, CSR and ESG initiatives struggle to document their impact. They worry about appearing self-promotional, lack time to capture their work, or rely on generic stock photos that fail to build trust with stakeholders.

What I've learned: documenting your impact isn't about vanity – it's about trust.

MY UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE:
• Social impact documentary photographer
• CEO of a multi-award-winning charity
• Brand development expert (helped a Dragon from Dragons' Den launch five businesses)
• Award-winning Channel 4 documentary filmmaker
• I'm part of the communities I serve

HOW I CAN HELP:

1. SOCIAL IMPACT PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO
Capture your CSR and ESG initiatives through powerful visual storytelling that centres on beneficiaries, not egos.
Message me "STORY"

2. STORYTELLING CONSULTANCY SERVICES
I'll work with you to implement the strategies from my storytelling formula directly into your organisation's website, social media, annual reports, or ESG and CSR communications.
Message me "CONSULT"

3. PURPOSE-DRIVEN PERSONAL BRAND COACHING
Transform your personal brand into a platform for change.
Message me "COACHING"

4. FREE SOCIAL IMPACT STORYTELLING FORMULA
My step-by-step framework for documenting impact with dignity.
Message me "FORMULA" to download

READY TO TRANSFORM HOW STAKEHOLDERS SEE YOUR IMPACT?
• Join my FREE personal branding mini-course: https://join.ogston.com/starter
• Follow me for social impact insights
• Download my free formula (DM "FORMULA")
• Message me for a brand strategy session

Let's make your mission impossible to ignore.

Featured in: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News, The Guardian, The Times

Matt Mahmood-Ogston 🌱

The algorithm just decided your story of saving 50 lives isn't worth sharing. Especially if you're a woman.

Experiments on LinkedIn recently proved what women had suspected all along.

Dorothy Dalton, Jane Evans, and Cindy Gallop tested the platform to see what would happen if men and women posted identical content at the same time.

In one test, two male participants with a combined ~9,400 followers posted the same content at the same time as two female participants with over 154,000 followers combined. 

The result? The men's posts achieved significantly more reach despite having 16 times fewer followers.

Same content. Same timing. Different gender.

Why is this important?

Algorithms have been with us for some time. But with the sudden rise of AI, the risks are now even bigger. And it's silencing the voices that need to change the world.

Research shows women's jobs are three times more likely to be automated by AI than men's. But the algorithm is also suppressing women's ability to tell the stories that prove their work matters.

For charity leaders and social impact organisations, this isn't just unfair. It's existential.

The machine learned what "valuable content" looks like from historical data. That data reflects a world where male-dominated topics like tech and finance were prioritised.

Where "agentic" language like "driven" and "strategic" signalled authority. Where linear careers without breaks were the standard.

The algorithm hasn't learned the value of what "care" means yet. Or the real meaning of "community". Or the messy, non-linear path of someone who took time off to raise children or support ageing parents.

It learned to suppress exactly the voices that social impact needs most.

Key lessons to learn

This isn't about LinkedIn being evil. It's about proxy bias - when neutral-seeming systems produce discriminatory outcomes.

Does the algorithm penalise:
- Impact topics over business topics
- Emotional storytelling over corporate speak
- Career breaks over uninterrupted trajectories

For women leading charities, this creates a vicious cycle. Your stories won't reach funders. Your impact doesn't get seen. Your organisation struggles to prove its value. You lose funding. You lose influence. The work suffers.

When AI suppresses women's voices in social impact, it literally suppresses stories of change.

Actions you can take

- Engage daily with posts from your connections.

- Send DMs daily to your closest peers.

- Then document your reach. Track which posts perform and which don't.

If you see patterns, you're not imagining it.

Then tell the story anyway. Use every channel. Email your supporters directly. Share in communities. Don't let an algorithm decide whose impact matters.

The stories that change the world can't afford to be algorithmically silenced. We need to talk about it, to break free.

Matt Mahmood-Ogston

Award-Winning Impact Storyteller & Photographer | Social Impact Photography, Workshops & Animated Photo Stories that Inspire Action, Win Funding, Prove Outcomes | Helping Charities & Social Impact Teams | Charity CEO

What is Proxy Bias?

AI doesn't just ignore your 'care work'.
It's been trained to see it as worthless.
Let me explain

Large-scale analyses of tens of thousands of job descriptions show 60-75% of ads use predominantly agentic, male-coded language (competitive, driven, strategic), while only 20-35% use communal language (supportive, caring, nurturing)

Studies from MIT, Stanford, LinkedIn and Textio confirm that AI systems trained on this data reproduce the same pattern.

The machine learned that care has less value

Why is this important?

If you lead an org focused on safeguarding, mental health or community, your content is being systematically downgraded.

Not because it lacks quality. Because the algorithm was trained on decades of data that prioritised male-dominated industries like tech and finance over care work.

Jazz Gandhi shared with me how Safiya Noble's book, "Algorithms of Oppression", exposed how search engines privilege whiteness and marginalise women through commercial incentives.

Search engines prioritised what was profitable, not what's fair. Social algorithms inherited the same logic?

When you write about empathy - algorithm sees low commercial value. When you share stories about community care, it predicts low engagement. When you discuss safeguarding vulnerable people, the system deprioritises it.

Proxy bias in action

AI uses seemingly neutral variables like word choice, content topics, and career gaps to create discriminatory outcomes. It doesn't need to know your gender. It needs to recognise the language patterns associated with care work.

The system thinks "care" is a distraction and "growth" is the real work.

Key lessons to learn

"Care work" content is less likely to generate rapid, high-volume engagement. Instead, it generates reflection. Empathy. Slower, deeper connection. But algorithms reward speed and volume, not depth.

Algorithms penalise slow engagement. A post that sparks conversation over days gets buried because the velocity isn't there in the first hour.

For charity leaders, this creates a difficult choice: write authentically about your impact and get suppressed, or adopt corporate language that betrays your mission.

The solution isn't one or the other.
It's both.

Actions you can take

Test your own content. Take a post about care work and rewrite it using agentic language. Post both versions at different times. Track the reach difference. Document and share what you find.

The algorithm won't change until we force the conversation. Share your data. Tag me in. Make the bias visible. Demand better.

And something else is happening that we need to talk about.

Many women are changing their gender on LinkedIn to male to see if it improves their reach.

Running experiments because there's evidence the platform itself treats them differently. Not just their content. Them.

That's how broken this is.

Thank you Dorothy Dalton, Jane Evans & Cindy Gallop and the many other women who have done the prior work in this area.

How to Challenge Proxy Bias

Leading a charity after losing my fiancé to suicide. Nobody prepared me for this. Three hospitalised panic attacks proved it.

I wasn't ready.
I wasn't built for this.
I wasn't the person the world needed me to be.

Naz's death shattered me. One day we're building a beautiful future together. The next, I'm standing at his memorial, wondering how I missed the signs.

I was hounded by the press and media.
Our very private lives became public.

That loss led to founding Naz and Matt Foundation.
A mission born from grief.

The transition from tech entrepreneur to charity leader wasn't inspirational. It was brutal.

It almost broke me. Multiple times.

But I believed in something bigger than me.
A chance to put things right.

That belief, and the story I told over and over again, started to create a new feeling of hope. Both in me, and the people who were ready to listen.

Through persistence and consistency, I became ready.

I became the person I was meant to be.

Why is this more urgent than ever?

Trump's harmful executive orders. Starmer's trans erasure. The spike in hate crimes. The normalisation of fascism.

This is the moment storytelling becomes survival.

Because 78% of nonprofit leaders report high anxiety levels, yet we're expected to be endlessly optimistic. We carry other people's trauma, fight for resources, and lead teams through impossible odds.

Now we're also fighting against state-sanctioned erasure of the communities we serve.

The loneliness is the worst part. You can't tell your board how much you're really struggling. Your team needs you strong. Your beneficiaries need hope.

So you suffer in silence.

But here's the something we must not forget...

Our stories are the antidote to hate.

When legislation tries to erase people, a photograph proves they exist. When propaganda spreads lies, lived experience cuts through. When fascism relies on dehumanisation, authentic storytelling restores humanity.

This isn't abstract anymore. It's about whether the people we serve will be seen, heard, and protected.

Key lessons to learn

Anxiety isn't weakness. It's your nervous system responding to carrying the weight of change during a time when the stakes have never been higher. The solution isn't to push through. It's to process.

I started morning pages from The Artist's Way. Three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing every morning. No editing. No judgment.

It cleared the mental fog.
Gave my anxiety somewhere to go.

I added binaural beats during deep work. The science is clear: specific frequencies reduce cortisol and improve focus. 40Hz gamma waves became my secret weapon for cutting through distraction. I'm listening to it right now as I type this.

These weren't luxuries. They were survival tools.

You can't pour from an empty cup. Your wellbeing isn't separate from your mission. It's the foundation of it.

And right now, your mission needs you more than ever.

So this weekend, do something special.
Just for you.

It's not the bad behaviour that destroys human rights. It's the good people who excuse it.

I'm watching this play out right now with transgender rights across the UK and US.

In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled that "biological sex" can legally exclude trans people from spaces.

By January 2025, Trump had signed an executive order restricting gender-affirming care for persons under 19. New ID restrictions are making it harder for trans people to live without being outed.

In an environment that is increasingly becoming more hostile and dangerous.

Healthcare protections are being repealed.
Hate crimes against trans people are rising.

And most people who claim to care about human rights? They're silent.

Why is this important?

Your silence sends a message louder than any values statement on your website.

When charities stay quiet because trans rights are "too controversial," when institutions issue no statements because they fear donor backlash, when individuals scroll past these stories because they're "too political," you're making a choice.

You're choosing comfort over courage.
You're choosing funding over fairness.
You're choosing silence over solidarity.

In the social impact sector, we're supposed to protect human rights. But how can we claim to fight injustice in communities when we won't speak up about systematic rollbacks happening right now?

Key lessons to learn:

Your impact isn't defined by your mission statement.
It's defined by which human rights violations you're willing to ignore.

Staying neutral on human rights isn't neutral.
It's complicity with the people causing harm.

The communities watching your silence today will remember it tomorrow. They're noting who spoke up and who looked away.

Actions you can take:

Issue a public statement acknowledging these rollbacks and reaffirming your commitment to protecting all people's dignity and rights, regardless of political pressure or donor concerns.

Create space in your programming and storytelling to centre trans voices and experiences, showing solidarity through action, not just words.

The communities you claim to serve are watching what you do, not what you say.

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The most dangerous kind of silence isn’t ignorance. It’s charity and social impact leaders who know what’s happening - and say nothing.

Trans activists are being murdered for speaking up.

Around the world, including US, UK and Europe.  

It’s not random violence. It’s the result of rhetoric that dehumanises, policies that erase, and media that looks away.

If you run a charity, a B Corp, or a social impact team - silence isn’t neutrality anymore.

It’s a message.

And it’s being heard loud and clear by the people who need your support most.

For #TransAwarenessWeek I wrote about why ally visibility matters now, and what every leader can do this week to make a difference.

View newsletter: The Social Impact Storyteller

Trans activists are being murdered for speaking up. According to the latest data from Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring 2025 project, a gro

Open article: The Silence That Kills – Why Visibility Matters Now As a Trans Ally by Matt Mahmood-Ogston • 5 min read

The Silence That Kills – Why Visibility Matters Now As a Trans Ally

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