.png)
_edited.jpg)
FIX THE
SYSTEM.
IMPACT THAT LASTS
BREAKOUT is lived-experience led, delivery-grounded, and deliberately honest about what works and what takes time.
We're building the foundations needed for lasting impact.
FOUNDER
ROMAN DIBDEN
Roman Dibden is a lived-experience system builder working to raise standards in youth employment and access to opportunities.
His journey into this work didn’t start in a boardroom. It started navigating the very systems he now works to change.
After being excluded from school at a young age and growing up around instability, Roman experienced first-hand how quickly young people can be written off not because of a lack of ambition, but because the system around them isn’t built for the reality they’re living.
Over the past decade, he has supported thousands of young people as they navigate the transition from education into employment. Through that work, one issue has become impossible to ignore: the biggest risk for many young people isn’t education itself, it’s what happens next. That fragile moment between education and employment is where too many capable young people get stuck.
Having led rapid national growth in the charity sector, Roman now focuses on challenging how institutions design routes into work, pushing for more honest, joined-up and practical pathways that actually hold, rather than short-term interventions that look good on paper but fall apart in real life.
Alongside his frontline work, Roman has become a trusted voice in national conversations on youth employment. He has appeared on BBC One, LBC and TalkTV, and been featured in The Guardian, where his work was described as being “filled with a sense of raw humanity.” He is also a graduate of the American Express Leadership Academy, reflecting his commitment to building bold, scalable solutions to systemic challenges. That belief that young people are not the problem, but the system around them often is, led him to found BREAKOUT.
BREAKOUT exists to rebuild the pathway between education and employment by bringing together young people, employers and communities to create structured, sustained routes into opportunity.
Roman’s focus is simple: raise the standard, close the gap, and build something that actually works.
TRUSTEES
Chair & Trustee
Rachel Hardwick-Cox
Group Technical Program Manager at Booking.com
I bring over 25 years experience in technology development, specialising in delivery, governance, change management, team and executive leadership. This background will enable me to provide structure, a framework for establishing and managing clearly defined outcomes that ensure the vision of the charity is realised in a way that provides transparency to the board and stakeholders, as well as adheres to charity compliance and governmental regulations.
I am a certified executive and leadership coach (EMCC and ICF credentials) that will enable me to support and grow both the board as well as guide Breakout's leadership team through the establishment and scaling of the charity, ensuring the focus is on delivering for Manchester and UK youth.
Trustee
Roxana Lawton
Director of Azra Strategy & Delivery Ltd, Roxana has dedicated her career to delivering a range of skills and knowledge exchange programmes, and interventions to tackle local and national policy. Roxana is passionate about providing opportunities and pathways for all, as a dyslexic thinker she was told as part of her careers advice as a child that she would never go to university, and graduated from the University of Manchester with her BA Hons in Religion and Theology, later being an academic at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Roxana holds various voluntary roles, such as Ambassador for Empower Together, forms part of the Digital Skills Advisory Board, for Trafford and Stockport College Group.
Trustee
Heather Gallagher
Heather oversees marketing at Global School Alliance.
With over 10 years in marketing working alongside the charity sector, academic publishing, work experience providers and now global citizenship, the development and wellbeing of young people remains central. She is bringing her experience and passion for the Breakout mission to the board to ensure that as many young people as possible can have a fair chance at becoming confident, resilient and prepared for their futures.
CONTACT
YOUR MOVE.
Young people are not the problem. The uncomfortable truth is that the system reflects the choices leaders make to prioritise speed over care, compliance over confidence, and optics over outcomes.
BREAKOUT is being built by people that are done with accepting that.
If you’re ready to take responsibility and show up better, even when it's inconvenient, get in touch.