Our Forty Under 40: Where are they now?

forty Next month Jewish News, in partnership with the Jewish Leadership Council, relaunches Forty Under 40 – our search for the 40 Jews under the age of 40 poised to make the biggest impact on our community.

Almost five years after the first list was published, Alex Davis continues his look back at those featured in 2010 to see what they’ve achieved – this week from numbers 30 to 21...

30 – Rabbi Aaron Goldstein

Aaron is still senior rabbi of Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue, which celebrates its 50th birthday this year.

The community has grown to 1,100 adult members and approximately 400 children, making it the second largest Liberal synagogue community in the UK.

Recent highlights include celebrating Shabbat with its partner New York Liberal Jewish community and the growth of Nippers@Northwood, which now attracts 20 babies or toddlers with their parents and/or grandparents every Friday morning.

Additionally, Rabbi Goldstein currently serves as vice-chair of Liberal Judaism’s Rabbinic Conference, having previously been co-chair.

29 – Candice Woolfson

Candice left Project Chesed in January 2012 and has been working at Kids Company since 2013.

Kids Company is a London-based charity that provides practical, emotional and educational support to 36,000 vulnerable and at-risk children and young people.

She runs the School of Confidence, which provides young people over 16 with positive opportunities to build their confidence and guide their talents.

Since 2010, Candice has also set up her own consultancy firm, A New Day Consultancy, and worked on projects including carrying out a needs assessment for Jewish Genetic Disorders UK and developing an employee volunteering programme for the Jewish Volunteering Network.

28 – Danny Seal

Since 2010, Danny has been re-elected as a councillor for Hampstead Garden Suburb in Barnet.

He is currently chairman of the Residents Forum and sits on the investment committee of the Barnet Pension Fund, a £980million fund investing in equities, bonds and alternate assets.

Daniel is also chief executive of AcreWhite, a global media company which produces a series of conferences connecting start-ups to investors and key corporates all over the world.

The company has offices in Singapore and London and is expanding into San Francisco and New York next year.

Communally, Danny guides a ski trip for wounded Israeli soldiers and remains a trustee of the JNF.

27 – Joel Stanley

In October 2014, Joel was promoted to Moishe House’s Senior Regional Director: West and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he supervises Moishe House residents and staff members in the United States.

In May, he led and organised ‘Retreatology’, an international gathering of 50 young Jews in Boston, Massachusetts which provided training for participants to create retreats in their own communities.

From 2011, he served as Moishe House’s Director of International Programming in which he coached and supervised over 75 Jewish leaders in their twenties, empowering them to create home-based communities for thousands of participants in over ten different countries worldwide

. In 2012, he was a coordinator of Grassroots Jews and organised independent Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services for 300 people.

26 – Rabbi Bentzi Sudak

Rabbi Sudak is still the CEO of the Lubavitch Foundation, a role he has held since 2009.

Since 2010, under Rabbi Sudak’s leadership, new Chabad centres have opened in Islington, West Hampstead, Belgravia and the Universities of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.

Additionally, the Lubavitch Children’s Centre has continued to flourish and now provides a wide range of child care, health services and welfare to well over 1200 families.

The Centre currently also offers Vista training and an adult education centre.

Rabbi Sudak has continued to partner with various City firms to annually set up the largest public Sukkah in the UK in New Street Square.

25 – Adam Pike

Adam currently runs the award-winning social enterprise ‘BeyondMe’, which he co-founded in 2011 with Michael Harris.

The organisation aims to promote generosity in leadership to help improve society, businesses and individuals.

Since 2010, Adam has become a World Economic forum “Global Shaper” and won a Beacon Award for Philanthropy, sponsored by JP Morgan.

He has also taken a sabbatical as a policy adviser in the Cabinet Office and Treasury and worked as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting, as well as joining the World Jewish Relief board as a council member.

Most recently, he co-founded a start-up, ‘SuperCarers’, which matches care-seekers with carers in a more personal way.

24 – Jeremy Newmark

Jeremy is currently a political and public affairs adviser with an international client base that includes individual politicians, non-governmental organisations and corporates.

He stood down from his role as CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council at the end of 2013, having previously expanded the membership, scope and reach of the JLC by launching new operational divisions including LEAD (leadership development) and the Community Chest Fund for central communal provision.

Jeremy took a lead in communal celebrations of the 65th anniversary of the State of Israel with the national ‘Closer to Israel’ event.

Politically, he oversaw the development of the central communal Political Oversight Group and notably helped establish new laws preventing the misuse of Universal Jurisdiction provisions to arrest visiting Israeli officials.

He also led efforts that resulted in the banning of the military wing of Hezbollah across the EU.

Active in Labour party affairs, Jeremy was recently selected as a candidate for the 2015 local elections in the Hertsmere area.

23 – Zaki Cooper

Zaki currently works in public affairs for the FTSE 100 bank, Standard Chartered. Prior to this, he worked on public relations for Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis on his appointment as Chief Rabbi and worked in the Royal Household from 2009 to 2012 on the communications for the Diamond Jubilee.

He remains a trustee of the Council of Christians and Jews and masterminded the City Seminars programme which attracts business leaders to speak.

Zaki also founded and continues to coordinate the Isaiah Berlin Lecture, which has featured the likes of Simon Schama, Deborah Lipstadt and Rowan Williams.

22 – David Brown

David executive director for UJS and works closely with each president and sabbatical team to ensure continuity across terms, as well as being responsible for the overall fundraising and communications strategy for the organisation.

Since 2010 he has also worked as the Jewish Social Action Forum (JSAF) coordinator and the JHub campaigns manager.

While at JSAF and JHub he was the lead European professional working with colleagues in North America and Israel to launch Siach – an international Jewish social action and environmental network.

David remains a trustee of the Jewish Youth Fund, spent two years volunteering with Keshet UK, and helped launch Limmud L’Am – an accessibility programme for participants with additional learning needs.

21 – Stephen Shashoua

Stephen has continued in his role as director of the Three Faiths Forum.

Since 2010, the organisation has grown to 18 staff members and currently engages over 12,000 people annually in the UK. It also active in supporting delivery in Israel, Sweden and New York.

As testament to Stephen and his team’s hard work, the organisation was awarded the Mayor of Camden’s Charity of the Year earlier this year and received international acclaim by winning the Doha International Interfaith Award.

Additionally, Stephen has taken up roles as a UN Alliance of Civilization Global Expert and a Visiting Research Fellow attached to the Department of Professional and Community Education at Goldsmiths University in London.

Pick up next week’s Jewish News for the third instalment; numbers 20-11!