Our Founders
Emma Alford
Martin France
Martin France
Emma has a real passion for developing people and instilling confidence to help them achieve their true potential.
Recognising the power of mindset and its impact, Emma helps her clients ‘shift’ their thinking to create limitless growth and continuous improvement. She has over 25 years' experience in education, consultancy, coaching and leadership development. Emma’s career has led her to work internationally with clients in UK , Australia, US and Europe, in a variety of sector s. Her dedication to excellence ensures she continually updates her skill set with the most current methodology and thinking. Emma is a CTI Coach, Executive Coach, NLP Practitioner and is trained in a range of psychometrics. Clients have described Emma’s infectious energy and her ability to connect and inspire through her storytelling and experience.
Emma recently coauthored ‘My Happy Habit Journal’ last year to help create ,a positive future, for better mental health in young people.
Martin France
Martin France
Martin France
With over 20 years’ experience at Mars Incorporated, from joining in the factory to most recently leading as UK Grocery Sales director, Martin has built and led diverse teams and knows the functional and EQ skill requirements of our industry.
Martin is dedicated to fostering diversity, inclusivity, and social mobility in all organisations and society as a whole.
He is known for his strong leadership, strategic vision, and the ability to lead teams through various challenges and opportunities.
Martin leads on business development and education outreach, working closely with our colleges and partners to ensure the most effective pathways to inspire and engage socially diverse talent.
Tracey West
Martin France
Tracey West
With over 30 years in retail management, leadership development, executive and team coaching Tracey brings a unique blend of expertise to her role as a confidence and leadership coach. Having navigated the dynamic world of retail, including a pivotal stint as Head of Retail, Tracey is no stranger to setting strategic directions and fostering empowering environments.
What sets Tracey apart is her holistic approach to coaching, seamlessly weaving together her commercial acumen, leadership expertise, and positive psychology techniques. She specialises in cultivating emotional resilience and intelligence.
Certified in executive coaching, health & Wellness coaching, stress management, and neuro-linguistic programming. She completed her Coaching Diploma through The Coaching Academy and is accreditated to deliver Lumina Spark personality profiling, Clarity 4D and ECR, an emotional intelligence assessment.
About Spark Opportunity
Our Mission
To empower young people for life-long success and foster equity
through skills development, resilience-building, and transformative
partnerships.
Our Team
Our dedicated team of industry experts and professional coaches began SPARK opportunity in 2023. Read more about our founders here
Our Programmes
We make the connections. SPARK has a pathway with three clear focus areas.
1. Grow Talent. 2. Join the Workplace. 3. Thrive.
At Spark, our work encompasses several key initiatives:
- Inspiring Students: We inspire school leavers, specifically underprivileged ones, igniting their passion for their careers.
- Broadening Business Perspective: We expand the horizons of businesses by connecting schools/colleges and universities to employers, building essential soft skills and fostering opportunities.
- Mentorship for Real-World Alignment: We provide an opportunity to align the world of work with the student experience through amentor program that gives one-to-one support while attending a group skill-building program.
- Fostering Diversity and Inclusion: We support businesses with cultural training, focusing on on a celebration of diversity as a cultural enhancement to business.