Brighton United: how personal stories are reshaping Sussex business
13th June 2025
Author EditorPosted on Categories News
An editorial on a movement that’s building bridges in Brighton’s professional community.
Brighton and Hove has long prided itself on being progressive and inclusive. But for many talented professionals from the global majority, the reality has been quite different, one marked by isolation, missed connections and untapped potential. Brighton United didn’t emerge from corporate strategy sessions or policy committees. It grew from the lived experiences of individuals who decided that feeling like an outsider shouldn’t be part of life in this vibrant city.
When personal experience drives public change
The catalyst came in 2020, a year that forced many uncomfortable conversations about race and belonging. For Jamarl Billy, now co-chair of Brighton United, that year brought an unavoidable confrontation with racism in his personal and professional life.
“I became deeply aware of the racism manifesting in everyday life, institutionally, systemically and personally,” Billy reflects. “I was forced to face the visceral reality of racism, and I didn’t have the privilege of disassociating from the conversation. I experienced substantial pain, as did the people closest to me, and I decided I needed to make a difference. The pain needed to mean something.”
This experience led Billy to work with Brighton & Hove City Council on their anti-racism strategy, where he encountered others sharing similar experiences of an invisible but persistent glass ceiling. “I had to do something,” he explains. “I personally wanted to be involved in a group of people that were doing something, because I didn’t want to see people going through what I had to face.”
Not too long after, founder Kevan Smith would experience his own moment of reckoning. Having moved to Brighton in 2022, he found himself consistently isolated in professional spaces. “I would go to networking events and feel just like, why am I the only person who looks like me in this space?” Smith recalls. “You couple that with people not necessarily knowing how to engage, it’s not that people are not willing to, but somehow we just haven’t built that familiarity.”
The turning point came in April 2024 when Smith made what he thought might be a career-limiting decision: posting publicly on LinkedIn about Brighton’s segregation issues.
“When I made that post on LinkedIn, I thought I was just condemning myself to be ostracised locally,” he admits. “But people saw the post and they were like, ‘You know what? I identify with that. What are we going to do about it?’”
One voice becomes many
That LinkedIn post created something unexpected: a movement. Rachel Gilmore, a coach and facilitator, met Smith at TEDx Brighton in April 2024, just after he’d made his public statement. “I saw the emotion on his face when he said to me: ‘I’ve just posted something and I’m not quite sure about the reaction it’s going to have,’” Gilmore remembers. “That gave me a close-up experience and it was a wake up call.”
For Gilmore, it meant examining her own experiences. Working predominantly in London, her client base was naturally diverse, she realised that her experiences in Brighton were pretty much with white professionals. “I had actually contemplated this when we moved from London… I knew it was going to be different, less diverse, but I didn’t know what I could do about it.” Until she met Smith and decided to align with and support Brighton United with her own professional expertise.
Namrata’s story highlights a different angle. She arrived in the UK in 2022 for her master’s degree, and university life felt wonderfully multicultural. But stepping into Brighton’s professional world proved jarring.
“Once I got out of the university and started working, I was missing something, those multi-cultural conversations, that warmth of being around diverse people. I thought it was the same everywhere,” she explains. “For the longest time, I kept thinking something is not clicking – until I saw Kevan’s post and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s what’s wrong.’”
The realisation was stark: “I started noticing that, oh, I am the only person of colour in the room. And that scary feeling of like, oh my God, how should I be? How do I show up?”
Damilola’s observation cuts to the heart of the issue: “Brighton has so much diversity — it has the universities, the ideas, the talent. But what it often lacks is retention. Brilliant minds come here from around the world, and yet they quietly disappear.”
For him, Brighton United became more than just a professional network — it became a space to breathe again. “There was a time I started to shrink,” he reflects. “Not because I didn’t have dreams, but because every time I shared them, they seemed to unsettle the room. I wasn’t being overambitious — I was just being human, with ideas I believed in.”
He recalls the journey of launching platforms like EonCanvas and FarmHeroes+, and the emotional weight of trying to grow ideas in environments that weren’t always receptive.
“Sometimes the resistance didn’t come from malice — it came from unfamiliarity. When people haven’t seen certain types of leadership, creativity, or culture, they don’t always know how to respond. That hesitation can look like silence, exclusion, or doubt. And when you’re on the receiving end of that often enough, you start to internalise it.”
Yet Damilola chose to channel that experience into connection. “I joined Brighton United because I don’t believe in gatekeeping opportunities. I believe we grow stronger when we all move at pace together. We act as a bridge — helping diverse talents integrate, helping others see the value they bring. When we get that right, we’re not just ticking boxes — we’re unlocking more income, more ideas, more innovation for a more prosperous Brighton.”
Building something that works for everyone
What emerged from these personal stories was a clear understanding: the solution couldn’t just work for one group. “The solution has to work for the city,” Smith explains. “The ultimate goal is to have a whole community wellness. We see Brighton United being a bridge, a bridge between existing communities and spaces. The solutions we come up with have to contribute to the city, to the existing business community, and also be a solution that works for the global majority.”
The approach isn’t about creating separate spaces, but about making existing spaces work better for everyone. “Let’s get everyone together more consistently and just familiarise one another, make it normalised, the presence of black and brown people in professional spaces,” Smith explains. “When you have that consistency, then people start to understand how to engage.”
A practical approach to change
Brighton United has developed a two-pronged strategy based on community feedback and real-world testing:
Brighton United Signature Events respond directly to what the community needs: skills.
Development, training, professional growth. These workshops focus on connection, learning through expert-led sessions, include community storytelling, and end with meaningful networking time.
Collaborator Platform Events partner with individuals and organisations whose values align with Brighton United’s mission. These carefully curated partnerships amplify diverse voices while maintaining core principles.
All programming gets shaped by feedback from participants, and a mentoring programme runs alongside the events, connecting experienced professionals with those seeking guidance.
The bigger picture
Brighton United operates as part of Business United CIC, a registered Community Interest Company with broader goals. The organisation is building a replicable model, a practical guide for creating inclusive communities and supporting marginalised groups that other cities can adapt.
“We want to ensure that what we’re doing and how we’re collaborating is done in a way that, for years to come, we’ll be seeing year-on-year progress,” Billy explains. “This new organisation is just another iteration of this desire that we will make a change, whatever that looks like.”
The group has established core values of: action, belonging, collaboration, legacy, and unifying, principles that guide their work and help them bridge the gap between intention and impact.
Who benefits and how
The primary focus remains global majority professionals who’ve felt isolated in traditional networking environments. But the organisation also recognises that marginalisation happens across different identities: race, neurodiversity, disability, sexuality. Recent initiatives have included neurodiversity awareness, reflecting this broader understanding. Allies play a crucial role too. Those who share the values around diversity and collaboration find meaningful ways to contribute while the focus stays on centering global majority voices.
Getting involved
The organisation invites participation in several ways: attending events to experience the community firsthand, sharing personal stories during storytelling sessions, exploring collaboration opportunities for aligned organisations, contributing skills to workshops and mentoring programmes, and providing financial support as sponsorship or donations.
Questions and answers
The organisation frequently addresses questions about what makes it different from other networking groups. The answer lies in its origin, born from lived experiences of exclusion, designed to create genuine belonging rather than superficial connections.
For those not from the global majority who want to help, the door is open. Allies are welcome, with the understanding that the focus remains on centering global majority voices.
On intersectionality, Brighton United explores different forms of marginalisation through storytelling and collaborative events while maintaining its core focus on global majority experiences.
The Business United CIC vision extends beyond Brighton, creating a model that other communities can adapt to address similar challenges.
For organisations wanting to get involved, structured collaboration opportunities exist including workshop partnerships, event sponsorship, mentoring support, with discussions focused on how skills and values align with the mission.
Looking forward
As Damilola puts it: “We cannot leave a weak link in the community. These are minds that have ideas that would change the community, that would change the city. But because we’re not comfortable with them being in their skin, we tend to push that voice out.”
Brighton United represents a shift in conversation. Instead of asking “Why am I the only person who looks like me in this room?”, the goal is to have people asking “How can we work together to solve the challenges facing our community?”
The stories of Billy, Smith, Gilmore, Namrata, and Damilola aren’t unique to them. Similar experiences are happening throughout Brighton and Sussex. The difference is that these individuals decided to act on what they were experiencing.
They’re building the Brighton that everyone wants to live and work in, one connection and one story at a time. It’s a practical approach to an age-old challenge, grounded in the belief that when people feel they belong, everyone benefits.To learn more about Brighton United, upcoming events, or involvement opportunities, search for Brighton United and Business United CIC online, or connect through their social media channels.