Beth Kume-Holland

She / her
CEO of Patchwork Hub and disability advocate.
Patchwork Hub

Award category:

Cross-Sector Advocate

Beth is an award-winning social entrepreneur, consultant and advisor. She is the founder and CEO of Patchwork Hub, an employment platform connecting talented disabled and neurodivergent job seekers to work opportunities through their jobs board, while skilling up employers around accessibility and disability inclusion through consultancy, training and wider support.

She founded Patchwork Hub after her own experiences of the barriers that exist for disabled people in the workplace and after meeting so many others prevented from thriving in their work due to needless inaccessibility.

Patchwork Hub has grown quickly and works with partners of every size, from FTSE 100 clients and Disability Confident Leaders to organisations just starting out on their disability inclusion journeys. They’ve trained hundreds of employees across organisations and connected jobseekers to thousands of work opportunities to build long-term careers.

Alongside her work at Patchwork Hub, Beth is a disability rights advocate, the co-founder of the Disabled Entrepreneurs Network and is a Commissioner for the UK’s Independent Commission for Healthier Working Lives, run by The Health Foundation. She regularly contributes to policy work and academic research, and speaks on panels or delivers keynotes around disability inclusion, most recently delivering Oxford University’s 10th Annual Disability Lecture.

Living with complex and chronic health conditions including Fibromyalgia, PoTS and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Beth graduated Oxford University with First Class Honours, Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar and has since worked across sectors to become an internationally recognised champion and changemaker for disability inclusion, inclusive leadership and accessibility in business.

Beth is a passionate advocate for disability inclusion and believes strongly in the power of community and working together to drive the change we all want to see in the world. She would love to connect with anyone and everyone working towards Patchwork Hub’s social mission: closing the disability employment gap and creating an accessible, inclusive future of work.

Every day I’m blown away by the weight of talent in the disabled community and the incredible work that is going on to drive positive change across every aspect of society. The barriers as a disabled person can feel insurmountable, but the strength of our community should give us so much hope and empowerment. To be recognised in the Disability Power 100 again, alongside such esteemed changemakers, is an honour I will never forget.

Q&A

Beth Kume-Holland
There is no ‘right path’ in a career. Careers are long and you don’t need to have it all figured out at the start. Don’t panic when something doesn’t work out – I’ve found my failures to be much better moments for learning than any of my successes. It can be really hard as a disabled person to face barriers that others just never have to think about or try to navigate. But you will have developed skills and perspectives that others don’t have and it’s really important to remember the value that you bring.
My work at Patchwork Hub and more broadly is all about creating an accessible future of work and closing the disability employment gap. To that end, I work with organisations across the UK to help them to improve their approaches to accessibility and inclusion. While I also work with amazing jobseekers to connect them with employment opportunities and help them to find work or support. But just working with employers and job seekers alone won’t be enough to drive that broad-based change that we need around disability employment. I also work with our community and partners across the third sector, academia and policymaking to push for the changes we need to see around policy, such as my work as a Commissioner on the Commission for Healthier Working Lives.
I’ve got big plans for Patchwork Hub in the coming years. We’re growing out our team and looking to scale fast, and I can’t wait to show everyone what we’re building. And all the work I do is really focused on addressing the broader barriers that are excluding or marginalising disabled people in the workplace. So I’ve always got that big goal that guides everything: creating a more accessible future of work and closing the disability employment gap.
I love films! Before I started Patchwork Hub I had massive dreams of becoming the next Speilberg and even studied filmmaking out in the US. So when I need to switch off, there’s nothing better than losing myself with a cuppa and a good film.
My family and friends. It might be clichéd, but the support they give me each and every day is something that I never take for granted and I know how lucky I am. When I’m having a tough day, I can always rely on them to spark a bit of joy!
I currently have no pets, but my ideal life involves having a dog who is best friends with me and my two cats… If that’s not hedging my bets too much!
The ingrained and inaccurate assumptions so many people have about what disabled people can achieve, the lives we can lead and the skills we can have.
Unsurprisingly, I think there’s a lot to be done around removing barriers in employment for disabled people. Whether it’s building in greater flexibility around working patterns, communication styles, or making sure adjustment processes are up to scratch, so many current barriers could be removed relatively easily. But that’s just in the area I focus on in my work – there are so many needless barriers in every aspect of society and life, from public transport to healthcare to digital accessibility and the internet (and many, many more!). And what’s great about something like the Power 100 is that I get to find out about all the amazing people who are pushing forward on all those fronts!
"A white woman smiling with dark brown curly hair, wearing a black blazer standing in front of a bright street art backdrop.

Areas of expertise

Accessibility, Business, Charity, social enterprise, Community, Cross Sector, Disability Advocacy, Employment, Equality, Social Media influencing

Disability Power 100 profile information is self-submitted by the profile subject. Shaw Trust understands and respects that disability and impairment descriptors and language use varies from person to person. Shaw Trust assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or discrepancies in the content of this, or any other, profile page.

Image credits: Laura Jane Dale
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