Jane Hatton

CEO

Education, Public and Third Sector 
Picture of Jane Hatton

Jane is a disabled social entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and author.

Involved in diversity and inclusion since 1990, she ironically gained a new protected characteristic in 2004, acquiring a degenerative spinal condition. Three spinal surgeries on, she has constant chronic pain and some weakness in her left hand.

She founded the award-winning social enterprise Evenbreak in 2011, in response to seeing some real problems in disability employment – most employers not understanding the benefits of employing disabled people, inclusive employers unable to attract disabled candidates, and those candidates unable to identify which employers would take them seriously. Evenbreak’s core service is an accessible specialist job board, where inclusive employers and disabled candidates can find each other.

Employers requesting support in disability inclusion prompted the development of an online best practice portal and bespoke training and consultancy services.

A recent addition is the Career Hive – relevant and accessible careers support for disabled people looking for new or better work, delivered by careers professionals with lived experience of disability.

Jane is proud that all of the Evenbreak team are disabled people, and is determined to change the narrative around disability, through writing, speaking and influencing people. Advocating the social model of disability, she promotes the benefits to society of removing disabling barriers.

Writing books including “A Dozen Brilliant Reasons to Employ Disabled People” and “A Dozen Great Ways to Recruit Disabled People”, she is on the executive board of Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative and a Trustee of Action on Disability and Development International.

“I’ve had the immense privilege of meeting, working with and learning from other people who also have lived experience of being disabled. Together we, and our allies, can change the narrative of disabled people looking for work from ‘a problem to be solved’ to ‘a valuable source of premium candidates’.”