Sade Banks

Founder and CEO of Sour Lemons

Sade Banks is currently the co-director of the social justice consultancy, The What If Experiment, where she creates strategies that build cultures of belonging across the creative and cultural sectors. The What If experiment evolved from Sour Lemons, which Sade founded in 2016 to address the lack of diversity in creative leadership based on her own experiences of exclusion and othering within the industry.

Sade is a life coach and mother to two tiny humans. She currently sits on the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board and the Main Advisory Board for the Freelands Foundation. She was previously a 2020 Clore Cultural Leadership Fellow, a Founding Member of the UK Lived Experience Movement and the Founding Chair of the Centrepoint Youth Parliament. She has previously served as a Trustee for the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, was the Social Entrepreneur in Residence at UnLtd (2017-19) and a Friend of Red Bull Amaphiko (2018-19).

Awards include Champion of Change: The Champion of Women Awards (2022), Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s BHM campaign as a ‘Next Gen Trailblazer for Racial Justice’ (2020), Natwest WISE100 ‘Leading Woman in Social Business’ (2018) and AMV BBDO’s ‘Top 50 Diversity Trailblazers’ (2018). In 2015 Sade received an award from Prince William for ‘Turning Her Life Around’.

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