Amy Solder

Amy is the deputy chief programmes officer at Nesta, supporting the work of its three missions.

Amy oversees Nesta’s work in Scotland and Wales and supports the mission teams to close the income-driven gaps in early childhood development, halve the prevalence of obesity and reduce domestic emissions to net zero.

She previously led Nesta’s work to test and scale innovations for public good, working with partners to run large-scale innovation funds, challenge prizes, open innovation processes and incubate in-house solutions. She published Funding Innovation: A Practice Guide to Making Money Work Harder to encourage more creative thinking as most funders tend to stick to only one or two approaches.   

With a background in education practice, Amy initially trained as a teacher and subsequently led education teams at Arts Council England and English National Opera. She took a year off to travel with her first born in a camper van around France.