Claudia Villa MBA, CMgr, MSc, BA(Hons)

Claudia is an international safeguarding professional experienced in working with International Sport Federation and National Governing Bodies to develop and implement safeguarding best practice. As former Head of Safeguarding for Commonwealth Sport, Claudia has driven the Commonwealth Sport movement safeguarding agenda, developing their first ever global safeguarding policy; creating and leading on the development and implementation of safeguarding framework for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Trinidad & Tobago 2023 Youth Games. Claudia safeguarding approach has been shaped by a number of years at Barnardo’s where she led services supporting children who suffered abuse and exploitation. Working closely with Local Authority, Police  and Education, Claudia covered strategic advisory roles for Safeguarding Children Partnerships where she was able to influence and support the development of local governments’ policies and procedures on child sexual abuse and criminal exploitation. Claudia also has strong expertise in the humanitarian sector; leading and developing support services for refugees and asylum seekers at both the UN Migration Agency (IOM) and British Red Cross where she still volunteers as a member of the Psychosocial Support, Rapid Deployment Team to support people in crisis.  Her passion and dedication in this field has been recognised with the Queen’s Award.