Rachel joined Birmingham City Council in 2011 as the new Assistant Director for Commissioning and Performance.
Rachel began her career in theatre and performance in the late 80s and subsequently trained in community theatre, setting up her own company which specialised in issue based work and forum theatre for children and young people.
Her drama work with young people has taken her to Edinburgh, New York, Manchester, Bath and Oxford with commissions for Bath Theatre Royal, Oldham Theatre Workshop and East London and City Health Authority.

With over 20 years experience in the private, public and voluntary sector Rachel's career has included extensive experience as a youth worker, counsellor and educator. Her management skills have delivered major transformations of services including the health services at Wandsworth Prison, establishing Islington Connexions and Islington Young People's Services and delivering the changes for Integrated Youth Support Services in Islington.

She is now Birmingham City Councils' Assistant Director for Commissioning and Performance and is responsible for driving the changes required to achieve the challenging improvements for young people that the Authority has set itself.

She is currently leading on developing the concepts of outcome based commissioning, applying outcomes based accountability in monitoring and development of service provision and the development of the Troubled Families initiative and models of social finance.