Founder & CEO of Making Spaces
Community Spotlight
with Keely Cat-Wells
Founder & CEO of Making Spaces
Walk us through your background and what brought you to your current field
In my late teens , I danced my way into a prestigious London academy . I wanted to become a professional dancer and musical theatre performer . But one day , I woke up in tremendous pain . I saw doctors , they kept dismissing my symptoms as stress or an eating disorder . Before long , I was hospitalized and eventually given the right tests then , after many surgeries , I was able to eat again . Today , I live with chronic illness , chronic pain and a permanent ileostomy . I also live with the PTSD caused by the medical trauma I endured .
When I was well enough to leave the hospital , I took a trip to Los Angeles for a fresh start and to try and find a road back into the creative industry . But soon after , I lost a job due to ableism . These experiences drove me to start representing disabled talent , placing them in roles in Hollywood . That quickly grew into a full-fledged talent agency called C Talent .
At C Talent , our goal was to change the way the world sees disability through the power of entertainment and media . We placed disabled artists in roles with HBO ' s The Last of Us , the Hunger Games prequel , and major brands like Rihanna ' s Savage X Fenty , Disney , and Amazon . The talent we represented had a combined reach of over 50 million people . In 2022 , C Talent was acquired , marking a major milestone for the creative industries and disabled community .
After selling my first company I founded Making Space , a talent acquisition and learning platform for companies to train , access and retain pre-qualified disabled talent . At Making Space we are building new pathways to employment by putting employer endorsed education at the frontend of the hiring process , which leads to better outcomes for both employers and job-seekers . Additionally , we are using the
power of storytelling to shift the narrative . Sophie Morgan and I have also formed Making Space Media and under a first look deal with Reese Witherspoon , Hello Sunshine is telling the untold stories of disabled people
Tell us a bit about your organisation , Making Space . What inspired its creation and how does it help people living with disabilities ?
Since the acquisition , I founded Making Space , a talent acquisition and learning platform for companies to train , access and retain pre-qualified Disabled talent . While we still have a focus on the creative industries , this solution
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