Glen's Story
Choice, Connection and Creation
Glen’s story begins not with a grand plan, but with a series of choices — some made in youth, some in uncertainty, and some in response to people and moments that changed the course of his life, and the lives of many others.
Glen Ford is the founder of Champions, which he started in early 2025 following 22 years of service and leadership working alongside Rwandans, supporting their journey of reconciliation, recovery and rebuilding.
Join as a member, read and share Stories of Humanity, and help fund the next generation of young Champions.
It seemed appropriate to start this series with his story — so you can better understand the origins of Champions.
Born in London in 1967, Glen grew up with an early awareness that life is shaped by both hardship and moral courage. His father, Norman, had been born and raised in India, as part of the Anglo-Indian community, and came to Britain after the partition of India.
Glen later heard how his dad, faced with racism while supervising men unloading ships in India, refused to allow one man to be excluded because of the colour of his skin.
His mother, Valerie, showed a different kind of courage, standing by her love for Norman despite the prejudice of 1950s London — choosing love over prejudice.
At 19, Glen made one of his first defining choices, when he and Janet became engaged, with Glen preparing to take on the responsibilities of marriage, a ready-made family and starting his career as a trainee manager — all happening together just a few months after he turned 20.
Glen and Janet became engaged at Christmas 1986.
Recognising the weight of that responsibility, he reached out to Marina Smith earlier the following year. Marina was a Methodist minister’s wife and religious education teacher who had created a small counselling retreat in rural Nottinghamshire, England.
Marina became a mentor to Glen and his family. That connection would quietly shape everything that followed.
Years later, Marina’s sons, Stephen and James Smith, transformed that retreat into Beth Shalom, now the National Holocaust Centre and Museum — opening in 1995 — a place where survivors found dignity, love and a voice.
Through the Aegis Trust, their work extended to Rwanda after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Rwanda became a turning point. In early 2004, Glen volunteered during the creation of the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the final resting place for 250,000 victims.
Join as a member, read and share Stories of Humanity, and help fund the next generation of young Champions.
He encountered both the depths of inhumanity and the extraordinary resilience and humanity of survivors.
Glen saw that hatred is not abstract; it is learned, normalised and acted out by ordinary people. He also saw that healing, empathy and responsibility can be taught, practised and multiplied.
In May of that year, 2004, Marina asked if he would stay involved, but challenged him to choose. He could not fully pursue his corporate career and this emerging mission at the same time. The competing demands would become too great.
In Glen’s mind, there was only one pathway. But it was his relationship with Marina, and his trust in her advice, that gave him the courage and strength to step into the unknown.
Glen walked away from secruity into an unknown future and journey.
He gave up a secure management role that he had held for 20 years, and was now a senior manager.
He and Janet had recently sold their home, dedicating some of the surplus proceeds to support the work in Rwanda.
That choice led to years of creation
Glen served as a trustee and volunteer for Aegis Trust, then a relatively new non-profit, and the UK National Holocaust Centre and Museum.
The Holocaust Centre, now established for 30 years, reaches tens of thousands of British schoolchildren each year.
Its impact extends through two permanent exhibitions, survivor testimony, a 5,000-item specialist library, more than 1,000 commemorative roses and a growing digital collection preserving thousands of historic images and documents. More than a museum, it has become a national centre for helping people understand where prejudice can lead—and the responsibility each person carries to challenge it.
The Aegis Trust was establishing itself as a leading genocide prevention organization, drawing on the public health model of prevention.
He later joined Aegis in a paid capacity in 2012, helping secure major funding to expand its peace and values education in Rwanda, and to extend the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The work expanded into Kenya, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, using stories to prevent violence and enable peaceful communities by strengthening empathy, critical thinking and personal responsibility.
Research later showed the programme could also support mental health and healing.
Join as a member, read and share Stories of Humanity, and help fund the next generation of young Champions.
Champions is the next chapter of that same story
It grows from Glen’s lived conviction that humanity is not passive. It is chosen, strengthened through connection, and expressed through creation.
Stories of Humanity have been his inspiration — the stories he learned at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, then in Rwanda, and beyond.
They do more than inspire. They activate agency. They help people decide who they want to be, how they relate to others, and what future they are willing to build.
Glen’s life is a witness to this framework, the Champions Pathway of Choice, Connection and Creation: choice opened the door, connection gave it meaning and grounding, and creation turned it into a new future, that is still unfolding.
And this has enabled the most precious of all gifts: gratitude — for all the people, and all the stories, he has been privileged to meet and know.
This site is dedicated to all those stories, to enable new Stories of Humanity that shape and change the world we live in.
More Resources
This video Ai podcast gives a summary of Glen's journey and the origins of Champions.
And this below is an Ai podcast also tells Glen's story, and points to some of the exciting potential Champions developments in the future.
And below are short videos of Glen speaking at a Young Presidents Organization event in New York, September 2023 — with fellow panelist Dr Denise Garcia from Northeastern University, Boston.
Glen speaking at an event in New York, September 2023
Q&A session from the same event
And below, Glen gives an interview in 2024 on his journey to Rwanda
