Speaker, author, campaigner.
Joeli Brearley MBE is an activist, author and public speaker leading the fight against the motherhood penalty.
In 2015, following her own experience of pregnancy discrimination, she started the charity and campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed from her kitchen table. Under her leadership, the charity changed multiple laws, supported 100,000 mothers with free advice about their rights, and built an active community of half a million working mothers. In 2021, she took the UK Government to court for indirect sex discrimination and won. She also organised March of the Mummies, the largest protest of working parents in British history, bringing 15,000 parents onto the streets across ten UK cities. The Chancellor subsequently said the protest was instrumental in securing £5.2 billion of investment in childcare.
Joeli was awarded an MBE for services to working families in the 2025 New Year Honours. She was named one of British Vogue’s 25 Most Influential Women and ranked PR Week’s 8th most prominent British communicator. She has advised the Quebec Government and the Office of the US President, and served on the Government’s Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Advisory Board. In 2021, Simon & Schuster published her debut book, Pregnant Then Screwed: The Truth About the Motherhood Penalty.
She is now the founder and CEO of Growth Spurt, an online programme supporting working parents and their line managers through pregnancy, parental leave, returning to work and reproductive health challenges. Growth Spurt helps organisations improve wellbeing, confidence and retention, while giving managers the skills and knowledge to support their people through major life transitions.
Joeli speaks on the motherhood penalty, building workplaces that retain mothers, and how to run campaigns that create genuine, lasting change.
Speaker reel
‘‘I wanted to say a massive thank you for an incredible talk today. The feedback has been so positive with one person saying ‘it’s the best PepsiCo event I’ve ever been to’.’’
Pepsico, Becca Choudrey
Media Reel
Previous clients include:
“I am emailing on behalf of Maggy, the Parent and Carers Network, the Women of Wellcome Network and all who attended the totally wonderful event today. It is such a skill to present a subject that can feel quite a depressing state of affairs in such a totally engaging, fun and hugely impactful way. Feedback from colleagues who left straight after the Q&A told me that the lifts were buzzing with conversation. And it was good to see that we had so many senior people in the audience too. There were many more that had joined online. It really means a lot that you were able to join us..”
— Jeanette Ward, Media Manager, Wellcome Collection BBC News Interview
March of the Mummies triggered coverage on every news channel, with more than 900 items of press and media coverage across print, radio and TV. Here is the interview I did on BBC News straight after the march
“A heartfelt thank you from me for your inspirational talk this week. It was incredibly motivating to all those listening in and packed full of reasons and actions for positive change.”
Jane Cusdin, Associate, Automotive 30% Club
Pregnant Then Screwed 2021 impact video
The pandemic created enormous challenges for pregnant women and mothers, many of whom were forgotten in policy making. This video captures what we did to change that. Video was made by Sodium and scripted by me.
As featured in:
“Joeli’s work has had a massive positive impact on the lives of thousands of women. Here is a vital and urgent voice.”
— Laura Bates.
Sky News interview for March of the Mummies .
Good Morning Britain interview.
In the week leading up to the historic budget which pledged £5.1 Billion investment in childcare, I was invited onto Good Morning Britain to discuss our data which found that too many women were terminating wanted pregnancies due to childcare costs .
“The fearsome and funny founder of Pregnant Then Screwed.”
— Elle Magazine .
Keynote speeches, workshops, panel discussions…
“From taking the government to task on childcare legislation to fighting for flexible working for all, Brearley has made it her mission to make women’s working lives not just fairer, but feasible..”
— British Vogue