Bode Adeloye has been a trustee at Calm Mediation for four years now. But his connection to the charity goes way back way longer than his tenure in the position.
As part of this year’s ‘National Trustee Week 2024’ we’re highlighting his story to celebrate the achievements and incredible work that all trustees carry out. Calm’s trustees are a crucial part of the organisation and bring with them a rich mix of skills and experience.
Bode joined the Board of Trustees in 2020 and the reasons and the route to the position are truly unique. His first interaction with Calm was when he was just 16 years old. He found himself in mediation with his peers at Bacon’s College, a secondary school in south London.
Calm has a longstanding relationship with Bacon’s College, and since 1995 has trained more than 600 Peer Mediators there.
“Looking back at it now, it was a pretty minor dispute with a classmate that took me there and I realised mediation was just a way of resolving it,” he recalls.
For Bode, his initial experience of mediation was just the start.
Having discovered the process, he became a Peer Mediator himself, in Bacon’s Sixth Form, then, as young adult, was able to co-mediate within his community. From then on went on to become and work as a volunteer. His commitment and experience was recognised when he went on to be awarded ‘CMC Community Mediator of the Year’ in 2020.
Now he’s a salesforce consultant at Slalom with CRM ecosystem experience encompassing real estate, financial services, government and non-profit sectors.
Bode says he regularly uses his mediation skills at work and believes mediation has made him what he is today.
“Now that I’m a consultant, a lot of what I do is also a conversation. So using natural language and trying to get certain things out without explicitly asking for them is now what I do on a daily basis.”
