Meet The Team
We’re proud to be powered by a dedicated, skilled team working tirelessly behind the scenes to support our members and mission.
From safeguarding and compliance to technology, communications, and customer service, every member of our team brings passion, professionalism, and deep expertise to their role. While not all of us are martial artists, we’re united by a shared belief in what martial arts can do for communities – and in the values that BMABA represents.
Unlike many martial arts organisations, we operate with a dedicated employed team at our Petworth HQ and elsewhere throughout the UK, so our members receive responsive, knowledgeable support backed by decades of combined experience.
Governed properly. Audited independently.
BMABA CIC is a Community Interest Company regulated by the CIC Regulator, with a legal asset lock binding every pound to our mission. We’re led by a senior leadership team spanning executive, governance and safeguarding, and operations, working within management systems certified to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2022 under UKAS accreditation and externally audited every year. Safeguarding governance sits deliberately apart from commercial leadership, with a Designated Safeguarding Lead empowered to act on any concern, at any level.
Giovanni Soffietto
FOUNDER & CEO
Giovanni Soffietto is the award-winning social entrepreneur behind the British Martial Arts & Boxing Association. Raised in poverty and having launched BMABA with just £20 of start-up capital, he embodies the power of martial arts to transform lives and break generational cycles of disadvantage.
With more than 25 years of martial arts experience as a participant, instructor and fighter, Giovanni brings a deep, lived understanding of the sector, and a track record of building sustainable, mission-led organisations from the ground up without funding or external backing. He remains the strategic and operational driving force behind BMABA’s growth, innovation and nationwide impact.
Senior Leadership Team (SLT)
The expert team overseeing BMABA
The Wider Team
Bella
Marketing & Membership Services
Anna
Administration
Christina
Strategic Support & Safeguarding
Cat
Customer Services
Elizabeth
Administration
Jenny
SENCO & Inclusion Advisor
Sue
Educational Specialist
Rainer
Technical Support
Tharsh
Developer
Geoff
Retained Videographer
The Kind Of Employer We Choose To Be
The standards we hold the sector to start at home.
BMABA is an inclusive employer by conviction, not compliance. Our team spans a broad mix of ages, genders and backgrounds, with women holding three of our four senior leadership roles. We are a neurodivergent-led organisation, from our Chief Executive through members of our wider team, and we build working practices around how people actually think and work best, not around convention.
We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant, and we pay every member of staff the real Living Wage. We invest in young people, creating first-career opportunities and structured development in a sector that has rarely offered either. And because our headquarters also hosts our Fighting Chance Baby Bank, the values we employ by and the values we serve by share a front door.
We put down roots as well as standards. From our home in Petworth, we contribute to the upkeep and heritage of the town, support local historical research, and lend our expertise and technology to amateur and community groups whenever it’s needed. We donate to local sports teams, charities and schools, and we deliver martial arts in small rural schools that would otherwise have no access to it, because a national organisation should still be a good neighbour. Wherever we can fund locally, we do.
