Meet our co-kick-starters

  • Franklin Boateng

    AKA KING OF TRAINERS

    “Even though I’m a massive fan of sneakers and all brands, I feel it’s my duty to make sure we are holding them accountable for the way they produce & distribute their footwear.”

    Franklin AKA King of Trainers is a renowned sneakerhead and the UK’s biggest sneaker blogger and influencer, writing on all thing’s sneakers / trainers at www.kingdomoftrainers.com. In 2014, he founded ‘The Drop of the Year Awards’, the first awards platform for trainers, with live shows. Franklin has consulted on the UK’s first feature-length documentary on sneaker culture, ‘Sole Seekers’, which was released in 2018. Following his TEDx talk ‘A Social Media Mind’ in 2015, he regularly lectures on social media, curates, and consults on cultural experiences. As a father, Franklin is a firm believer in educating the young on using social platforms responsibly.

    Twitter - @KingOfTrainers

    IG - @kingoftrainers

    https://franklinboateng.com/

  • Tansy Hoskins

    Tansy is an award-winning journalist and author. Her books include The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion and FOOT WORK – What Your Shoes Are Doing to The World - an exposé of the sneaker culture and the dark origins of the shoes on our feet. The book digs deep into the industry’s core social and environmental issues to reveal the true cost of mass shoe productions.

    Tansy lectures across Europe on the politics of the fashion industry at universities, museums, cultural and political events, and make regular radio and television appearances.

    Twitter - @TansyHoskins

    https://tansyhoskins.org/

  • Sven Segal

    Sven is an award-winning entrepreneur and a sustainable shoe design pioneer who started developing his first ethical and biodegradable shoe line back in 2003 - after a decade of designing footwear for mainstream brands and uncovering widespread exploitative and polluting practices in the industry.

    To take his life mission a step further Sven founded The Better Shoes Foundation in 2016 - shifting his focus from designing low-impact shoes and developing footwear for some of the most iconic sci-fi film productions (namely Star Wars and Star Trek) - in favour of designing tools and systems to support an industry-wide transition towards a low-carbon and climate-friendly economy.

    Twitter - @svensegal

    IG - @sustshoe

    https://bettershoes.org/

We are three sneaker loving individuals with a common vision to change the sneaker industry for good. The idea behind SneakAhead was to work together with Sneakerheads which are ultimately the movers and shakers of the sneaker culture. By joining forces, we have a greater chance that the biggest sneaker brands will listen and act.

In 2019 Franklin met Sven when they both sat on a panel at the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show, discussing the carbon footprint left by sneakers. Sven interviewed Tansy in 2020 as part of a review of her FOOT WORK book for the Better Shoes Foundation.

Special thanks to our soleful contributors:

Prof. Aladin Aladin, Darya Badiei ( shall we be more specific here and describe your roles ?-)

Sneakerhead supporters:

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