Where we started

Tilting the Lens was founded by writer, educator, and disability rights advocate Sinéad Burke in October 2020. From her desire to move from individual to system change, Sinéad wanted to create a team that would support companies and communities to embed accessibility into their processes, culture, and ways of working. Tilting the Lens strives to be its own best example – one that creates the conditions for disabled people to be successful, internally and externally. 

“I started a company, because I figure that if you’re going to change the system, you should probably just build a new one.”

Building a system takes time, but now we have a timeline of case studies, research, and a growing team that exemplifies what is unique about what we do, and how we do it. 

The organisation’s purpose evolved from Sinéad’s own lived experience as a Little Person, growing up in a world that wasn’t designed for her – a built environment and society that positioned disability as an identity and way of being that was less then, and that failed to be ambitious to what disabled people could achieve.

Sinéad’s ambition is bigger than visibility and representation.

“I want society to value disabled people as experts, innovators, and leaders. I want industries to acknowledge and make space for lived experience as intellectual property.”

Experts in accessibility

In our remote team, each member has honed specific and explicit expertise, each linked to our service areas of Built Environment, Product and Service Design, and Workplace Culture. 

While we have developed a team who have knowledge and skills, we have also been strategic in our expectation that the Tilting the Lens team be both experts and generalists. As a majority disabled team, we have to create space if people become sick or need leave for short or long periods of time. We have the skills internally to be able to support one another, to step into or lead projects outside of our primary expertise. We can do this because of our internal codification process and continuous learning from one another. We also have a vast supplier and partner network, so that we can scale our impact and grow for larger projects.

Tilting the Lens Timeline

  1. 2020

    In October 2020, Tilting the Lens was founded by Sinéad Burke in Ireland.

  2. 2021

    Emma Shaw joined as the first employee of Tilting the Lens and the team began to grow from there.

  3. 2023

    Tilting the Lens were consulting editors on the landmark issue of British Vogue, Re-framing Fashion.

  4. 2024

    Launched a partnership with National Talent Academies in Ireland for disabled screenwriters.