Ilja Abbattista

Ilja Abbattista is a lived-experience consultant, qualified trainer and facilitator, mentor, speaker and entrepreneur specialising in modern slavery and human trafficking. She combines lived experience with professional practice and more than 25 years of business and entrepreneurial experience, with particular expertise in prevention, trauma-informed practice, neurodiversity and the meaningful integration of lived experience.

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Over the past three years, Ilja has worked across the voluntary, public and private sectors through training and facilitation, consultancy, policy and document review, advisory work and public speaking. She has contributed to work with organisations including Hestia, Hope for Justice, the Human Trafficking Foundation, Survivor Alliance, the West Midlands Anti-Slavery Network and Beyond the Streets. She is also a Board Director of Bright Future Co-operative and contributes to a number of survivor-led and professional advisory groups and national initiatives.

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A growing focus of Ilja’s work is prevention, particularly understanding how perpetrator behaviour, business practices, systems and environments create opportunities for exploitation and where earlier intervention could disrupt them. She is also interested in how trauma and neurodiversity affect vulnerability, communication, disclosure and engagement.

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Alongside her sector work, Ilja has founded more than 13 ventures, including an award-winning restaurant and long-running cookery school, giving her a distinctive understanding of business operations, employment and exploitation risk.

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Ilja is also developing Inner First, an approach placing self-awareness, regulation, boundaries, choice and wellbeing at the foundation of working safely with vulnerability and lived experience.