Lessons in Leadership: APM speaks to Dr Bea Lewkowicz OBE

Dr Bea Lewkowicz (pictured, right) was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to Holocaust Remembrance and Education as part of the King’s New Year Honours list 2026. For Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2026), Association for Project Management spoke to Dr Lewkowicz about receiving this accolade, her project work and the lessons she has learned.

As Co-Founder and Director of the ‘Refugee Voices Testimony Archive’ of the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive | United Kingdom) and Sephardi Voices UK (Sephardi Voices UK | Home), and Project Lead for ‘Holocaust Testimony UK’ (Home | Holocaust Testimony), Dr Lewkowicz oversees the recording, transcribing, cataloguing and long-term stewardship of testimonies, support interviewees and their families, interviewers and her team, who work with this sensitive and often upsetting content. She has conducted more than 350 interviews with Holocaust survivors and their descendants. 

Dr Lewkowicz said: “My role brings challenges as testimonies are deeply personal and often involve trauma, requiring sensitivity, trust and careful judgement. What I find most rewarding is the privilege of facilitating the telling of a life story, giving the interviewee a sense of agency how she or he wants to tell that story, and a sense of comfort that her/his life story and the relatives of the interviewee who were murdered in the Holocaust have now become part of an archive, which will preserve their voices and continue to inform education, remembrance and public understanding.”

The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 is bridging generations, and Dr Lewkowicz’s work has been hugely impactful on younger people who are encountering these histories for the first time. Her work in creating eye witness testimonies has allowed young people to look beyond historical facts and connect with the personal lived experiences.

Dr Lewkowicz continued: “Hearing directly from survivors and refugees fosters empathy, critical thinking and a deeper understanding of the long-term consequences of persecution, displacement and intolerance. I have seen how testimony can challenge assumptions, prompt meaningful questions and encourage reflection on moral responsibility in the present. For many young people, these encounters are transformative, helping them recognise the relevance of historical experiences to contemporary issues such as racism, antisemitism and the treatment of refugees.”

As project lead, Dr Lewkowicz has seen first hand how digital technology can reshape project work in significant ways. In the first phase of the Refugee Voices Archive (2003-2008), interviews were conducted on mini DV tapes. From 2015, digital took over. Digital recording, cataloguing, website creation and dedicated testimony social media channels expanded both the reach and longevity of testimony, allowing voices to be accessed by wider audiences across geographical and generational boundaries. At the same time, digital platforms transformed how testimonies are used in education, enabling young people to listen to survivor and refugee experiences in more interactive and meaningful ways. Dr Lewkowicz has advice for other project professionals whose work is being changed by technology:

“While these technologies create new opportunities, they also bring ethical and practical challenges, particularly around consent, context and safeguarding. It is important that project professionals remember this. For me, navigating these responsibly is now a central part of ensuring that testimony remains accurate, respectful and impactful in a digital age.”

Receiving an OBE is a very select honour, it celebrates the contributions of well-known personalities, government employees and ordinary people who have served their community. For Dr Lewkowicz, it is a recognition of her work.

“Receiving an OBE is deeply moving and humbling. It has prompted me to reflect on the people and stories at the heart of my work, and on the trust placed in me by survivors and refugees who have shared experiences that are often painful to revisit. I see the honour as belonging to them as much to them as to me. As the child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, who lost many members of their families, this is very personal to me.  I would also like to acknowledge the dedication of my entire Refugee Voices team: the interviewers, transcribers, researchers, camera men and editors, and all my colleagues at the Association of Jewish Refugees.”

Insights for project professionals

Dr Lewkowicz has a considered approach to project leadership. While reflecting on her decades of experience, Dr Lewkowicz shared several insights that project professionals across all sectors can learn from:

“My project work has taught me the importance of listening. Not only to my interviewees, but also to my team members and colleagues. One of the biggest challenges with my work is the responsibility that comes with caring for deeply personal and often traumatic testimony. Building and maintaining trust with contributors has been vital in ensuring informed consent. Representing experiences accurately and sensitively require constant attention and careful judgement.

"I think it is important to follow one’s instincts and not be deterred by practical obstacles when it comes to creating new projects. With new technologies, it is easier to start one’s own project and find partners and collaborators at a later stage. Listening and making people feel valued is an important skill for any team leader.”