Ajul Bushel doesn't think much has changed since her swimming career ended. “There aren't enough outlets or mechanisms for people to say, 'This is what's happening to me,' without fear of repercussions. Scholarships and funding will be lost, stories will be hushed up.” Being able to tell her story is liberating. “I've always been someone who wants to be in control of everything,” she says. “Swimming is that: just you and the clock ticking down. Writing is really beautiful in that respect, because it's just you, the page, and the pursuit of the perfect sentence.”
Swimmer Ajul Bushel's day begins at 4:45 a.m. with training (swim, bike, sprint, drills, weights), with only Sundays off. Today, her week is just as packed, but with board meetings, recruitment, keynote speeches, “stakeholder management and mapping and, sorry, that's me…” she types quickly into her beeping phone, before continuing, “and an audit starter, a day of back-to-back phone calls…” In three years, the 10,000 Interns Foundation has created 5,000 living wage internships for black and disabled students in over 700 UK companies.
she time For this feature she attends glitzy events in New York, including a dinner hosted by Skepta just a few days before we meet. “It's amazing to be in a room like that,” she says, “but I always feel like I have my skirt down or my nails not done.” The pub is one of the few places she can unwind every once in a while, and she comes here with her roommate when she needs to escape from writing. “The book sold the same week I got offered the job,” she says, eyes wide. During her first six months, she also turned in a 20,000-word manuscript amid the pressures of being a first-time CEO in a new industry.
But it was worth it: while at Downing Street this year, she met a young woman who was an adviser to the Government Art Collections Committee, lobbying to include more artists of colour in No. 10's collection. “I went up to her afterwards and said, 'That's so amazing. I'd love to hear more of your story.'” She had actually interned with the programme two years earlier. “It was such a beautiful moment and I feel so honoured to have experienced it,” she says. “That's when I feel most successful.”
