ABOUT SPEAK
Preventative workforce wellbeing for construction.
SPEAK is operated by VYBRAH LTD, trading as SPEAK. We're a business, built to help construction and other high-pressure industries see and act on pressure earlier than conventional approaches allow.
SPEAK is not a charity or a crisis service.
WHY SPEAK EXISTS
Why SPEAK exists
SPEAK began with something deeply personal. Founder Alfie Ruffell lost four friends to suicide - four men with families, friends, futures and people who loved them.
That experience left him with a clear belief: conversations need to happen earlier.
SPEAK was created to make those earlier conversations easier. It started in construction, where people work closely together every day but conventional support does not always reach site-based and male-dominated workforces in a way that feels natural, trusted or relevant.
The mission has grown beyond starting conversations alone. SPEAK helps organisations understand the pressures surrounding their people, connect workforce experience with leadership action and create practical opportunities to intervene earlier.
People should not have to reach a crisis before someone is ready to listen.
Prevention starts with a single chat. SPEAK exists to help more of those chats happen before problems become crises.
A conversation can reveal more than an individual struggle.
A single conversation on site can surface something much bigger than one person's experience - a pattern in how pressure builds, where support is missing, or where leadership can't yet see what's happening on the ground.
SPEAK connects what people are experiencing with what organisations can change.
One company, one connected solution.
We combine trusted, human-led workforce engagement with structured organisational diagnosis, the Organisational Health Review. Neither stands alone. Their value comes from being connected, seeing people and systems together, and turning that view into practical action for leadership.
Human Layer
Reach people. Build trust. Intervene earlier.
- Trusted, face-to-face engagement on site
- Conversations that reach people conventional support doesn't
- Early signals, not just late-stage crisis response
- A consistent, human presence workers come to recognise
Organisational Health Review
Diagnose the systems surrounding people.
- Structured review of the conditions around your workforce
- Findings leadership can act on, not just read
- A shared framework for measuring organisational health
- Built for Tier 1/2 contractors and complex organisations
CONNECTED THROUGH MEASUREMENT
Workforce experience and organisational conditions are more useful when they are examined together.
The people building SPEAK
A multidisciplinary team combining construction experience, governance, research, finance, storytelling and product development.
Alfie Ruffell
Founder & CEO
Took SPEAK from site-level engagement to enterprise contracts. COP28, House of Lords, LSE.
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Tim Webber
CPO
20 years in product, 10 in mental health: Talkspace, founding Head of Product at Within Health, CPO at Nana.
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Dr Esther Murray, CPsychol
Clinical Lead
Chartered health psychologist. Reader in Health Psychology, Queen Mary University of London.
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Gleb Zhigaylo
CFO
15+ years across banking, Big 4 audit and startup advisory. $3bn+ in financings structured.
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Chris Fox
Governance
Senior NHS operational leader running a £50m mental health transformation programme.
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Florin Leu
CTO
Data and engineering lead on projects for Talkspace, Within Health and Goldman Sachs.
Got a question? Ask Alfie.
Prefer to speak with a real person before anything else? Alfie is happy to answer directly.
Let's talk about where you're starting.
Whether the pressure is showing up in the workforce, the organisation or both, the first step is understanding what is happening now.
Book a Discovery Call