Louise Plunkett
Nominee Profile
Location: Norwich
As the founder of Impact with Lou, wife and mum of two Louise is a passionate advocate for digital accessibility. Using her own lived experience of severe sight loss to raise awareness educate and train businesses on creating accessible content, to initiate positive change for improved barrier free social media for the global disabled community.
Receiving a rare genetic, and incurable eye disease diagnosis aged 15, she didn’t fully embrace and accept her disability until much later in life. Lou has not only navigated life with progressive sight loss, but also a long-term chronic illness too. Positivity and a sprinkling of humour lies in the heart of everything she does, and if you meet her in person, then you’ll also get to meet Michael Cane, her long white cane – and no, you don’t mess with Lou!
She volunteers with a local charity, Vision Norfolk, supporting children, young people and families to enjoy and participate in various activities and events, empowering them and their sighted family members to realise that a visual impairment does not need to hold you back from achieving your goals. Lou’s motto in life is that there is always a way around every situation, you might have to go the longer scenic route, but the destination is still the same.
She also volunteers with national charity The Macular Society as a telephone befriender, providing a friendly and empathetic listening ear to others living with central vision loss. By sharing tips and knowledge on aids, technology and personal experience. Lou can help support others who are struggling with coming to terms with their own sight loss.
Both volunteering roles allow her to encourage and inspire others in similar situations, which is a powerful motivational tool. Lou would have hugely benefited from these services in the early days of her own sight loss journey, when the only other people she met were over retirement age and had no relatable experience to being a teen adapting to a disability.
Lou shared her story as a contributing author in the #1 bestselling book ‘Letters to My Teenage Self, Volume Two’, which was published in 2023. This experience was cathartic sharing openly for the first time about her feelings and experiences during an already challenging time for any teen’s life. It was the final piece of the acceptance jigsaw and allowed Lou to finally break free of what had been buried and supressed for so long.
As her children have grown older, she now has more time to dedicate towards training on digital accessibility, from small start-ups to corporates. The insights and expertise she brings enables proactive change to happen. Lou has contributed to The Lilac Review, an independent government backed review looking into barriers faced by disabled entrepreneurs in the UK. In 2024 she was recognised as a top 100 female entrepreneur in the F: Entrepreneur campaign and was also chosen as part of Small Business Saturday’s #SmallBiz100. Lou loves to network and connect, especially in the disabled entrepreneurial community. She has been a keynote speaker at the House of Lords for a Lilac Review event last year. She also had the privilege of attending a small business reception at Downing Street too.
Her social media channels provide valuable insights for her communities on life with sight loss, the high’s, lows and reality checks, challenging misconceptions and stereotypes around blindness, alongside providing practical and actionable tips on how individuals and organisations can improve their own content, without excluding one of the biggest minorities. Her honest, straight talking and authentic content is not for vanity metrics, but to raise awareness, educate and improve the online experience for disabled users.
An introvert at heart, loving to escape somewhere quiet in the family VW campervan with her husband and boys, Lou loves to read (audiobooks of course!), indulge in loom knitting and baking when her arthritic wrists allow, and to be by the sea. Balancing sight loss and a chronic illness with family life is challenging and can be tough, but nothing is insurmountable.
Receiving a rare genetic, and incurable eye disease diagnosis aged 15, she didn’t fully embrace and accept her disability until much later in life. Lou has not only navigated life with progressive sight loss, but also a long-term chronic illness too. Positivity and a sprinkling of humour lies in the heart of everything she does, and if you meet her in person, then you’ll also get to meet Michael Cane, her long white cane – and no, you don’t mess with Lou!
She volunteers with a local charity, Vision Norfolk, supporting children, young people and families to enjoy and participate in various activities and events, empowering them and their sighted family members to realise that a visual impairment does not need to hold you back from achieving your goals. Lou’s motto in life is that there is always a way around every situation, you might have to go the longer scenic route, but the destination is still the same.
She also volunteers with national charity The Macular Society as a telephone befriender, providing a friendly and empathetic listening ear to others living with central vision loss. By sharing tips and knowledge on aids, technology and personal experience. Lou can help support others who are struggling with coming to terms with their own sight loss.
Both volunteering roles allow her to encourage and inspire others in similar situations, which is a powerful motivational tool. Lou would have hugely benefited from these services in the early days of her own sight loss journey, when the only other people she met were over retirement age and had no relatable experience to being a teen adapting to a disability.
Lou shared her story as a contributing author in the #1 bestselling book ‘Letters to My Teenage Self, Volume Two’, which was published in 2023. This experience was cathartic sharing openly for the first time about her feelings and experiences during an already challenging time for any teen’s life. It was the final piece of the acceptance jigsaw and allowed Lou to finally break free of what had been buried and supressed for so long.
As her children have grown older, she now has more time to dedicate towards training on digital accessibility, from small start-ups to corporates. The insights and expertise she brings enables proactive change to happen. Lou has contributed to The Lilac Review, an independent government backed review looking into barriers faced by disabled entrepreneurs in the UK. In 2024 she was recognised as a top 100 female entrepreneur in the F: Entrepreneur campaign and was also chosen as part of Small Business Saturday’s #SmallBiz100. Lou loves to network and connect, especially in the disabled entrepreneurial community. She has been a keynote speaker at the House of Lords for a Lilac Review event last year. She also had the privilege of attending a small business reception at Downing Street too.
Her social media channels provide valuable insights for her communities on life with sight loss, the high’s, lows and reality checks, challenging misconceptions and stereotypes around blindness, alongside providing practical and actionable tips on how individuals and organisations can improve their own content, without excluding one of the biggest minorities. Her honest, straight talking and authentic content is not for vanity metrics, but to raise awareness, educate and improve the online experience for disabled users.
An introvert at heart, loving to escape somewhere quiet in the family VW campervan with her husband and boys, Lou loves to read (audiobooks of course!), indulge in loom knitting and baking when her arthritic wrists allow, and to be by the sea. Balancing sight loss and a chronic illness with family life is challenging and can be tough, but nothing is insurmountable.