Making Space

Making Space operates a talent acquisition and learning platform for Neurodivergent, Chronically Ill, and Disabled professionals, pairing free skills courses, community, and job matching for job-seekers with training, candidate access, and accessibility services for employers. Job-seekers create a free profile that translates lived experience into transferable skills, receive role recommendations based on strengths, goals, and accessibility needs, and can take self-serve courses or apply to the Ascend Fellowship, a 12-month workforce mobility program covering benefits navigation, social capital, mentorship, and paid apprenticeships across early-career and mid-career tracks. Employers pay for access to the candidate pool and for manager and recruiter training intended to raise confidence in hiring and retaining disabled talent.

Beyond the platform, the company runs a consulting practice that delivers employee training, accessibility audits, inclusive design consultation, and creative development for organizations across physical, digital, and cultural environments, drawing on a global pool of pan-disabled subject matter experts. A separate division, Making Space Media, built with disability rights advocate Sophie Morgan, produces film, TV, and branded content centering disabled voices; it holds a first-look deal with Hello Sunshine and co-produced the documentary Fight to Fly. Stated platform reach includes a community of more than 50,000 professionals and over 200,000 employees trained across enterprise partners.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Keely Cat-Wells became disabled at 17 and, after moving to the United States, lost a job due to disability discrimination. She first founded C Talent, a talent agency focused on disability representation in media with a roster reach of over 50 million, which was acquired in 2022. Following that acquisition she founded Making Space to address the disability employment gap, where disabled professionals face twice the unemployment rate of non-disabled peers.

Business model

Job-seeker access to the platform, courses, and community is free, while employers pay for access to pre-qualified candidates and for hiring and retention training; the company additionally sells accessibility and disability-inclusion consulting engagements and produces media content through Making Space Media. Programs such as the Ascend Fellowship have been supported by philanthropic and foundation funders including the GitLab Foundation.

Employer-paid access to the talent pool and training programs, plus fees from the consulting practice; job-seeker side is free.

Traction

Community of more than 50,000 disabled professionals; over 200,000 employees trained across enterprise partners including Microsoft, Salesforce, Red Bull, and Coca-Cola; reported 100% increase in manager confidence in hiring and retaining disabled talent after engagement, and 2x more effective placement. The Ascend Fellowship, launched in 2024 with GitLab Foundation support, reports a 123:1 social return on investment and partnerships with Salesforce, Visa, Red Bull, and Indeed. Consulting clients include The Broad Museum, The Television Academy, Salesforce, Blue Origin, Red Bull, Sesame Street, NBC's Paris Olympics and Paralympics broadcast, Cannes Film Festival, and Netflix.

Latest developments

In 2025 Making Space was accepted into Google's AI American Infrastructure Academy cohort (the only LA-based company in the second cohort) and used the four-month program to develop AI-driven career and training recommendations; it announced a partnership with the Valuable 500 in October 2025. CEO Keely Cat-Wells received a L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth honor in October 2025 and first place in the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards, which carries a $100,000 grant.