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Team

The people behind Poyntr, named.

Poyntr was founded by Caroline Esterson and Phoenixx Esterson. Here is who they are, what they have built, and the principles they hold themselves to.

Meet the foundersGet in touch

Why we built this

Listening should not be a luxury.

Across two careers in leadership and learning, the pattern was the same. The people who most needed someone to listen were the ones who never got it.

Pastoral staff are stretched thin and cannot be in every conversation. And there is always the young person who would never raise a hand in a survey, but would talk at 11pm if there were somewhere safe to do it.

We built Poyntr because the technology had finally caught up with that conviction: a companion that listens, safeguarding that keeps the conversation safe without breaking it, and trained people in charge of what happens next.

The founders

Two people. One product.

The people who started Poyntr are the people who build it. We name everyone behind what we say.

Caroline Esterson

Caroline Esterson

Co-Founder and CEO

Caroline created the REWIRE Framework, the coaching method behind Poyntr's conversations, and brings twenty years of experience in leadership development and organisational change.

Caroline leads the company's direction, and holds one principle above the rest: every decision has to serve the person on the other side of the screen.

Phoenixx Esterson

Co-Founder and CTO

Phoenixx built the platform end to end: the companion, the safeguarding pipeline beneath it, the encryption around every learner's data, and the system that turns conversations into anonymous statistics.

Phoenixx holds the architectural line on what the system will and will not do.

How we work

What we do, and what we will never do.

These are the commitments we make to every new partner.

What we do

  • We put safety firstNo companion feature reaches young people until the safeguarding beneath it has been checked end to end.
  • We measure ourselvesOur methodology is versioned, dated and open to anyone who wants to check it.
  • We say what we areA small founding team, one product, one country to start. We tell new partners what we have built, and what we have not.

What we will never do

  • Pass off an example as the real thingWhere this site shows an example instead of the real product, it says so. Where something is built but not yet running, it says that too.
  • Take credit for outcomes that are not oursWellbeing improves because pastoral staff, clinicians and young people do the work. We will not claim a school's results as our case study.
  • Pretend to be bigger than we areNo filler names, no advisors who have not actively contributed, and no customer logos we have not earned the right to show.

The work

What sits behind the companion.

In plain words: the companion young people talk to, the safeguarding beneath it, the encryption around each person's data, and the system that turns conversations into anonymous statistics.

For technical readersWhat has been built
  • 81 detectors tuned for young people, each looking for one pattern.
  • 17 critical-risk checks that run on every message.
  • Configured for 19 kinds of setting, with 9 detection profiles a setting can be tuned to.
  • Per-person encryption: each person's data is locked with its own key, held in a UK key management service.
  • A chained audit log of every staff view. Each entry is linked to the one before, so a changed entry breaks the chain.
  • Erasure by destroying the key: once a person's key is gone, their data can no longer be read.
  • 8 public Pulse endpoints, not yet publishing. No figure is shown for a group of fewer than 50 young people.
  • Every safeguarding-pipeline change is benchmarked against the previous version, and every prompt change carries a variance test.

These figures are read from the product's own code when the page is built.

Who to write to

The fastest answer comes from the right inbox.

Talk to us

Tell us what you are working on.

We will tell you honestly whether we can help.

  • For education and apprenticeships: a 30-minute walkthrough of what a learner experiences and what your safeguarding lead sees.
  • For government and research: a briefing built around the question you most want answered.
  • One reply from a person. No newsletters.

Prefer email? Write to support@poyntr.ai. Parent or carer? Use the contact page, where urgent help comes first.

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