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Testimonials
"Congratulations on an excellent evening at Battersea Park last Thursday. As well as enjoyable, it’s great to see and read of the good works in the sector, so often new and inspiring charities. It was also a most enjoyable and an excellent meal. How that quality is done for 1,000, other than using fish and loaves, I don’t know"
Gerald Coleman,
accountant,
Sir John Cass Foundation
Maeve Sherlock OBE (Chair)
Since October 2006, Maeve Sherlock has been a full-time postgraduate student at Durham University. Until then, she was chief executive of the Refugee Council, the largest charity working with refugees and asylum-seekers. Before that, Maeve spent three years as a special adviser to Gordon Brown, MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, where her brief included child poverty, welfare reform and the voluntary sector. Before moving to the Treasury, Maeve was chief executive of the National Council for One Parent Families and, prior to that, director of UKCOSA, a charity focusing on overseas students and international education. She is a former President of the National Union of Students.
Maeve is currently chairing an Advisory Panel which is advising ministers on the future role of the Third Sector in economic and social regeneration. She is also a member of the Carnegie Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society and a trustee of the independent think-tank, Demos.
Dame Jo Williams
Dame Jo Williams moved into the voluntary sector nearly four years ago when she joined Mencap as chief executive. She had spent her career until then in the public sector, starting off as a social worker at Shropshire County Council in 1971. She moved to Cheshire County Council in 1973 and spent the next 19 years in a variety of operational roles, before leaving to join Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council as director of social services in 1992. Five years later, she took up the equivalent role back at Cheshire County Council and remained there until joining Mencap in March 2003.
Jo was president of the Association of Directors of Social Services during 1999 and 2000, and was a major contributor to the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services.
As an advocate for partnership working across different agencies and someone who is passionate about involving service users, she has served on several government taskforces. She is a trustee of the EveryChild Board, and chair of the Research in Practice Partnership Board.
She is currently a member of the National Learning Disability Taskforce and co-chaired the Third Sector Taskforce with health minister Ivan Lewis.
She received a Damehood in the 2007 New Year Honours for services to learning disability.
John Low
John Low is currently Chief Executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, which works with individuals, companies and charities to stimulate giving, social investment and the effective use of funds. He is also Chairman of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO).
Prior to joining CAF, John was Chief Executive at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) the national charity for deaf and hard of hearing people.
John moved to the voluntary sector after pursuing a 20 year career in the technology industry. He holds a PhD in Bio-Medical Physics, is a Chartered Engineer, a Companion of the Institute of Management and a fellow of the RSA.
Sir Christopher Kelly KCB
Chris Kelly joined the board of the NSPCC in 2001 and became its chair in January 2002. He was appointed chair of Compact Voice, formerly the Compact Working Group, in June 2005. He is also chair of the Financial Ombudsman Service, a board member of the National Consumer Council and an adviser to KPMG. In December 2007 he was appointed as chair of the Committee for Standards in Public Life.
His previous roles included director of monetary and fiscal policy and director of the budget and public finances at HM Treasury, where he spent 25 years from 1970 to 1995. After leaving the Treasury he became head of policy at the then Department of Social Security and in 1997 was appointed Permanent Secretary to the Department of Health. Since leaving the civil service in 2001 he has chaired various reviews, including one on paying for the cost of long-term care for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and another on the arrest to sentence part of the criminal justice system which led to the creation of the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. In 2004 he also chaired the serious case review commissioned by the North East Lincolnshire Area Child Protection Committee into the Ian Huntley case.
Venu Dhupa
Venu recently stood down from her post as the British Council's arts director. Former posts include: Director of the Creative Innovation Unit at London’s Southbank Centre, Europe’s largest cultural centre; Fellowship Director at The UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; Chief Executive at the Nottingham Playhouse; Producer (Mobile Touring) at the Royal National Theatre; Inaugural Chair of the East Midlands Cultural Consortium appointed by the Secretary of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. She has been awarded the prestigious Asian Woman of Achievement Award for her contribution to the Arts and Culture.
She is or has been a: Trustee of the Theatres Trust, a Governor of Guildford Conservatoire, a Council Member of Loughborough University, a Member of the Institute of Ideas; a member of Chatham House; a member of the London 2012 Culture and Education Committee and the European Cultural Parliament. She is a patron of the Asha Foundation and the Minorities of Europe.
Dorothy Dalton
Dorothy Dalton is editor of governance: essential information for effective trustees and author of several publications on governance. She advises a number of professionally managed charities on their governance and was until recently the independent chair of the Scope Governance Working Group.
With a “first” in mathematics, Dorothy, a former headteacher, was Chief Executive of ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisation from 1992 to 2000. From 2000 to 2003 she was a Non-Executive Director of the Inland Revenue. She is a trustee of International Students House and chairs their Governance Advisory Committee. She is chair of trustees of the Journey of a Lifetime Trust (JoLt) and until very recently chair of trustees of Orley Farm School Trust. She is a governor of Northwood College. She is on the Advisory Boards of the Leadership Trust and the Institute for Global Ethics UK Trust. She has just completed a six-year term of office as trustee of Marie Curie Cancer Care. She founded the Network of Women Chairs and JoLt and co-founded Groundbreakers: Voluntary sector women leaders.
During her spare time, Dorothy organises and leads month-long challenging expeditions for disabled and disadvantaged teenagers to remote corners of the world as well as organising and participating in fundraising expeditions such as crossing the Jordanian Desert by camel or canoeing, kayaking and white-water rafting the Zambezi between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
David Harker
David has been chief executive of Citizens Advice since 1997. Citizens Advice, formerly known as the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, provides leadership and support to the CAB service, which is probably the largest free advice service in the world.
Involved in the voluntary sector since his teens, David was a Community Service Volunteer during his gap year. His first paid job in the sector was with Voluntary Action Lewisham. He was the director of Lady Margaret Hall Settlement, a south London social action centre and managing director of the disability charity Sense. Forays outside the sector include working in the research and press office of a trade union, as a corporate planner for a local authority, and as management consultant.
He was one of the first voluntary sector leaders to appreciate the value of an MBA, which he received from London Business School in 1986. He received an OBE for services to the voluntary sector. David has recently been appointed to the Advertising Standards Authority.
Bharat Mehta OBE
Bharat joined the City Parochial Foundation as clerk to the trustees in 1998. Prior to this he was chief executive of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (now renamed RETHINK) one of the largest British mental health charities. He has also worked for the Medical Research Council, Pensioners Link and NCVO.
Bharat is a trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a non-executive director of North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust and a patron of the Revolving Doors Agency. He was awarded an OBE in 2000 for services to NSF and the voluntary sector.
Anne-Marie Piper
Anne-Marie Piper is a partner at law firm Farrer & Co, where she specialises in charity law. Her job involves acting for sponsors of new charities, directors, trustees and officers of existing charities and other not-for-profit bodies, as well as individuals and companies wishing to make charitable gifts or do business with charities. She is also well known for her handling of Charity Commission investigations and acting, for and against, Charity Commission-appointed receivers and managers. Founder, former secretary and now chairman of the Charity Law Association, Anne-Marie also lectures and writes regularly on charity law subjects.
She trained at Richards Butler and was called to the Bar in 1980. She joined the private client department at Richards Butler in 1983, then requalified as solicitor and became a partner at Richards Butler in 1989. She then moved to Paisner & Co to head up its charities group from 1994 to 2001, and joined Farrer & Co in 2001.
Patricia Peter
Patricia Peter joined the Institute of Directors in September 2002. Since then, and as part of the IoD’s continuing campaign of improving standards of corporate governance, Patricia has led the IoD’s input on Company Law Reform, Higgs and ‘Rewards for Failure’. She has provided evidence at Parliamentary Select Committee meetings, spoken at many events and commented in the media.
In addition she keeps a watching brief on matters relating to competition policy and OFT issues and also covers the remit of responsibilities that will be dealt with by the proposed Commission for Equality and Human Rights (namely, matters relating to discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, age, sexuality and disability).
Patricia originally qualified as a barrister. She is also a chartered secretary with the majority of her working life spent as an in-house legal adviser, often combining this role with that of company secretary. Organisations for which she has worked range from a FTSE 250 company, the international business of an oil company, a public corporation, private companies and a spell at the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Ian Allsop
Ian has been editor of Charity Finance magazine since April 2004, and has worked on the publication for almost seven years. He has also edited Association Manager. Prior to stumbling into a career in journalism, he worked for the charity unit at accountants BDO Stoy Hayward in a range of roles including marketing and administration. Ian holds a degree in economics and in the past has volunteered for Oxfam, as well as on a scheme assisting schoolchildren with reading difficulties. This is his fifth year as a judge for the Charity Awards.
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