Trustees
Richard Davies
Richard is a Registered Commissioner at the IPC. He was a Board Director at the Welsh Assembly Government for most of the last decade, and was latterly Head of the Department for Public Services and Performance there. After joining the Welsh Office in 1984, he headed up health, housing, social services, and school divisions. For a number of years he led the Assembly Government Department for Education and Training. Before that he worked in several Departments in Whitehall and overseas, including the MoD; FCO; MPO/Cabinet Office and the NIO. Richard has advisory, non executive and lay roles variously with the British Council and HM Courts Service in Wales; the GMC(UK); the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the RPSGB; and the RICS. He was a Nuffield Leverhulme Fellow in 1990 and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Glamorgan. He is a trustee of Carnegie(UK) and Regent's College London.
Lucy Gampell OBE
Lucy has 24 years experience of working at a senior level in the voluntary sector. She works as a freelance consultant, having left Action for Prisoners' Families (APF) in December 2008 after 15 years as their Director. Lucy led APF's growth and development into a highly regarded, nationally recognised organisation. Lucy has been a member of several Government advisory groups and represented APF on many advisory groups in England and Europe. She is an experienced speaker, writer and broadcaster. In addition to being a Trustee of the Nationwide Foundation Lucy is currently Acting Chair of the national charity CLINKS. She holds an MSC in Criminal Justice Policy from the LSE.
John Kingston OBE (Chairman)
John is the founder Director of CAFVenturesome, part of the Charities Aid Foundation. CAFVenturesome provides risk capital financing, advice and support to charities and social enterprises, and has worked with over 250 charities since launch in 2002. CAFVenturesome won the award 'Britain's Most Innovative Charity' in 2007. After 15 years at investment bank 3i Group, John joined Save the Children as Director of Fundraising in 1990, moving to CAF in 2001. He has been chair and trustee of a number of charities including the Institute of Fundraising.
Simon Law
Simon is Head of Corporate Financial Management at Nationwide Building Society since August 2008. Simon is accountable for co-ordinating the corporate results and providing financial management support to the ambitious transformation agenda currently underway at Nationwide. Simon joined Nationwide in August 2005 primarily responsible for establishing a Financial Compliance function and subsequently became the Operational Risk Officer for Financial Management and Control. Prior to joining Nationwide Simon worked at Volvo Financial Services and at KPMG, predominantly specialising in Financial Services clients, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2000.
Karen McArthur
Karen had over 10 years experience in social housing with some of the leading and most innovative organisations both as a practitioner and as a Non-Executive board member before moving to Vodafone. While at Vodafone, Karen worked in business change as well as the CEO's programme team before moving internally to work on the company's corporate responsibility agenda, shaping and driving the company’s strategy to enhance its reputation. Karen is now a freelance consultant working on corporate responsibility and business strategies for companies as varied as the Institute for Global Ethics and an European environmental consultancy. Karen continues to retain an interest in social housing and is a Non-Executive board member of Quality Housing Services, an organisation committed to improving customer service within the sector. Karen is also a Magistrate in West London.
Dr Michael McCarthy
Michael is Director of Work House, a consultancy providing strategic advice and project management to businesses and organisations working in communities undergoing diversification and regeneration. His key interest is in integrating workspace and housing. He was previously MD of Rural Solutions and was project director of Accent’s successful bid for the ‘renaissance’ of Skipton. He has been a member of Yorkshire Forward’s Renaissance Market Towns Panel since 2002. He has worked in higher education, in housing, for a trade union, and in regeneration and in social care. He is the author of books on family poverty, on the future of the welfare state and on unemployment. He led Mullion to the DTI’s first award for innovation in housing in 2000. Michael has been a trustee of charities, including EAC, since 1994 and is a consultant to the Rural Services Network.
Chris Rhodes
Chris joined Nationwide in April 2009 from Abbey Santander, where he was director of retail distribution for Alliance and Leicester (A&L). Chris’ responsibilities include Nationwide’s product range, its commercial activities, consumer finance, customer experience and customer strategy & marketing. Chris has spent 20 years working in the financial services sector and his previous positions include deputy managing director of Girobank and retail operations director of A&L. In 2003 he was appointed as managing director retail banking for the entire A&L Group. In 2007 Chris moved to become group finance director, a role he held until the merger with Santander in 2008.
Ben Stimson
Ben has over 15 years experience working with the not-for-profit sector, latterly as Director of Responsibility for British Sky Broadcasting (Sky). In January 2010 Ben joined the John Lewis Partnership in a senior management role. A passionate believer in social justice, Ben is a regular contributor at business schools and international conferences on social responsibility. He lives in Teddington with his wife Mindy and daughter Anushka.
Maxine Taylor
Maxine joined Nationwide as Divisional Director, Corporate Affairs at the beginning of 2008. During the course of her career, Maxine has worked in consultancy, for industry, the voluntary sector and within mainstream government as a fast-stream civil servant, latterly as a policy adviser within the Cabinet Office under John Major's administration. Prior to joining Nationwide, she ran part of Cancer Research UK, covering policy, communications, campaigning, health and cancer information for the charity. Maxine has also served as a Trustee with the Association of Medical Research Charities and on the Government's advisory body to support the introduction of the Cancer Reform Strategy.
Site updated: July 2010