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 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; the GMC(UK); the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the GPhC; and the RICS. He was a Nuffield Leverhulme Fellow in 1990 and was a Visiting Professor at the University of Glamorgan. He is a trustee of Carnegie(UK), and until recently was on the Board at Regent's College London.
Fiona Ellis
Fiona was, until March 2009, Director of the Northern Rock Foundation (NRF), the foundation set up by the bank of the same name in 1997. Prior to joining NRF, Fiona worked for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Assistant Director (Arts)) and, in a freelance capacity, for the Baring Foundation and the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust (now Esmée Fairbairn Foundation). She is joint author of Fairness in Funding, published by the Association of Charitable Foundations, and author of the Good Practice Guide for Corporate Foundations. Other current and previous posts have included: Chair of NCVO's Funding Commission; Vice Chair of Futurebuilders; Comic Relief's UK Grants Committee; School Governor of Whalton First School; Whalton Village Hall Committee; Commissioner for the IPPR North Public Services Commission and membership of several theatre boards. She is Vice Chair of the BBC Appeals Advisory Committee and of NAVCA (National Association for Voluntary and Community Action) and Chair of St Cuthbert's Society, and serves on the Durham University Council and its Audit Committee.
Lucy Gampell OBE
Lucy has 24 years experience of working at a senior level in the voluntary sector. In 2009 she was appointed as an independent member of the Parole Board and also works as a freelance consultant. For 15 years she was Director of Action for Prisoners' Families (APF) leaving in December 2008. 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 is currently Acting Chair of the national charity CLINKS and vice-President of EUROCHIPS (the European Network for Children of Prisoners).
Graeme Hughes
Graeme is currently Group Director HR & Corporate Affairs at Nationwide Building Society. His career has been spent almost exclusively with Nationwide, joining the company in 1984, and has held a variety of roles within the Branch Network. In 1997 Graeme was appointed as Managing Director of UCB, where he was able to increase new business and improve its commercial activities. In 1999 he moved to Electronic Channels and was instrumental in re-launching the Online Bank, before returning to the Branch network in 2000 as Head of Retail Operations for the South & West. In 2003, Graeme was asked to run the Society’s 21 Mortgage Centres with the objective of improving staff morale and the efficiency of processes. Graeme was subsequently appointed as Head of Planning and was involved in a number of programmes, including the merger with Portman.
In 2007, Graeme was appointed as Divisional Director Branch Network. His qualifications include DMS, and an MBA from the London Business School.
John Kingston OBE (Chairman)
John recently left Venturesome, which he founded in 2001, to launch a portfolio career. He works part-time for Social Finance Ltd, and is Chair of the Association of Charitable Foundations, Chair of the BIG Lottery's Investment Committee and a non-executive director of Big Society Capital. John worked for 3i Group for 15 years, and as a director of Save the Children UK for 10 years, before joining CAF to launch Venturesome. An early pioneer of social investment, Venturesome won the award 'Britain's Most Innovative Charity' in 2007.
Simon Law
Simon is currently Head of Financial Management for Group Operations at Nationwide Building Society since 2009 which principally involves 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, specialising in Financial Services clients, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2000. He is an avid golfer having spent 4 years at the University of St Andrews. He lives in Chepstow with his wife Ann-Louise and 2 children, Max and Jessica.
Karen McArthur
Karen works at Thomson Reuters as the Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility focusing on developing, delivering and communicating their CR strategy. Prior to this Karen worked as a freelance corporate responsibility consultant for companies as varied as the Institute for Global Ethics and an environmental consultancy, building on her 8 year experience at Vodafone. Karen is a Non-Executive board member of Quality Housing Services, an organisation committed to improving customer service within the sector as well as a serving magistrate in West London.
Dr Michael McCarthy
Michael is Director of Work House, a consultancy providing strategic advice and project management in rural regeneration and in housing and services for older people. He was a member of Yorkshire Forward’s Renaissance Market Towns Panel from 2002-2008 and is a consultant to the Commission for Rural Communities. He is co- Director of the Scottish consultancy Dhu Rural and is an Enabler for CABE and for Creating Excellence. Formerly a trustee and chair, he is strategic adviser to the national housing for older people charity EAC and to the new national information and advice service for older people, First Stop. He has worked in higher education, in housing, for a trade union, and in regeneration. He is the author of books on family poverty, on the future of the welfare state and on unemployment. He is a passionate supporter of Everton FC.
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.
Site updated: December 2011