Tesse Akpeki

Tesse Akpeki is a consultant specialising in leadership, management and governance. She is a consultant with Bates Wells & Braithwaite’s OnBoard programme and undertakes policy development, governance reviews and board training assignments nationally and internationally.

Tesse has a long experience of working for the benefit of voluntary sector organisations. She worked in the area of governance and trusteeship with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) for thirteen years, eight of which she served as Head of the Trustee and Governance Team.

Tesse has worked with over 900 voluntary and community sector boards on various aspects of governance and leadership. Drawing on her experience, she has authored over 20 books and articles on trusteeship, governance and leadership and blogs for Charity Finance.

Tesse is a lawyer, an accredited CEDR mediator, a professional coach and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. She has served as an Equal Opportunities Commissioner and as a non-executive board director of West London Mental Health. Trained as a governance consultant by BoardSource, a nonprofit governance body based in Washington DC, USA, she is an associate of Partners for Innovation, Inc, Perrysburg, Ohio, USA and cooperating consultant of Marga Inc, New York, USA. She is also an approved NCVO consultant, an Independent Theatre Council trainer and a trainer at the Directory for Social Change. Tesse is an associate of the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at the CASS Business School, Charity Trustee is has recently complete the 4 mastery leadership development programme run by the renowned establishment Learning as Leadership in USA. She is a governor of International Students House and Chairs its Governance Committee.

Don Bawtree

Don heads up BDO Stoy Hayward’s charity unit and has specific responsibility for larger and national charity clients. His experience spans 20 years of working in the charity sector: he is a dedicated expert in charities.

Helen Carr

Helen Carr is Head of Policy Development and Review at the Charity Commission. She is currently responsible for the policy implementation of the final parts of the Charities Act and her team also lead on the Commission's reponse to the economic downturn and the issues facing charities delivering public services. Helen has worked in public policy most of her career and has worked for a number of local authorities, the trade union UNISON and the Association of Police Authorities.

Pamela Chesters

Pamela worked for British Petroleum for nearly twenty years in a series of commercial and strategic planning roles in the UK and US. Latterly she was chief executive of Duckhams Oils, a wholly owned subsidiary. She is a former group leader on the London Borough of Camden and served as an elected member for ten years.

Immediately prior to joining the Mayor's team she was chair of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, and also chair of English Churches Housing Group (an RSL specialising in supported and sheltered housing) She remains chair of one of the largest children’s charities in the UK, Action for Children, (formerly NCH).Within the Mayor’s team she has responsibility for Children, Health and Skills.

Caroline Cooke

Caroline Cooke has worked at the Charity Commission since June 2003. Her current role as Head of Policy Engagement includes responsibility for the Commission’s research reports, bringing together her background in charity sector policy and research. Prior to that Caroline worked for the disability charity Scope for more than ten years. She has also worked in the public sector. Caroline has an MSc in Voluntary Sector Organisation from the London School of Economics.

John Corneille

John has been Vice-Chair of Trustees at Scope for 2 years, having previously been Hon Treasurer. He is also a Non- Executive Director of a NHS Trust and a Governor of a special needs school. He works as an independent management consultant specialising in the public sector.

Much of John’s career was spent as a management consultant with IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was a Partner.

Dorothy Dalton

Dorothy Dalton is editor of Governance magazine and a governance expert. She was the first chief executive of Acevo, holding the position from 1992 to 2000. She also founded the Network of Women Chairs and co-founded Groundbreakers, a support group for female chief executives in the voluntary sector.

She was a non-executive director of the Inland Revenue and has been a judge at the Charity Awards for several years.

In a voluntary capacity Dalton has been a trustee of several charities including Marie Curie Cancer Care and regularly participates in fundraising expeditions for JoLt, the Journey of a Lifetime Trust which arranges overseas expeditions for disadvantaged or disabled young people.

Lindsay Driscoll

Lindsay Driscoll has spent over 30 years in the field of charity law and governance.She is now a consultant with Bates Wells and Braithwaite and Chair of the steering group for the Voluntary and Community sector Code of Governance.Until last year she was a Legal Commissioner at the Charity Commission .Before that she worked as a consultant ,both in this country and internationally, as Head of Legal and Governance at NCVO and as a partner with Sinclair Taylor and Martin.She has written and lectured extensively on charity law and governance issues and is currently on the board of five charities.

Anna Feuchtwang

Anna Feuchtwang is Chief Executive of EveryChild an international children's rights and child protection agency that helps prevent children being abandoned and reunites children and families. Anna trained and worked as a journalist before joining Oxfam as a campaigns press officer. During her 10 years with Oxfam she became Head of Communications before leaving to work with broadcaster Jon Snow on an inter-agency millennium project which involved ActionAid, WWF-UK, Christian Aid, VSO and Channel Four amongst others. Anna spent three years working in local government in London as a Communications and Public Affairs Director and was chair of ActionAid UK during this period standing down to take on the role at EveryChild.

Anna was elected to the board of BOND - the UK's network of voluntary organisations working in international development with over 300 member organizations - in 2005 and became Chair in 2009. During her time on the Board, Anna has been involved in reviewing and making changes to the way the Board works and in overseeing changes in the Secretariat including appointing BOND's Chief Executive. She has also been involved in the quality standards work and has represented BOND at ministerial meetings.

Neal Green

Neal has worked at the Commission since 1991 in a number of advice-giving roles. He specialises in charity governance, contributing to Good Governance, the code for the Voluntary and Community Sector and continuing to attend the Code Steering Group. He co-wrote the Commission’s research and guidance on charities and public services, and contributed to Speaking Out, the Commission’s guidance on campaigning. More recently, he has worked on the model constitutions for Charitable Incorporated Organisations, and guidance on research for Universities.

Beryl Hobson

Charities are in Beryl's blood; for over 30 years she has both worked and volunteered for them in various roles, including trustee, secretary and independent examiner.

She knows the value of how organisations present themselves - her early career was in the private sector, as Marketing Director for Cassidy Davis Insurance Group at Lloyd's of London which specialised in Kidnap and Ransom insurance.

In a change of career direction she then became Chair of Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust with over 1,000 staff providing health services for East Sussex, before becoming Interim CEO of small medical charity Group B Strep Support.

Having worked with charities big and small, Beryl brought her experience to the Charity Commission when she became the Head of its Large Charities Division in January 2008. Large Charities are those with annual income of over £5 million. They represent over 60% of the entire sector's income yet make up less than 1% of the total number of charities. Given the major household names involved, Beryl has inevitably taken on many high profile governance cases and has written a series of articles for Governance magazine on Trustees she has known - completely anonymised of course!

Daisy Houghton

Daisy is a Senior Manager in the Large Charities Division of the Charity Commission. Her team specialises in dealing with arts, accommodation, grant-making, older people and community charities. Her background is in grant-making and she has worked previously at the Electoral Commission and the Big Lottery Fund.

Mike Hudson

Mike Hudson is the Director of Compass Partnership. He was the Administrative Director of Friends of the Earth during its formative years. Following this, Mike worked in the UK and USA for a business strategy consultancy. He has worked as a consultant to not-for-profit organisations for over 20 years leading teams that bring about major change in complex organisations. His clients include the Chairs and Chief Executives of a wide range of national and international organisations in the health, housing, education and international development, and their government and foundation funders. He has particular expertise in campaigning organisations.

Mike was a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics from 2000 – 2003 and is currently a Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School in London.

His first book, Managing Without Profit (Third Edition, Directory of Social Change, 2009), has sold over 18,000 copies and been translated into three languages. His second book Managing at the Leading Edge has been published in the UK by Directory of Social Change (2003) and in the USA by Jossey Bass (2005).

Mike is a member of the Board of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, Chair of the Farm Animal Welfare Forum and a member of the Editorial Board of Governance magazine.

Dame Deidre Hutton

Appointed to the CAA Board as a Non-Executive Board Member in April 2009 and took up the position of Chair of the CAA in August 2009. Dame Deirdre was previously Chair of the Food Standards Agency, Honorary Vice-President of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, Honorary Vice-President of the Trading Standards Institute, and serves as a Non-Executive member of the HM Treasury Board. She has been Vice-Chair of the European Food Safety Authority Management Board, Deputy Chair of the Financial Services Authority, Chair of the National Consumer Council, Chair of the Scottish Consumer Council, and a member of the Better Regulation Task Force. She has also held a number of positions on a variety of bodies dealing with food issues.

Philip Kirkpatrick

Philip Kirkpatrick is a partner in the charity and social enterprise department of Bates Wells & Braithwaite London LLP. He advises charities and social enterprises on numerous aspects of charity, corporate and commercial law. He is General Editor of the Charities Administration Service (Jordan Publishing) and founder of BWB’s governance consultancy, OnBoard. He is a trustee of the Death Penalty Project Charitable Trust and a director of the Death Penalty Project and serves on the Institute of Fundraising Standards Committee.

Linda Laurance

Linda Laurance specialises in the provision of guidance on governance and on conflict management as a consultant, trainer, facilitator and mediator. She previously held a variety of posts in a wide range of organisations in the voluntary and community sector including those of Chair and Chief Executive.

Linda chaired the original VCS Code of Governance and Trustee Standards steering groups. She is contributing to the European Third Sector Governance Principles project, and is a trustee of Directory of Social Change and of Community Network. Linda is founding past chair of Charity Trustee Networks .

As an accredited mediator, and a Director of Global Mediation, Linda specialises in workplace and interpersonal disputes, and disagreements between local authorities and parents in relation to children’s special educational needs. She is an associate of BWB OnBoard and a member of EUConsult.

Anne Moynihan

Anne is Head of NCVO’s Governance and Leadership team. She has 16 years experience in the voluntary and community sector and has a passion and a strong belief in the value of good governance and leadership to the health and sustainability of an organisation.

Previously, Anne was Head of the Governance Hub during which she spent a considerable amount of time looking at issues around trustee recruitment, governance needs of social and enterprise and what the future holds for Good Governance: a code for the voluntary and community sector. Prior to this Anne worked extensively within Citizens Advice in roles ranging from being a volunteer with responsibility for social policy to becoming a chief executive of a CAB in one of the most deprived areas in the East of England. As Chief Executive she was responsible for overseeing the consolidation (merger) of two disparate organisations into one entity that then went on to secure numerous public service delivery contracts and became a respected partner of both tiers of local government. Anne was East Regional Manager for Citizens Advice for five years which included acting as a critical best friend to boards and senior management teams of small, medium and large third sector organisations. Most of her work during this period revolved around advising organisations on how to deal with the leadership challenges they faced and almost always called for the implementation of a significant change management programme.

Prior to working within the sector, she trained to be a journalist and worked for many years for a wide range of local and national newspapers and radio stations. Anne studied law and social policy as a mature student and is a Fellow of the RSA.

Gerald Oppenheim

I am Director of Policy at the Big Lottery Fund which makes grants to Charities and other Voluntary Organisations (as well as public bodies). I have been in this role since 1995 at BIG and one of its predecessor bodies.

I have been a grantmaker for over 30 years firstly at the old Greater London Council where from 1978–1985 I was responsible for making grants to organisations providing housing, hostels and day centres for single homeless people. From 1985 until I joined the National Lottery Charities Board in 1995, I was Director of the London Boroughs Grants Unit making funds available to voluntary and community organisations and charities all over London.

Since 2004, I have been a member and vice-Chair of the BBC Charitable Appeals Advisory Committee. For two years I was also Chair of the Trustees of the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund, set up in July 2005 after the 7 July attacks. In that time we distributed £12 million of donations to help people injured in the bombings and the families of those who were killed. Since June 2009 I have been a Trustee and Chair of The Camden Society, a charity working with people with learning disabilities across 10 London boroughs.

Outside work, I enjoy going to the theatre and cinema and eating out. I have been known to play tennis, and I keep hoping for a ticket to watch Arsenal at the Emirates.

Shirley Otto

Shirley Otto is a specialist in governance and management in third sector organisations. She works as an independent trainer, facilitator and consultant and has done so, with a wide variety of organisations, for the last twenty years.

Shirley has a particular interest in the dynamics that shape the functioning of teams, boards / management committees and the relationship between staff, managers and boards.

Shirley has a PhD in organisational psychology based on the study of the roles of chairs and chief officers in voluntary organisations and their counterparts in the public and commercial sectors. She has written and lectured on both management and governance in the third sector for both academics and practitioners.

Shirley is Convenor of the Management Development Network Scotland

Anne-Marie Piper

Anne-Marie Piper is head of the charities group at Farrer & Co law firm, and specialises in charity law. She acts for sponsors of new charities, directors, trustees and officers of existing charities and other not-for-profit bodies and individuals and companies wishing to make charitable gifts or do business with charities.

She joined Farrer & Co in 2001, and is founder, former secretary and former chair of the Charity Law Association.

Neil Robertson

Neil Robertson is the Head of the Charity Commission’s Advice & Orders Division. Working with charities with an income under £5M, the teams provide advice and guidance as well as providing legal consents. Neil has over 30 year’s experience of charity governance and regulation and is based in the Commission’s Taunton Office.

David Saint

David Saint is recognised as one of the not-for-profit sector’s leading authorities on strategy, management and fundraising. A regular contributor to conferences, seminars, journals and reference books on the basis of his extensive experience, David has advised the Boards and Senior Management Teams of some of the most significant organisations in the sector such as Charities Aid Foundation, and the Royal College of Nursing. He works closely with ACEVO (the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations) delivering a number of their training modules for Chief Executives, and has been commissioned by leading funders such as Tudor Trust and Henry Smith’s Charity to advise projects that they support with grant funding.

At the same time, David is very much at home working with smaller organisations including schools, churches, and locally-based charities, and really understands the challenges of managing small organisations with limited financial and human resources.

David established Action Planning in 1990 after working for 16 years in regional fundraising and fundraising director posts with Scope, Sense, SANE and Arthritis Care. He is a member of the Institute of Fundraising (where he was the founder chairman of the Consultants Group), a member of the Association of Fundraising Consultants and former Chairman of EU Consult, a European network of consultants.

David is a trustee of Andrews Charitable Trust, the Christian Initiative Trust, and Advantage Africa, and a non-executive director of Andrews and Partners. He is an active member of St. Andrews United Reformed Church, Cheam, where he has also served as an Elder and Church Secretary.

James Sinclair Taylor

James Sinclair Taylor heads the charity team.

James works mainly in the areas of governance, change and risk management, charity best practice, employment, funding and commercial issues, support for boards and senior staff in managing change, particularly mergers, partnerships, restructuring and growth. He also undertakes substantial amounts of advice on funding and contracts and related employment issues.

Clients include UNICEF, YHA, Carr-Gomm, Development Trust Association, United Response and MCCH.

James is an author of the Russell-Cooke Voluntary Sector Legal Handbook and lectures widely on charity law and governance issues. He has been a trustee of a range of charities including a medical clinic, an environmental charity, a housing society, a college and three major grant makers.