Who's Moving: National Autistic Society, The House of St Barnabas, DEC and more

08 Jul 2019 News

Our summary of the latest movers in the charity sector.

Rosie Ferguson, chief executive, The House of St Barnabas

Chief executives 

Caroline Stevens will become the National Autistic Society’s chief executive in November 2019, after serving six years as CEO of KIDS. Dr Carol Homden, chair of the NAS, said that “her exceptional experience as a leader in the charity and health sectors, combined with her own direct experience supporting her autistic son and as a member of our charity for 20 years, means she brings both new insight and grounded understanding of the day-to-day experiences of autistic people and their families to lead our charity for the future.”

Katherine Sacks-Jones has joined Become as their newly appointed CEO. Katherine was the chief executive of Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk, from 2015 where she oversaw huge growth in the organisation. Jemima Olchawski, having been the interim CEO, has officially become the permanent CEO of Agenda. Jemima was head of policy and insight at the Fawcett Society before this, and has also previously worked in public policy at a London borough council and was a director at the Fabian Society. 

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust has appointed Celia McKeon as chief executive. She will be its first female CEO and starts in September. She is taking over from Nick Perks and is currently a co-founder and coordinator of the peacebuilding network Rethinking Security and previously worked as assistant trust secretary at the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust for seven years.

Rosie Ferguson will take over as the new CEO of The House of St Barnabas at the end of July. Rosie was most recently chief executive at Gingerbread, and previously held the same role at London Youth. Rosie is also chair of Acevo and a trustee at the Centre for London. She will replace outgoing CEO, Sandra Schembri, who leaves the organisation after ten-years at its helm.


Finance and operations

The Disasters Emergency Committee has announced Madara Hettiarachchi as the new director of humanitarian programmes and accountability. Madara has 18 years’ experience in humanitarian and development programmes; she has held senior humanitarian leadership positions with three DEC member agencies, at the UK and global levels. Since September 2015 she has been Christian Aid’s Head of Humanitarian Programmes for Asia and the Middle East. 

From the 22nd September King’s College Hospital Charity will have a new director of grants and insights, Iona Joy, who will set out to maximise the impact from the charity’s grant making process, ensuring the greatest effect in supporting life-changing care for patients at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Iona joins the charity from New Philanthropy Capital, and Gail Scott-Spicer, CEO at King’s College Hospital Charity, said “we are delighted to have somebody of Iona’s calibre coming aboard at such a pivotal time for the charity.”


Fundraising, policy and communications 

Alex Hyde-Smith has taken over as director of fundraising at the Alzheimer’s Society to spearhead all fundraising and commercial activities. Alex brings with him a wealth of experience in the charity sector and joins the from Marie Curie, where he worked for eight years. Alex is replacing Michael Dent, who helped to develop the strategy that Alex will lead forward.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has announced changes to its senior team, with the appointment of Katie White and Kate Norgrove as shared executive directors of advocacy and campaigns from September 2019. Kate was senior director for the creative and campaigns consultancy firm Purpose and Katie joins from Nord Anglia Education Foundation, where she was director. 


Trustees, patrons and ambassadors  

Natasha Kaplinsky has been appointed as Barnardo’s President. The newsreader, presenter and journalist will give her first speech as president at the charity’s Annual Parliamentary Reception today at the House of Commons.

The Business Disability Forum has appointed Stephen Miller as its new chair, having served several years as a member of the board of trustees. Miller has been group chief information officer at Park Group since 2018 and will be taking over from Warren Buckley, from HSBC Bank Plc., who has finished his six-year tenure as chair. 

Margaret Hart became the first female chair of the Youth Hostels Association in June. She has become chair at an exciting time in the charity’s 90-year history and will be overseeing the implementation of the YHA’s new 2020 strategy which will see YHA be much more ambitious in its charitable impact. Margaret was previously Corporate Director at NCH Action for Children and Assistant Director at The Open University (OU) for nearly a decade, where she led a programme to enable students facing barriers to higher education to study with the OU.

ActionAid UK has announced a new chair of trustees, Marie Staunton, who will take up the position in Autumn 2019. Marie has over 30 years of experience in the international development sector, including stints at Unicef, being chief executive of Plan UK and Plan Canada, as well as commercial experience as director of a Pearson company. Girish Menon, CEO of ActionAid UK, said Marie’s “breadth of experience is key to ensuring that our strategy ‘Together with Women and Girls’ can be successful in changing the lives of the most vulnerable women and girls in the world.”

Actor and rapper Scroobius Pip has become the newest patron of the British Stammering Association. Pip is the creator and owner of Speech Development Records and was the presenter of the BSA’s 2018 BBC Lifeline Appeal. Pip joins the charity as it is about to launch its largest-ever awareness campaign, Stamma, which aims to tackle public perceptions of what it means to stammer and remove the shame, stigma, intolerance and misunderstanding experienced by people who stammer.

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