Welcoming A New Chair And Four New Trustees To Our Board
Today is a big day for Carers Worldwide. Not only are we welcoming five new trustees, including a new Chair of Trustees, but we are also sadly saying goodbye to two Founding Trustees including our Founding Chair.
Our new board is our most diverse board yet, bringing a wealth of skills, experience and expertise and we are very excited to share a bit more about them with you.
We are delighted to welcome Jonathan Freeman MBE as our new Chair of Trustees. He succeeds our Founding Chair Chris Underhill MBE, who is stepping down after having been with us since our inception in 2012.
Chris has been instrumental in our journey so far and he will be sorely missed. He said of his time with us: “After a pretty long run as Founding Chair it is the right time to move on. I have relished the development of the Carers Worldwide Model and the income generation and livelihoods work which has meant so much for carers. I wish our partners, the carers in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, along with the whole team at Carers Worldwide in India and the UK, great good fortune in the months and years to come.”
Our new Chair, Jonathan Freeman is the CEO of the CareTech Charitable Foundation and Managing Director of Earlsbrook Consulting Limited. Jonathan was previously Managing Director of Mosaic, HRH The Prince of Wales’ mentoring initiative, and before that a member of the Senior Civil Service. He brings a wealth of experience of working in the public, private and charitable sectors over almost 30 years and will bring his skills in strategic development, change management, governance and people management to the role, along with both personal and professional knowledge of care and caring.
Speaking on his appointment, Jonathan said “Carers Worldwide is an amazing charity with a hugely important mission. I am humbled to have been given the opportunity to support the next phase of their ambitious journey to ensure that unpaid carers in the Global South and beyond are recognised, supported and respected properly. Taking over from Chris Underhill as Chair of Trustees is a daunting challenge but I am comforted by the strength and depth of our Trustee Board and staff team that is in place to build upon the legacy that Chris has established.”
Siân Edwards, Executive Director of the Andrews Charitable Trust is also stepping down from the Board. “Being a Founding Trustee has been an enormous privilege. To have been able to help build the organisation, its approach, its team and its networks has been a tremendously rewarding experience. Through the past year living with COVID 19, there has been a shift towards much greater recognition of the contribution family carers make. My hope is that this greater level of awareness will result in new sources of funding plus new avenues of influence. I have faith that the team, including a newly invigorated Board of Trustees, are up for the challenge.” Siân will be succeeded in her role as Vice Chair by Sarah Ridley, a philanthropy advisor, who has been on the Board since 2013.
Jonathan joins the Board at a time of expansion, along with four new Trustees: Dionne Williams, Ian Yates, Maria Andrews and Maveen Pereira. Working together with existing Trustees Sarah Ridley, Alastair Page and Dhanya Vamadevan they will drive forward the organisation’s ambitious 10 year vision to create a world where no carer is left behind.
Our Founder and Executive Director, Anil Patil commented, “Our most diverse Board yet, the Trustees bring a rich mix of skills and expertise which will assist us in placing carers even more firmly on the agendas of governments, NGOs and corporates across the Global South. The skills needed to strengthen all areas of the organisation, including our new training and consultancy offer will be very present. In addition, the lived personal and professional experiences of caring that many of our Trustees bring to the Board will continue to ensure an authentic understanding of carers and their lives will stay at the heart of all we do.”
