Victoria Anderson

Joined CAF in October 2001 and is Head of Grantmaking at CAF. She is responsible for CAF's Grant Programme which looks at creating solutions to develop the capacity of small and medium sized charitable organisations in the UK.  The Programme also include a Collaborative Fund supporting organisations looking at the giving environment, here CAF works with organisations providing flexible funding, consultancy support and links with CAF.   In addition CAF runs a runs a number of Legacy Trusts on behalf of CAF Trustees.  CAF's Grantmaking framework also provides support to the grantmaking or giving activities of Corporate and Individual clients of CAF.

Victoria has over 13 years' grants experience, working with the Community Fund (now Big Lottery Fund) for four years and before that Helpage International and Save the Children Fund. She has been responsible for the management of substantial grants from government donors.

Graham Benfield, OBE

Graham Benfield is the current Chief Executive of Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) which represents, supports and campaigns for voluntary organisations, volunteers, and communities in Wales.   WCVA provides a wide range of information, training, and support services and distributes over £20 million in grants.

Graham has over 30 years experience in working with communities in London, Liverpool, Plymouth and Wales, and was also a senior lecturer at Plymouth Polytechnic.  He currently Chairs Unlimited in Wales, and is a member of the Carnegie Commission on Rural Community Development.  

Graham is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, he has studied at Oxford, York, and Swansea Universities.

Lindsay Boswell

Lindsay Boswell is the Chief Executive of the Institute of Fundraising, the only professional body in the UK representing fundraisers and fundraising.

The Institute's aim is to promote, at every level and opportunity, the highest standards of fundraising practice. Members are supported through training, networking, the dissemination of best practice and representation on issues that affect the fundraising environment. With 14 years experience in the voluntary sector, Lindsay has previously worked in the field of youth development with Raleigh International and The Princes Trust.

Caroline Diehl, MBE

Caroline Diehl, MBE is Chief Executive of the Media Trust, the charity that works with the media and communications industry to help the voluntary sector communicate.

Caroline set up the Media Trust ten years ago. Over 5,000 charities used the Media Trust last year for communications advice and training, video production and broadcast services. Over 1,000 media professionals are registered as volunteer Media Trust Advisors, speaking at Media Trust seminars or volunteering directly with charities. The Media Trust has offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff.

Caroline also set up the Community Channel, the UK's first television channel dedicated to the voluntary and community sector. Owned and run by the Media Trust, the channel now broadcasts 24 hours a day on Sky, Telewest and shortly NTL, as well as three hours every morning on Freeview.

Caroline Diehl has just been made Ernst & Young's London Social Entrepreneur of the Year, and received the MBE in this year's Birthday Honours.

David Ford

David Ford was born and educated in Cardiff, where he obtained a BA in Humanities and an HND in Business Studies. David's career commenced in the public sector, and he progressed to undertake a variety of HR roles in both the manufacturing and service sectors.

In 1985 David moved into the hospitality industry as HR Director of Gardner Merchant. In 1991 he became President of Gardner Merchant, USA.

After returning to the UK, David became Chief Executive of Gardner Merchant in 1997. At the time, the company had a turnover of a billion and employed 53,000 people in the UK. In 1999 he was the subject of one of the BBC's "Back ToThe Floor" programmes.

In 2002 he became the UK Chief Executive of Regus the global and UK market leader in the provision of serviced offices and meeting rooms.

Chris Hale

Chris Hale is Head of the Company Department and a Partner in the European law firm, Travers Smith. He joined the firm in 1983 after completing an LLB and before that a BA in history at Cambridge University.

Chris's work focus is on mergers and acquisitions, principally those involving private equity funding provided by institutions such as 3i.

He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, one of London University's Schools of Advanced Study, and is Treasurer of the Society of Advanced Legal Studies.

Fiona Hare

Fiona Hare joined the Garfield Weston Foundation as Administrator in 1996. The Foundation was established by the current Chairman's grandfather in 1958 and the Trustees are all his lineal descendents. They provide both capital and revenue funding across a wide range of charitable activity, with the largest grants generally being allocated to The Arts, Education, Health and Welfare. The Foundation has developed into one of the largest grant giving trusts, with a total distribution last year of £39.75 million.

From 1988 - 1996 Fiona was the UK director of the British-American Chamber of Commerce, running the London office. This membership organisation provided information, introductions, a programme of events, seminars and sponsorship opportunities for companies with transatlantic interests. Prior to that she worked in the City for two large insurance brokers for a period of over fourteen years.

Richard Harries

Richard Harries is Head of the recently established Volunteering and Charitable Giving Unit in the Home Office. As part of the Active Communities Directorate, the Unit's creation marks a renewed interest in ways to support citizens to give either their time or their money to make life better for all of us. It shares the wider ACD vision of a society where voluntary activity flourishes and where all individuals and communities are enabled to play a full part in civil society.

Richard has worked at the Home Office for over 15 years on issues as diverse as prison security, econometric crime modelling and community interest companies. He joined the Active Community Unit in January 2003 to expand the Unit's policy making capacity and was closely involved in the development of the previous Home Secretary's agenda for ‘civil renewal'.

Michael Hastings, CBE

Michael Hastings heads up the new BBC's Corporate Social Responsibility Centre, which was set up in February this year. Its purpose is to build collaboration, designed to give the BBC's work focus, profile, strategic direction, support and recognition. This year Michael also became a Trustee of Comic Relief as well as an observer on the Boards of Children in Need and the World Service Trust. He is also Chairman of Crime Concern and a communications and strategy adviser to Sir John Stevens QPM, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He is a former Commissioner with the Commission for Racial Equality and served for nine years advising on race relations in the UK.

Previously, Michael headed up the BBC's Political & Parliamentary Affairs office in Westminster, where he also developed the BBC's Community Affairs function. His background is in journalism, reporting and presenting programmes for ITV and the BBC, and prior to that working with the Downing Street Policy Unit on urban policy, starting his career in education and community initiatives.

In January 2003, Michael was awarded the honour of a CBE in recognition of his services to crime reduction, after fourteen years with Crime Concern and nine as Chairman.

Malcolm Hayday

Malcolm Hayday is the Chief Executive of The Charity Bank Limited, the UK's first general charity to be authorised as a bank.

He was previously the Director of Community Finance at CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) and Director of CAF's social investment loan fund, Investors in Society .

From 1996 to 2002 he was a Board Member of INAISE, the International Association of Investors in the Social Economy, a global network of social investment institutions, having been its President, 1997-2001. Since 2000 he has also been a Trustee of The Big Issue Foundation and was elected its Chairman in 2003. From 2002 to 2003 he was a founding Board member of the Community Development Finance Association (CDFA). He is a member of the Advisory Group of global foundation leaders to the World Economic Forum. He is also a member of the International Advisory Committee of NESsT, the non profit enterprise and self-sustainability team, and the Advisory Group for NCVO's Sustainable Funding Project. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Malcolm has more than 30 years experience in business finance. He graduated from Exeter University in 1972 with a BA Hons. in Economics. After university he assumed progressively senior positions with City financial institutions. From 1987 he concentrated on finance for small and medium sized businesses. He joined CAF in 1993 to establish the loans service for charities. He has written a number of papers on the social economy and social investment.

Simon Hebditch

Simon Hebditch is currently Policy Director at the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) with responsibility for working on all external policy issues that might effect either CAF itself or the wider voluntary sector. In recent years this has meant that Simon has worked with government on the April 2000 tax incentives, the creation of the Giving Campaign and lobbying Commonwealth governments to try and introduce beneficial changes in legal and fiscal arrangements for charities throughout the Commonwealth.

Previously, Simon worked as an Assistant Director of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) focusing on policy and research. In a career largely devoted to the voluntary sector, Simon has also been General Secretary of Bradford Metro Council for Voluntary Service, Assistant Director of MIND (National Association for Mental Health) and Head of Information for Age Concern England. Simon Hebditch is also a trustee of the London Community Foundation and the Kent Community Foundation.

Darren Henley

After starting his career as a journalist at Invicta Radio in Kent, Darren became a senior broadcast journalist at ITN. He then joined Classic FM as a producer, becoming News Manager in 1997, News and Programme Manager in 1999, Managing Editor in 2000 and Station Manager in 2004. His radio programmes have been honoured by the United Nations, the Sony Radio Academy Awards, the New York International Radio Festival and the British Radio Awards.

Darren is a member of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council and of Arts Council England's South East Regional Council. He sits on the board of the Canterbury Festival and is a member of the Board of Advisors to the New York International Radio Festival. He is the author of seven books about classical music and musicians, including the Grammy Award nominated audiobook The Story of Classical Music. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, he studied politics at the University of Hull.

Margaret Hyde

Margaret Hyde is Director of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The Foundation is one of the UK's most significant grantmakers with assets of £600 million and an annual grant spend of about £26 million.

Previously Margaret held a number of senior positions in the voluntary and public sectors including Deputy Secretary General of the Arts Council, Chief Executive of Action Resource Centre, and Head of Information at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. She has been a Council member of the Royal Society of Arts, and Vice Chair of the Association of Charitable Foundations. She was educated at the London School of Economics, of which she is currently a Governor.

Amanda Jordan, OBE

Amanda Jordan is a Founding Director and Chair of the SMART Company. Her career involves extensive experience in both the corporate sector – leading the CSR activities of the NatWest Group - and within a number of NGOs, including Age Concern, NCVO and Scope .

Amanda has also worked with UK government as business advisor to the Social Exclusion Unit in the Cabinet Office and as a member of the New Deal Advisory Group . She is now a non Executive Director of the Regional Coordination Policy and Management Board in the Office of Deputy Prime Minister. Until recently Amanda was a Board member of the Corporate Responsibility Group and she remains actively involved in a number of CSR bodies.

Amanda is a non Executive Director of the Banking Code Standards Board and Greater London Enterprise as well as non Executive Chair of One London (The London Enterprise Agency). Amongst her voluntary sector commitments she is a Trustee and Vice Chair of the National Literacy Trust and a Governor of the Mountview Theatre School. Amanda was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2000 for her work as a former Board member of the National Lottery Charities Board.

John Kingston

Director of Venturesome , John joined CAF in 2001, to explore the potential for risk funding of the voluntary sector in the UK.

Venturesome (www.venturesome.org) , launched in 2002, has now provided over £3.5 million investment funding to 60 charities and social enterprises, using underwriting, unsecured loans, repayable grants and equity.

After school, John worked as a VSO volunteer in Trinidad before reading Economics at Cambridge. Two years as an ODI Nuffield Fellow in Swaziland were followed by a Master of Business Administration degree at Manchester Business School. He then joined 3i Group, an investment bank specialising in small and medium-sized businesses, before renewing his links with the voluntary sector in 1990, when he was appointed a director of Save the Children, with responsibility for fundraising/marketing.

John was Chair of the Institute of Fundraising (2000-2003) and of the Giving with Confidence project, a joint initiative of NCVO/ICFM/CAF, from 1998 to 2003. He has also been a trustee of a number of voluntary organisations.

Roger Lewis

Roger Lewis is Managing Director of ITV Wales.  He is also Deputy Chairman of Boosey and Hawkes. 

Prior to joining ITV Wales in December 2004, Roger was Managing Director and Programme Controller of Classic FM, and an executive board director of GWR group plc, positions he held since 1998. Roger began working in radio in 1981 at Radio Tees, followed by Capital Radio in 1984 and the BBC in 1985. He spent five years at BBC Radio 1, becoming Head of the Music Department in 1987. He joined EMI Records in 1990, becoming Managing Director of the Classical Division and Managing Director of the label group EMI Premier. In 1996 he was appointed World Wide President of the Decca Record Company.

Roger has won a number of awards including three consecutive Sony Awards whilst a producer at the BBC, and in 2002, Programmer of the Year, at the Commercial Radio Awards. His other activities include, Chairman of a Government Advisory Board at the DFES, Chairman of the Ogmore Centre Trust, Chairman of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, Director of Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008, President of the Bromley Youth Music Trust, Director of the Barchester Group and Director of the Wales Millennium Centre.

Deepak Mahtani

Deepak Mahtani has a business degree from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan and American College, Switzerland. He was formerly Commercial Director for a large multi-national in Geneva involved in strategic diversification and has wide experience of cross-cultural business dealings in the Far East, South Asia, Africa and Europe.

Deepak is currently International Director of the South Asian Development Partnership and Managing Director of Winning Communications Partnership Ltd. He is a regular speaker at conferences and training seminars throughout Europe on cross-cultural negotiation and management, including "Improving your Remote Relationships", "Becoming a Global Manager", "International Negotiations", "Winning the Talent War" and "Diversity Matters". Deepak is also the co-author of "The British and how to deal with them: Doing Business with Britain's Ethnic Communities" (Middlesex University Press, Oct. 2001).

Deepak is of Indian origin, lived in the Far East for 14 years, Switzerland for 14 years, and speaks English, French, Spanish, Japanese, and 2 Indian languages. He is married and has 2 boys.

Apart from his business interests, Deepak is actively involved in a number of charities both in the UK and South Asia and raising funds for health, development and education in developing countries. He is included in the International Who's Who of Professionals (2001).

Jeremy Middleton

Jeremy Middleton is the Joint Co-Founder of HomeServe plc, an assistance service company with around 10 million policy holders in the UK, France, USA and Australia.  Jeremy also runs his own marketing consultancy, The Marketing Department Limited, working with blue-chip companies to improve their marketing and also working extensively with public and private organisations in the North East.  Jeremy worked in advertising for Procter & Gamble in the UK and Egypt between 1984 and 1988 and initially gained experience as a consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers. 

Jeremy is a Press Officer for the Variety Club (North East Region).   In 2004 Jeremy walked to the North Pole and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2002 raising substantial amounts for St Oswald's Hospice.

Jeremy lives in Newcastle upon Tyne with his wife Catherine and three children, Jessica, Lucy and James.

Elizabeth Mills, OBE

Elizabeth runs her own public affairs consultancy, Eminence Grise, with a particular focus on older people and long term care, fundraising, and more recently sustainable development. Her clients include BUPA Care Services, Health Systems Consultants Ltd, the Science Museum, and she will Chair the Advisory Panel of the newly funded research programme, SPARC. She is also currently a member of the project team for the implementation of the self-regulation of fundraising for the Institute of Fundraising. Until 2001, she was Chief Executive of the medical research charity, Research into Ageing, when she led the charity into full merger with Help the Aged. She is Deputy Chairman of the Continuing Care Conference, a Trustee of Homeshare International, Auditory Verbal UK, and Westminster Healthcare Foundation, and a Governor of Henry Box School at Witney, Oxfordshire where she also chairs the Henry Box Trust.

In 2000, Elizabeth was awarded the Lord Cohen of Birkenhead Medal for Services to Gerontology and in 2002 she received the OBE in the Queen's Jubilee Birthday Honours for services to ageing research.

Karen Morgan Thomas

Karen Morgan Thomas is Managing Partner of KMT Partners Ltd., a leading executive search boutique established in 2001, which specialises in asset management, wealth management and sport. Issues surrounding corporate governance have recently generated significant new search mandates.

Karen spent 18 years in the City, initially as a Director of Smith St. Aubyn and later as Chief Executive of BZW's highly successful global soft commission house, Thamesway. She joined Heidrick and Struggles in 1996, establishing the Asset Management and Private Wealth practice and working internationally across functions at board level in Financial Services and Sports.

Karen was educated at Millfield, The University of London and Henley Management College. She speaks French, German, Italian and Spanish. She is a Life Governor of Imperial Cancer Research and a board member of The New London Orchestra.

She is a Founder Member of 33 St. James's.

Jennifer Moses

Jennifer Moses joined the mergers division Goldman Sachs, New York in 1989. She was latterly Managing Director responsible for the retail and consumer products investment banking business in Europe after stints in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Jennifer left Goldman Sachs in 2001 after a successful 11-year career, and, amongst other positions, she is now a Trustee of ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) in London.

As Chair of ARK's Grant Giving Committee, Jennifer oversees research within selected charitable themes, organizations and projects for potential grants; recommendations of new thematic programmes for selection by the charity; solicitation and reception of grant applications from charities; selection of charities and projects to fund; and the monitoring and evaluation of all grants.

Jennifer graduated from Brown University with a degree in History of Science and gained an MBA from Harvard.

Jane Mote

Jane is Controller of the Community Channel, and is responsible for the strategy and content development on the Channel which is the UK's only not-for-profit television channel dedicated to charity and community stories. Previously Jane was Executive Editor of BBC London and was responsible for all the BBC's regional output in London including BBC London News, Inside Out, the London Political Unit, BBC London 94.9 FM and BBC London online. She was also Editor for BBC Wales Today and she started her journalistic career in newspapers.

Gillian Reynolds

Gillian Reynolds MBE is a radio critic of the Daily Telegraph. Nationally known both as a writer and a broadcaster she has judged the Sony Awards, the Royal Television Society Awards, the BAFTAs and the Booker Prize. A Trustee of National Museums Liverpool, she is also Chairman of the Trustees of the Charles Parker Archive in Birmingham and a Council member of the Society of Authors. She is an Honorary Fellow of her Oxford college, St. Anne's, and of Liverpool John Moores University. She has three sons, one granddaughter and, at last count, twenty two radios (three of them digital).

Andy Rich

Andy Rich graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Economics in 1990. He trained as a Chartered Accountant with a Big Four firm, qualifying in 1994. In early 1997 Andy joined H W Fisher & Company and was admitted to the partnership soon afterwards. He is responsible for a broad portfolio of clients including a large number of charities and has a comprehensive understanding of all practical and theoretical issues that affect them. He also has extensive experience in carrying out due diligence assignments – both for company and charity clients.

Andy is a Governor of Holland House school, an independent, non-denominational preparatory school for boys and girls from four to eleven years of age.

Campbell Robb

Campbell Robb joined NCVO in 1998 as Head of Campaigns. As Director of Public Policy he is now responsible for NCVO's external relations, policy and research work and is co-ordinating NCVO's work on the role of the voluntary sector in delivering public services. Prior to this he was a researcher to David Blunkett, MP and a Press and Policy Advisor to Chris Smith, MP. He also has commercial and public sector lobbying experience.

Viviane Robertson

Viviane Robertson heads the Awards and Honours team in the Volunteering and Charitable Giving Unit in the Home Office Active Communities Directorate. Her responsibilities include running The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, an annual award, which recognises and rewards excellence in voluntary activities carried out by groups in the community. She was involved in setting up the Award, which was announced in 2002, as a legacy of The Queen's Golden Jubilee.

Viviane is currently on loan to the Home Office from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Norman Sanson

Norman Sanson is a trustee of Oxfam and of Timebank, and recently stepped down after several years' trusteeship of Wellbeing and Pilotlight. He retired in 1997 from McKinsey & Company, management consultants, where he latterly led the London, Dublin and Johannesburg offices. Prior to joining McKinsey in 1973, he worked with Procter & Gamble and Cavenham Foods. He is a non - executive director of Brake Brothers and chairman of the Alresford Gallery.

Martin Sime

Martin Sime is the Chief Executive of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, the umbrella body for the voluntary sector in Scotland.

Until 1991 he was Director of the Scottish Association for Mental Health, the main campaigning and community care providing organisation for people who have mental health problems. Prior to joining the voluntary sector, Martin was a sheep farmer on the Isle of Lewis.

Martin is currently a Board member of ACOSVO, Workwithus - the voluntary sector portal, and the Scottish Community Foundation. He recently served on the Charity Law Reference Group.

Rachel Simhon

Mark Soundy

Mark Soundy is a Partner in the international law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. With over 1,100 lawyers across 17 jurisdictions, Weil Gotshal is one of the largest and most highly regarded law firms in the world.

Mark has been a lawyer for nearly 20 years. He specialises in private equity and venture capital transactions, advising institutional investors and entrepreneurs. He is qualified in England and New York.

Mark has recently been invited to join the Foundation Board of Radley College and the Planning Committee for Cambridge University's 800th Anniversary Campaign.

Born in 1964, Mark was educated at Radley College, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lives in North London and is married with two children.

Chris Staples

Chris has worked for Zurich/Allied Dunbar for 15 years his current position is Director responsible for Zurich Financial Services Community Trust and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). His key responsibilities include

•  Development, maintenance and delivery of the vision, values and strategic plan for all aspects of CSR and community involvement

•  Operational management of all aspects of the Trust, which is a charity and company limited by guarantee, acting as secretary to the Board of Directors

•  Director of the Community Trust Trading Company

•  Trustee and Director of National Centre for Volunteering

•  Advising Zurich's Directors on all matters relating to CSR

•  Accountability for all aspects of budgeting and reporting.

Chris's career history with Allied Dunbar/Zurich include Business Development Manager, Senior IT Project Manager, Systems Analyst.

Clare Thomas

Clare Thomas has been Chief Grants Officer with the Bridge House Trust since April 1996. The Trust started making grants to London charities in September 1995 and has an annual grants budget of approximately £17 million.

Clare was formerly an Adviser to the Active Community Unit at the Home Office on charities and voluntary organisations. She has worked as Trust Administrator for the Sir John Cass's Foundation and for several years as Deputy Director of the Rainer Foundation, a national charity providing services for young people at risk. She has worked as a teacher in Haringey and a social worker with Hackney Social Services Department and for the Family Service Unit in Islington.

She is a Trustee of the New Lease Trust, the Cavendish School, a member of the Association of Charitable Foundations' (ACF) board, member of the City Parochial Foundation's Grants Committee and the Executive Committee of the London Funders Group. She has also recently Chaired a task group for HM Treasury future builders - "Modernisation of the Voluntary Sector" and is Chair Elect of the Building Exploratory.

Peter Wheeler

Peter Wheeler is Chairman of IPValue, a company that partners with major global companies with deep research commitments to manage their intellectual property commercialization activity. IPValue was formed in late 2001 by Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic Partners, and The Boston Consulting Group through their joint investment vehicle iFormation Group. Its long-term exclusive relationship partners include BT and Xerox.

Previously, Peter spent fifteen years with Goldman Sachs, initially in New York, then, from 1991, based in Hong Kong, where he established the firm's Investment Banking business for Asia outside of Japan, spending considerable time in the People's Republic of China, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and India. He became a Partner of the firm in 1994, and returned to the United Kingdom at the end of 1998.

In addition to his business interests, Peter is Chairman of Futurebuilders, a new Home Office-backed fund of £125million established to invest in voluntary and community organizations to enhance their capacity to deliver public services, and a trustee of Kids Company, a Southwark (inner London) based charity serving ‘at risk' children and young people. He is a Founder and Trustee of New Philanthropy Capital a charity serving donors in the United Kingdom in determining and directing their giving programs by providing them with independent research on the efficacy of charities and projects in their field of interest; and of Charity Technology Trust, which provides technology services to charities in the UK. He sits on the Investment Advisory Committee of UnLTD, a government-endowed organisation with a mandate to develop social entrepreneurs and their projects nationwide in the UK.