Our board of trustees provides us with a breadth of experience and expertise. All 20 trustees contribute their time to help set and oversee the strategic direction of Christian Aid.
They review and comment on plans and performance, review any major issues bearing on the wellbeing of the organisation, and decide important new directions.
It is the trustees’ responsibility to approve formally our budget, annual report and accounts.
The board meets six times a year and consists of a chair; representatives of Christian Aid’s committees for Ireland, Wales and Scotland; the General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland who is always an ex-officio member; and up to 15 other trustees appointed for their experience, knowledge and skills relevant to our work.
They are selected by our 41 sponsoring churches in Britain and Ireland at the annual general meeting.
All trustees are appointed for four years and are eligible for one further term. The board delegates some responsibilities to sub-committees of trustees, including a finance and audit committee.
Our board
Anne Owers, chair
Anne has been HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (England and Wales) since 2001, following many years of human rights and race relations work.
She joined the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in 1981, later becoming general secretary. During her time there she was also a member of the race and community relations committee of the Church of England, and the board of the centre for research into ethnic relations at Warwick University.
While director of legal and human rights organisation Justice, she served on government committees including the Home Office Task Force on the implementation of the Human Rights Act.
She was a member of the Public Interest Advisory Panel of the Legal Services Commission, and the Bowman Review of the Administrative Courts.
She became chair of Christian Aid in 2008.
Noel Davies, vice-chair
Noel Davies is a minister of the Union of Welsh Independents. He has been a leading figure in the ecumenical movement in Wales, Great Britain and internationally since the 1970s. He is currently director of the Welsh National Centre for Ecumenical Studies and coordinator of training at the College of the Welsh Independents, both at Trinity College, Carmarthen, and an honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University. He serves as chair of the Christian Aid national committee for Wales and joined the board in 2002.
Bob Fyffe
Bob Fyffe is a minister from the Scottish Episcopal Church and general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI). The CTBI’s general secretary is always an ex-officio member of the board of Christian Aid.
He has been rector of St John the Baptist church since 1993, and is canon of St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth. During that time he was also the convenor of the Churches Information and Communications Board, which oversaw publications and web development. He is a member of the Conference of European Churches’ planning group for the third European Ecumenical Assembly.
Carolyn Gray
Carolyn Gray is group HR director of the Guardian Media Group plc. She previously worked in human resources at Sainsbury’s, Focus Wickes and Smiths Group plc. She is a member of the council of the Institute of Employment Studies, and sits on the executive of the Involvement and Participation Association. She joined the board in November 2007.
Stephen Hale
Stephen Hale is the director of Green Alliance, an environmental think tank that works with environmental groups and businesses to bring environmental solutions into the mainstream of British politics.
He has a long-standing professional and personal interest in development issues. Before joining Green Alliance he was a special adviser in government from 2002-6, working initially for environment minister Michael Meacher and then secretary of state Margaret Beckett. Prior to that he worked from 1997-2002 as an adviser to businesses on social and environmental issues. He joined the board in November 2007.
Phil Hodkinson
Phil Hodkinson is a non-executive director of HM Revenue & Customs, BT Group plc, Travelex Holdings Ltd and Resolution Ltd.
He is also a director of Business in the Community and Chairman of the CommunityMark Independent Approvals Panel.
Until his retirement in 2007, Phil's former roles included group finance director of HBOS plc, chairman of Insight Investment and Clerical Medical, and CEO of Zurich Financial Services UK Life. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in England & Wales and the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.
He is a past chair of the Association of British Insurer's Raising Standards Accreditation scheme and was a member of the Department of Trade and Industry's Operating and Financial Review Working Group. He joined the board in November 2007.
Kumar Jacob
Kumar Jacob has worked for several companies at a senior management and directorate level. He was vice-president at Criterion Software, a subsidiary of electronics giant Canon, where he was responsible for finance, human resources and information systems. He trained at a firm of chartered accountants before gaining an MBA from Cranfield University School of Management.
He is a member of the Ethics of Investment Committee of the Methodist Church and a non-executive director of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and also chairs its Charitable Funds Trust.
He is a member of Christian Aid’s finance and audit committee.
Gillian Kingston
Gillian Kingston is president of the Irish Council of Churches. She was formerly moderator of the Church Representatives’ meeting of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. She is a member of the steering committee of the Irish School of Ecumenicist and Methodist/Roman Catholic International Commission. She joined the board in 2006.
Michael Langrish
Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter, has been on Christian Aid’s board since 2003. He is a Cambridge theology graduate, was canon of Coventry Cathedral, and became Suffragan Bishop of Birkenhead in 1993 and Bishop of Exeter in 2000.
He is now a member of the House of Lords and the General Synod, including chairman of the Rural Affairs and Committee of the Board for Mission and Public Affairs and chairman of the Melanesian Mission UK.
George McSorley
George McSorley has an MSc in Human Resource Management and an MBA. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and worked in employment for the civil service. He is now the Chief Executive of Unity Enterprise, an organisation committed to promoting the ability of people for full cultural, social and economic inclusion within their community. Recently elected Chair of the Christian Aid Scottish Committee, he joined the board in November 2007.
Roger Purce
Roger Purce is a minister of Groomsport Presbyterian Church in County Down. He was convener of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s World Development Committee from 1992 to 1999 and secretary of the Christian Education Movement in Northern Ireland and chair of Christian Aid Ireland since 1999.
He has been overseas to visit the work of Christian Aid’s partners a number of times.
He is currently first chair of the newly formed Christian Aid-registered companies of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Brian Ridsdale
Brian Ridsdale took over as chair of the Christian Aid finance and audit committee in January 2007. He spent 11 years as head of financial services company Zurich Life in the UK and he has led work on social policy issues with the actuarial profession and as a business partner with Population Ageing Associates.
He has been involved with Christian Aid through his local church for many years and visited our partners in Ghana. He joined the board in 2005.
Charlotte Seymour Smith
Charlotte Seymour Smith studied social anthropology at the London School of Economics. She did fieldwork in the Amazon region and was awarded a PhD in 1982. She is the author of the Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology and she has worked with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Mozambique, Brussels, Delhi and London.
She was the lead UK negotiator for the Cotonou Convention which covers aid and trade relations between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries and then head of trade policy in DFID in the run-up to the Doha Development Round of trade talks in the World Trade Organisation. After heading the DFID programme in India from 2003-4, she was director for Asia in DFID until 2007. She joined the board in November 2007.
Graham Sparkes
Graham Sparkes is a minister in the Baptist Union of Great Britain and head of their Faith and Unity department for ecumenical engagement, public issues and social justice work. He has an MA in theology and an MA in theology in Christian spirituality. His interests also include the relationship between faith and art and he co-authored God and the Art of Seeing: Visual resource for a journey of faith.
Bridget Walker
Bridget Walker is a member of the Quakers’ Religious Society of Friends. She retired from her position as co-director of the charity Responding to Conflict in 2006. She has a background in international development with Oxfam, Quaker Peace and Service and Christian Aid. She lived and worked in Cameroon and Sudan where she was involved in refugee education. She has also travelled widely in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, visiting development and humanitarian programmes. She is a member of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility.
She has published articles on corporate responsibility, gender and development, and women and religion. She joined the board in January 2005.
Morag Mylne
Morag Mylne is an elder in the Church of Scotland. She is an advocate at the Scottish bar, as Morag Ross, and her practice is mainly in public law.
From 1997 to 2008 she was a member of the Church and Nation Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and then of the Church and Society Council. She served as convener from 2004 to 2008 and in that capacity spoke on behalf of the Church on a wide range of social and political issues.
Robert Beckford
Robert Beckford is an academic and award winning broadcaster based in Birmingham. He has authored half-a-dozen books in the field of theology and culture and made over 20 documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4.
Robert collaborated with Christian Aid on the critically acclaimed Great African Scandal (Channel 4, 2007). He is currently a Visiting Reader at Goldsmiths College, University of London.