Alex Swallow is The Influence Expert, helping people with their personal branding and influence and is the author of the book ‘How To Become An Influencer'.

He set up Young Charity Trustees in 2011 and ran it until it became part of The Young Trustees Movement in 2019. After becoming a young trustee himself he realised how few young people know about this amazing opportunity to give something back, so he started to campaign on the issue. He has been involved in a number of national and international level governance initiatives. He served as the Co-Vice Chair of a charity in North London and is now the Chair of The Suit Works in his new home of Sheffield. He remains a committed supporter for the cause of trying to make charity Boards more diverse.

Alex has worked for a number of charities, including The Small Charities Coalition as its Chief Executive and the National Benevolent Fund for the Aged. He was a mentor for several years on the Charity works programme that helps attract bright young graduates to the sector.

Alex was educated at Cambridge and Sussex Universities, specialising in politics and served as an intern for two Members of Parliament. He has lived and worked in nine countries, including two years teaching English in Japan and helping to run a voluntary teaching programme in Romania.

Afshan D’souza-Lodhi was born in Dubai to Indian and Pakistani parents and was lost in Manchester. She is a writer of plays, prose, performance pieces, and passive-aggressive tweets. Afshan’s first degree was in Philosophy, and her Masters was in Post-Colonial Literature and Culture. As well as her own writing, Afshan is keen to develop other younger and emerging artists.

Afshan currently freelances with numerous cultural organisations.

She sits on the boards of the Manchester Literature Festival and Pie Radio. Afshan also sits on the steering committee for the Northern Police Monitoring Project, an independent campaigning and advocacy organization that challenges police harassment and violence.

Alice is a charity sector Digital Marketer and Youth Advocate. In July 2020 she received a Diana Award for her services to young people in the healthcare and charity sector. At the age of 22, Alice was elected as a trustee for Crohn’s & Colitis UK. As a young trustee, she aims to bring a new perspective to the board and represent the views of young people who’ve been diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Bola Ajose is a self-taught programmer, and passionate about STEM communication and amplifying Black Women’s voices within this space. She works as Technical Operations Analyst at the data platform Permutive with previous experience as a Logistics Manager for Stemettes, and Programme Manager at Coders of Colour. Bola first became acquainted with the world of trusteeship through the Beyond Suffrage programme where she learnt key skills that prepared her for her first trustee position as Events Management Trustee for Bi Pride UK.

Dan leads NCVO’s charity governance work, managing a small team of consultants to deliver practical support to boards. He has over ten years experience working with a range of charities from small community organisation to household name national and international organisations. Dan was heavily involved in developing the Charity Governance Code and continues as a member of the Code’s cross sector steering group.

Dan joined NCVO from the National Union of Students’ (NUS) where, as a Consultant, he supported students’ union governance. Dan serves as a trustee of Hackney CVS and a member of the Governance and Nominations Committee of The Start Network.

Dan first become a charity trustee at age 20.

Dylan is a trustee for Dolen Cymru, a charity that links together the countries of Wales and Lesotho to create lasting positive changes in the communities of both nations. Dylan currently works for the Community Transport Association, helping to support organisations around the UK to provide accessible and inclusive transport. He also sits on the National Lottery Community Fund's People and Places Committee which awards grants to help communities to use their strengths to make positive impacts on the things that matter to them the most.

Emilia has been a trustee since the age of 19, sort of by accident! She is a trustee for Student Christian Movement (SCM), a charity that supports Christian university and Higher Education students across Great Britain, with a focus on social justice and being an inclusive space. Alongside this, she is the Access and Inclusion portfolio holder on SCM's General Council.

She is currently nearing the end of a degree in Motorsport Engineering at Coventry University, and has a particular interest in encouraging under-represented groups into motorsport and STEM.

Outside of studying, Emilia likes to do all kinds of crafts (particularly crochet), bake and volunteer at festivals and events.

Ethan has a long standing interest and commitment to public service and youth representation in all areas of public life.

Being a trustee of a local youth club which he helped establish has given Ethan lots of skills and opened him up to lots of opportunities. Ethan looks forward to promoting the positive impact that young people can make as trustees.

Fiona Ellison is the Director of Partnerships & Operations at Step Up To Serve, the charity that runs the #iwill campaign. She leads on the work to develop the partnerships across our focus areas of health & the environment to ensure young people are able to participate in meaningful youth social action. She has just finished a two year secondment to the National Lottery Community Fund, overseeing the development of match funding partnerships to distribute £40m of investment into youth social action.

Hannah has ten years of trusteeship experience, both in a small start-up charity working in international development and on The Scouts’ national trustee board. During her time at the Scouts, Hannah was the first person to hold the voluntary role of UK Youth Commissioner. In this role, she worked with the CEO, Chair, and lead volunteer to ensure that decision making on all levels at the Scouts was shaped by young people, and was ultimately accountable for a quarter of the organisation’s strategy delivery to 2018. During her time with Timu Rafiki, a small charity supporting young people to access non-formal education in Kenya, she served as the chair of the board of trustees for four years and led charity commission registration for the charity.

In a professional capacity, Hannah is a humanitarian. She works for ShelterBox as an Operations Coordinator, where she manages the distribution of emergency shelter and household items to affected communities following disaster and conflict. Previous roles have included working at the Cabinet Office, in charity fundraising, and project and programme management of healthcare interventions across England.

Harry is a Communities Organiser for The Brilliant Club, where he works with parents and carers to equip them with the knowledge to be Higher Education champions and co-create campaigns to tackle place based enablers of educational inequality.

Jo Wells has worked in the voluntary sector for over 25 years both in international humanitarian aid overseas and in the UK. As well as working on front line operations in natural disasters and conflict, she managed a policy team, has led research, and been involved in multi-agency global initiatives around standard setting. In humanitarian aid Jo had a particular focus on how the most vulnerable are integrated into effective responses. For the past six years, Jo has been the Director of The Blagrave Trust. The Trust is increasingly moving towards becoming youth-led and aims to enable young people facing the most disadvantage to transition successfully to adulthood. This involves them having a stake in their futures and a say in matters that affect them. Jo has volunteered as a Childline counselor, is currently a Trustee of the Essex Community Foundation and serves on the Comic Relief Social Impact Committee.

Joe has been a trustee for 4 years, when he joined the British Youth Council (BYC) board, after representing Wales as a UK Young Ambassador through the BYC's international work. He currently sits on the Wales Council for Voluntary Action board, chairing COVID relief funding activities for Wales. Joe has been writing, speaking, and generally shouting about how important young trustees are for about 9 years - a task he is continuing as he becomes an older 'young' person!"

Jouja is the Director of Impact at Regenerative Group, an impact investment fund investing in companies that enable a better and more sustainable world. She leads their impact measurement and management strategy, as well as managing external partnerships and business development. She is a Program Manager at Foundervine, a social enterprise building an inclusive start-up community for diverse and underrepresented founders. Additionally, she is currently a trustee at the New Economics Foundation - an organisation the supports people to create change and conducts research the contribute to policy solutions.

Jouja is experienced in working across the philanthropic and non-profit sectors, including with the US-UK Fulbright Commission and the Synergos Institute, and currently volunteers as the Community Partnerships Lead at Migrant Leaders. She is the UK’s Delegate to the 2021 G7 Youth Summit and was formerly a Young Europe Ambassador, working with the 27 Ministers of European Affairs to shape discussions on the future of Europe.

She sits on the Sutton Trust’s Alumni Leadership Board, as well as Social Finance’s Racial Equity Advisory Group and The Big Issue’s Climate Advisory Group. She is a Young Founding Member of Impact 100 London, a Founders of the Future Fellow, and a Fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts.

Jouja holds a BA in Political Science & Human Rights from Columbia University, an MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and is an alumna of SIT's International Honors Programme.

Kate Roberts is the Chair of Trustees at Royal Holloway Students’ Union, where she is currently the President. Her first experience of being a Trustee was through becoming the Vice President Education in 2019, she is keen to undertake further Trustee roles when her term comes to an end in July 2021.

Kate is also an Advocate for Girlguiding UK where she acts as a national spokesperson, representing and campaigning for girls and young women across the UK.

In her free time Kate enjoys hiking, camping and spending time in nature.

Leon has been a trustee since he was 18 years old when he became a trustee of Plan International UK. On the back of this, Leon has gone onto publish or contribute to several young trustee guides. He has spent much of his career convincing boards about how and why they should recruit young trustees and helping them to implement board models which increase diversity. He is currently Deputy Chair of Brook Young People.

Michael is a researcher and project manager focused on exploring the connection between rights, citizenship and education. He leads the Bingham Centre's strategic area of focus on Citizenship and the Rule of Law. He is the Coordinator of 'The Rule of Law for Citizenship Education', a nationwide programme in which young people are taught about the rule of law and human rights. As a result of the success of this work, Michael was asked to join the Solicitor General's Public Legal Education Committee.

Prior to joining the Bingham Centre Michael worked as a political organiser encouraging young people and disenfranchised groups to participate in public life. He has led voter registration projects that have successfully registered hundreds of thousands of first-time voters, working with the Cabinet Office and other partners to promote voter engagement in the run-up to the 2016 European Union Referendum. The University of Nottingham gave Michael an 'Alumni Laureate Award' to recognise his democratic engagement work and he was named a (fee-waiving) Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts in 2017.

Outside of his citizenship work, Michael has been a successful non-executive director of four charities. He has also served as an advisor of public education authorities. As the current Deputy Chair of the Teaching Excellence Framework Subject Pilot Panel for Law (Business, Education and Social Care are also considered under the remit of the committee), Michael leads senior law academics in piloting, testing and applying methods for assessing quality in higher education programmes.

Penny Wilson is CEO of trustee recruitment charity, Getting on Board. Penny started her career at the Association of Charity Shops and Barnet Voluntary Service Council. She then became Head of Community Affairs at the University of Cambridge where she oversaw large public events like the Cambridge Science Festival, promoted volunteering by students and staff and ran a grant-making scheme for local charities. More recently, she was Director of Partnerships for The Brilliant Club and CEO of disability charity, Styleability. At Getting on Board, she works with large companies and government departments to support their staff to become trustees, and with charities to recruit trustees more effectively. She has been a trustee of several charities herself, currently of The National Migraine Centre and Cambridge Student Community Action.

Originally from Portugal, Rodolfo has called Yorkshire home for over 10 years. He is a trustee of two arts charities, Bradford theatre company Freedom Studios and East Street Arts in Leeds.

Rodolfo is a marketing and communications professional and a civil servant. He has previously worked for multiple arts charities, including Ilkley Literature Festival, Cast in Doncaster and York Theatre Royal.

Rodolfo wants to demystify what boards of trustees are and do, and help bring a greater diversity of voices into spaces where decisions are made.

Ruth has been an active trustee in charities since she was 19, starting with a role for a local volunteer centre. She went on to be President and Chair of Kent Students’ Union, a role for which she won ‘highly commended’ for the the Third Sector’s Charity Chair of the Year 2018.

She is currently Deputy Chair at Middlesex Students’ Union and works as Sustainability Lead, in the Strategy and Transformation team at The Children’s Trust.

‘I fell into being a trustee by accident, and without really knowing what it meant, but the experience led me to have a passion for transformation in the charity sector. I truly believe that our sector will be a better place with young and diverse voices in trustee positions and I can’t wait to help get them there.’

Sara is based in Oxford where she leads the Oxford Hub, a social action centre that encourages everyone to make a difference in their community. Sara joined her first trustee board when she was 19 years old, and has since been on the board of Student Minds and Age UK Oxfordshire. She currently also sits on the Young Trustees Movement Advisory board.

Based on her experience as a trustee, she set up the Young Trustees Programme in 2016, supporting students and early career professionals to join charity boards. The programme works closely with local charities to unlock new placements, and provides a 12 month training programme for participants. Now in its fifth cohort, the programme has placed over 60 young people in charity boards across Oxfordshire.

Outside of work Sara is a foster carer, goes running and listens to the Hamilton soundtrack incessantly