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I CAN Trustees
While the Chief Executive and senior management team are employed to manage and develop the charity, I CAN’s Trustees carry a range of responsibilities for the effective governance of the charity.
The following section provides a brief biography of each I CAN Trustee:
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Lady Elizabeth Vallance (Chair)
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Elizabeth Vallance began her professional life as an academic at London University where she taught political philosophy for twenty years, becoming head of the department of Politics at Queen Mary College where she is now a Fellow.
On leaving full-time academic life, she developed a portfolio of interests in the public, private and voluntary sectors and has been Chairman of St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust; Chairman of the ministerial Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards and sat on the boards of HMV Group, Norwich Union plc and Aviva plc. She is now Chairman of Council of the Institute of Education, University of London and sits on the boards of Charter European Trust plc (where she is senior independent director) and the Medical Protection Society. She has written books on political participation, social policy, business ethics and corporate governance and is a presiding magistrate on the Inner London Bench. She was appointed by the Prime Minister in 2004 as a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. |
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| Sean Nesbitt (Vice Chair) |
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Sean is a solicitor and a partner in the Employment & Pensions Department of City law firm Taylor Wessing, specialising in employment. Clients of his firm include small, medium and large commercial enterprises and charities and public sector employers, particularly in the education sphere as well as individuals. Sean is married to a speech and language therapist and they have four children. Members of his family, including his deaf brother, have been users of speech and language therapy.
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Frances Jacob (Treasurer) |
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With a degree in Engineering and Management from Durham University and a subsequent postgraduate qualification in Production Engineering and Management from Cambridge, Frances began her career in manufacturing. In 1983 she moved into the venture capital and private equity sector, initially with 3i and from 1988 with the embryonic private equity division of Mercury Asset Management plc. In 2000 this became the independent business HgCapital, which now has some €2.7 billion of funds under management. Frances is Deputy Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. Frances has worked with the management and boards of many different companies in many sectors and at many stages of their development over her 24 years in private equity. |
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Julia Budd
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Julia Budd has a degree in Experimental Psychology with Statistics from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD. Her early career was spent with Young & Rubicam and then Bain & Co., the strategy consulting firm, as a Senior Consultant. She spent 15 years at Egon Zehnder International, the last seven years running the Board Practice across Europe. In 2002 Julia set up The Zygos Partnership with two other Founding Partners, John Viney and Milena Djurdjevic. The Zygos Partnership specialises in Board appointments, executive and non-executive, as well as counselling Boards on issues such as succession planning and Board effectiveness. She is also a Non-executive Director of Sandown Park. Julia also served as a Non-executive Director of Wilson Connolly plc until its agreed takeover by Taylor Woodrow and has chaired their Remuneration Committee. She was also a Member of the Tyson Task Force on the Recruitment and Development of Non-executive Directors. Julia is married with three children; she has a 16 year-old son who has a speech and language difficulty and attends a special school. |
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| Jim Burke |
| Jim Burke recently retired from Coutts & Co (banking) where he was Client Group Head with responsibility for a number of Private Client Managers based in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol who look after the financial affairs of High Net Wealth Clients in the UK. He was also a Trustee of the Coutts Charitable Foundation. He formally worked in the Nat West Group for over thirty years in a number of Executive/ Senior Management positions (Marketing, Investments, Trustee/Tax , HR & Technical/Marketing/Sales Training). He is married with three daughters, plus five grandchildren and lives near West Malling in Kent. Jim is a Freeman of the City Of London and a Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Plaisterers. He is also a Trustee of The Kent Association of The Blind (KAB) as well as assisting in fund raising and Corporate sponsorship for other Charitable bodies. |
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| Andrea Dinnick |
| Andrea Dinnick has been involved in the media and television business for over 15 years and comes to I CAN with an interest in both communication and children. Andrea started her career as a journalist, first as a researcher and then as a producer for Canada’s most popular investigative news programme, ‘W5’ on the CTV Television Network. She was a television reporter for CBC News in Ottawa and then moved to London as CBC’s European Business Correspondent. Andrea has also been a contributor on BBC Radio and was a presenter for NPR’s programme ‘The World’ which is broadcast across the US on National Public Radio. In 2000 she joined the Walt Disney Company. During her time at Disney, Andrea was a producer and director for Disney Channels UK. She created and ran the national story writing competition, ‘The Incredible Story Studio’ which ran for 3 years with thousands of children taking part from across the UK. Andrea worked with Capital Radio and Disney to launch ‘Capital Disney’, a digital radio station for children. Before leaving Disney in 2006, she spent two years as the Executive Producer and Channel Editor for Disney’s preschool channel, ‘Playhouse Disney’, UK and as Channel Editor for ‘Disney Cinemagic’. Andrea is currently involved in several other media ventures for children including a business focussing on online and digital content for children as well as a creator/producer for a new preschool series. She has been nominated for a Gemini Award in Canada and a BAFTA award in the UK for her television work. Andrea is the mother of three school-aged children and knows first hand the importance and need for early help and support for families of children with learning disabilities. |
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| Joe Eagle (Chair of Meath Governors) |
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Joe graduated from Southampton University in Biochemistry and joined the pharmaceutical industry . He held a range of marketing and general management posts over the next 20 years in Europe, Africa and Asia before returning to the UK as Marketing Director for Ciba-Geigy. In 1985, Joe started his own pharmaceutical services company in medical education which grew to be the largest in its field over the next 15 years. This was sold to a publically-listed American firm in 1998 and Joe subsequently invested in start up companies in electronics, pharmaceutical discovery and monitoring technology with which he continues an active interest to this day. Joe's association with I CAN started in 1994 as a governor of John Horniman school, becoming Chair of Governors in 2001 at the same time as joining the I CAN Trustee board. He acts as Chair of Governors for Meath school today as well as a Trustee. He is married to Lis, an American writer, and has 2 grown sons. |
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| Adrian Hosford |
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Adrian is a marketing professional, a campaigner for better interpersonal communication, and a corporate responsibility (CSR) & sustainability expert. The roots of his passion for communication were formed in his early career, working in a range of advertising agencies (Masius, McCann Erickson and Ketchum), in a number of roles (media, planning, research and account management) and on a mix of brands, products and markets. Seeking more direct influence, he progressed from the agency side of advertising to the client side, initially for ICL Computers as head of advertising & direct marketing globally. In the mid 80's, he moved to BT to head the new marketing team with a brief to define the brand and manage customer communication across all media. Under his leadership, BT enjoyed both commercial and popular success with campaigns such as the Maureen Lipman “Beattie” and Bob Hoskins “It’s good to talk”. Adrian’s vision – “the power of communication to help create a better world” – inspired BT’s brand positioning and was at the heart of BT's CSR success in maximising it’s positive impact on society. He led the company-wide CSR activity which motivated staff, improved customer loyalty, reduced CO2 emissions by 60% and made savings of millions of pounds which were then reinvested in the community. He retired in 2009 with BT recognised as a CSR world leader, being rated number 1 in its sector in the Dow Jones Global Sustainability Index 2001-2009; receiving the Queens Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development; and becoming Business in the Community’s Company of the Year 2007. Adrian is currently chair of the Communication Trust; chair of a social enterprise called Moodscope, which helps people who suffer from depression; and chair of the advisory panel for the international centre for CSR at Nottingham Business School. |
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| Victoria Joffe |
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Dr Victoria Joffe is a specialist speech and language therapist and senior lecturer in developmental speech, language and communication impairments in the Department of Language and Communication Science at City University, London. She is programme director of an MSc degree in Joint Professional Practice: Language and Communication, run in conjunction with the Institute of Education, London (www.talklink.org).
Victoria obtained her Honours degree with distinction in speech and language therapy and audiology in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. She obtained her D.Phil degree in the Department of Experimental Psychology, The University of Oxford exploring the relationship between oral language ability, metalinguistic awareness and literacy in language impaired children.
Victoria’s areas of clinical and research interest include specific language impairment, child speech disorder, the interface between education and speech and language therapy, collaborative practice, the relationship between language and literacy, narrative therapy and speech, language and communication needs and intervention in older children and young adults and working with young offenders and the prison services.
Victoria is currently involved in a large scale intervention project funded by the Nuffield foundation on enhancing language and communication in secondary school children with language impairments (www.elciss.com).
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Nick Peacey |
| Nick Peacey is co-ordinator of the Special Educational Needs Joint Initiative for Training (SENJIT), Institute of Education, University of London. He returned to this post from a secondment as Principal Manager, Equal Opportunities and Access at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Nick was a lead consultant to the Government initiative published in 2003 as KS3 SEN: Training Materials for the KS3 Foundation Subjects. He was a co-director of the DfEE research project, Provision for Speech and Language Needs in England and Wales: Facilitating Communication Between Education and Health and led the team which produced guidance materials on SEN to supplement the Primary National Strategy/QCA’s Speaking, Listening, Learning (PNS/QCA 2005). Nick Peacey has been a member of many national steering and working groups on inclusion, including the DfES steering group on guidance on school building design for SEN and disability. He has recently taken part in a study of provision for pupils with SLCN for the Bercow Review. Nick worked with the Council for Disabled Children, as consultant on curriculum and assessment to the DfES Accessibility Planning Project, the national development programme on implementing the revised Disability Discrimination Act. He is the External Expert to the European Agency for SEN’s EU-wide Assessment Project, advising on project development and quality assurance. |
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| Steven Perez |
| After serving in the US Navy for six years, Steve settled in the UK in 1985. Steve has worked in a variety of IT technical, management and consultative roles across a number of industry and government sectors. He is a serving governor at William Farr School where he sits on the Learning and Support, Finance and Estates and HR committees. He is the chairman of the HR committee. Steve is a governor at Dawn House School. He lives in Lincolnshire with his wife and two children; one of his children has a speech and language difficulty. |
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| Mark Richardson |
| Mark Richardson, aged 53, is a non-executive director of Big Yellow Group plc (chair of the audit committee) and a co-opted adviser to the risk and audit committee of the Natural History Museum. Mark retired from Deloitte LLP in 2008 after a career there of 29 years, the last 19 as an audit partner. He is married to Sarah and they have 2 children, Oliver 19 and Anna 15. |
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Katharine Weston |
| Katharine is a consultant dermatologist with a special interest in skin cancer and dermatological surgery. Katharine leads the Melanoma service at Guys and St Thomas hospital which comprises a large multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. There is an active research department involved in all stages of melanoma development. Katharine also works at Amersham Hospital where she mainly performs dermatological surgery. Katharine is married and has 4 children, one of whom is at Meath School. |
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Last modified: Jan 25 2010