Ultimately our Board of Trustees is responsible for ensuring that the charity and everyone working for it operates within an increasingly complex legal framework.
Each Trustee is an unpaid volunteer with particular skills and experience. Our Nominations Committee ensures that we maintain the right balance of skills, diversity and caring experience, so the Board is equipped to lead the charity well.
Carers Scotland, Carers Wales and Carers Northern Ireland are all governed by committees of carers and former carers. The Carers UK Board of Trustees must include representation from all four nations.
Our current trustees
Chair
Nick Baird CMG CVO - appointed 2020
Nick Baird is a former Ambassador and business leader.
He has extensive government experience, where his roles included CEO of UK Trade and Investment (2011-2013) and British Ambassador to Turkey (2006-2009). He was a member of the Boards of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
In the business sphere, he was Group Corporate Affairs Director for Centrica plc (2014-2022) and a Non-Executive Director of Nord Anglia Education (2015-2017).
He has been Chair of Council at Cheltenham Ladies College since 2020, and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (2015-2021) and the Advisory Council of Sheffield University School of management (2012-2018).
Nick is married to Caroline, a teacher, and has three children. He has caring responsibilities for his adult sister with special needs.
Vice Chair
Virginia Pulbrook – appointed 2017
Ginny’s background is in investment banking and she is a cofounder of one of the UK’s leading corporate and financial communications companies. She is a highly experienced board-level adviser to a broad range of UK and overseas companies.
Her past non-executive roles include serving on the Development Council of the Natural History Museum and founding the Patrons’ Programme. Ginny is currently a non-executive director of Stobart Group plc
Ginny spent 11 years as a carer for her mother.
Treasurer
Eleanor Bradley - appointed 2017
Eleanor is Managing Director, Registry & Public Benefit at Nominet UK where her role involves membership engagement, service delivery, policy development and commercial activity. She also heads up Nominet’s public benefit and social impact programmes focused on supporting the UK digital economy and internet community and tackling some of the most important digital issues facing young people in the UK today. She has over 25 years’ experience in the internet industry.
Trustees
Tim Anfilogoff - appointed 2017
Tim works as Head of Community Resilience with Herts Valleys CCG, leading on social prescribing and carers. Tim is a committee member of the national social prescribing network and co-chair for the EoE.
Tim led the Herts and West Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) winning the Health Service Journal (HSJ) System Led Support for Carers award (2018).He managed the National Carers’ Strategy and Carers Grant for Department of Health during 1999 – 2001 writing practice guidance on the Carers and Disabled Children Act (2000).
He lives in Suffolk, where he and his wife care for their daughter.
Dr Helen Brown - appointed October 2018
Caring for her mother in 2004 opened Helen’s eyes to issues facing family carers and began her commitment to help recognise, inform and improve life for all carers. During her time as Chief Executive of West Anglia Crossroads / Carers Trust Cambridgeshire, Peterborough & Norfolk she was involved in developing carers strategies and policy and providing practical support for thousands of carers in the East of England.
Helen was appointed to the government’s Standing Commission on Carers and the Independent Advisory Group on Carers (2015-17), working on the Carers Strategy. Helen previously held senior roles in the global agrochemical industry and Not for Profit sectors and brings a wealth of experience to the Board.
Margaret Dangoor - appointed 2018
Margaret has been a Carers UK Member since 2010 and a volunteer since 2013. She has represented Carers UK on radio, television and at conferences. She was appointed as a trustee of the Centre for Ageing Better in June 2017.
As a recent past family carer for almost twenty years Margaret has been deeply committed and involved with promoting the interests of carers, and she is passionate about linking real life experience with policy makers and influencers. Margaret’s long-term career background was in the NHS. As a general manager she focused on risk, patient safety and medico-legal management. Margaret holds an MA in Health Law.
Beverley Harden MBE - appointed 2018
Beverley has extensive experience as both a carer herself and as a physiotherapist working to support, identify and work in partnership with carers. As a leader in hospital-based, health services she championed both the access for and involvement of carers, but also rest for carers during hospital admissions, Beverley is currently the National Lead for the Allied Health Professions at Health Education England.
Colin Harper - Chair Northern Ireland Committee - appointed 2020
Colin is CEO of Camphill Communities Trust (NI) which provides support, land and buildings to the four Camphill Communities in Northern Ireland; facilities where people with and without disabilities live and work together. He started his career as a philosophy lecturer and has worked across the voluntary sector in Northern Ireland for 20 years, often combining these roles with further academic work. Colin is currently an Honorary Lecturer in Social Policy at Queen’s University Belfast.
Colin cares for his mother and also has broad experience of the challenges faced by carers through working as an independent advocate for carers.
Flora Martin MBE FCIPR - Chair Scotland Committee - appointed 2018
Flora spent most of her career in consumer public relations and is acknowledged as one of Scotland’s leading media gurus. She set up her own consultancy in 1989 which became one of the most successful integrated PR and advertising agencies in Scotland.
Flora brings a wealth of experience as a non-executive charity director as well as communications expertise and is based in Glasgow.
Siva Shan - appointed 2017
Siva has a professional background in business strategy and transformation and has over 15 years of experience working with multinational clients in the Telecommunications, Media & Technology sectors. Siva has supported Carers UK in optimising its own digital capabilities. Prior to his current roles, Siva trained and qualified as a barrister to the Bar of England and Wales.
During the past five years, Siva has been a care co-ordinator for his parents. Through this experience, he has developed an understanding of the challenges that full-time workers face in managing care for loved ones, and has recognised opportunities for leveraging technology to help manage these challenges.
Visala James - appointed 2023
Visala has 25 years of leadership, brand, sales & marketing experience working at global corporations including Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Hasbro and Syngenta.She is married to Rob and has 2 daughters. Rob was paralyzed in a serious cycling accident in 2018. Since then both Visala and Rob have focused their efforts towards helping the spinal cord injury community, primarily in the areas of Caregiving and Employment.Visala is Board President of BACKBONES, a US non-profit supporting people with spinal cord injury and their families. She has also been caring for her live-in mother for the past 20 years.
Saran Evans – appointed 2023
Saran is an oncology nurse by background, but in recent years has worked in a number of senior leadership roles, mainly within the acute care sectors of the NHS (both in England and Wales). Saran has extensive experience of the operational management of clinical services, Quality and Safety, Patient Experience and Engagement, and Risk and Governance. She currently works for an NHS Trust in Cardiff.
From her experience of working within the NHS, and from personal experience, she has seen first-hand the emotional, physical and financial strain endured by the loved ones of patients who have devoted themselves to caring. She is committed to working to improve the support provided to all carers.
Jeff Hayes OBE – special advisor to the Board – appointed 2016
Jeff has a professional finance background with over 40 years of experience in the Fund Management industry and has worked with Carers UK for more than 10 years, both as a trustee and a Finance Committee member. His long-standing involvement with the organisation has given him a good picture of how caring has evolved over the years and the changes which still need to take place. Jeff shares his skills and financial experience with the organisation to help take this work forward.
Our committees
The Board of Trustees includes three committees where trustees can use their skills and expertise to focus on specific issues in more detail.
- The Finance & Resources Committee aims to scrutinise Carers UK’s finances and other resources and to report and make recommendations to the Board as relevant.
- The Governance, Constitution and Membership Committee aims to scrutinise Carers UK’s governance and constitution and optimise its membership. The Committee reports and makes recommendations to the Board as relevant.
- The Remuneration Committee aims to provide assurance to the Board that Carers UK has an effective remuneration policy in place which supports the delivery of our overall Strategy, promoting an effective, high performing and diverse workforce.
- The Nominations Committee aims to make recommendations to the Board of new trustees ensuring the overall Board comprises of; both the skills matrix and the requirement to have a majority of carer members; appropriate diversity of Trustees and that all equality legislation and good practice is adhered to. The Nominations Committee also aims to make recommendations to the Board of potential honorary positions including president, vice-presidents or patrons.