Women in Leadership online conference - Speakers

Debra has worked in the charitable and voluntary sector for over 30 years. Amongst numerous other roles, she is Vice President of the Soldiering On Through Life Trust Awards and co-chairs the judging panel with General the Lord Dannatt. She is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, one of the Prince's Foundation Charities, and a trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation. She is also an Africa Advocacy Foundation Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

She has served as a trustee of several charities including being the co-founder of the Small Charities Coalition and was its first Chair. She served on the Charity Commission's SORP committee for over 7 years and was the Vice-Chair of Governors of Whiteknights primary school for 6 years.

She is a renowned public speaker with many years' experience of training and coaching and internationally published author of several books on management and leadership including It's Tough at the Top; The Pleasure and the Pain; It's Murder in Management and It's a Battle on the Board. Debra has a regular monthly column in Third Sector magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's The Moral Maze.

Cathy has worked in the voluntary and charity sector in the UK and Ireland for 25 years. As learning and development specialist, her career has focused on supporting individuals and organisations in the sector to be the best they can be for their beneficiaries.

In her role at DSC, Cathy designs and delivers training for our public courses, events and in-house training customers. She also provides coaching and mentoring support to senior managers and CEOs.

Aside from specialising in management and leadership topics, Cathy is particularly interested in how to have the best relationships at work, as well as our own personal effectiveness in performance at work. She strongly advocates that collaboration is a happier, more creative and sustainable way of working and enjoys helping individuals and organisations find ways to do this more often.

Cathy was on the DSC Leadership Team for 13 years where she gained all sorts of insights into the financial and practical challenges that charities face in the modern world. Previous roles as trustee, volunteer, project manager and PA to a charity CEO, give her an experiential understanding of working at all levels within an organisation.

Eileen joined DSC in January 2018, and having worked within the commercial teams in charities and social enterprises brought a wealth of experience of generating income and delivering high quality services into the DSC Sales team.

Eileen’s many years’ experience as a trainer in both the commercial and 3rd sectors was then employed as she became a member of the Training team, designing, updating, producing, retailing and delivering courses and workshops.

Eileen enjoys being part of a team that is genuine, professional and totally committed to building sustainable charities with well trained, confident trustees, employees and volunteers.

Annette joined DSC in 2007 and has held a number of positions in Customer Service, Training, Events and Development. Annette has overall responsibility for Training and Events, Customer Service and Sales,

Her favourite thing about working at DSC is "supporting my direct reports to be the best managers they can be".

Deborah was appointed to the role of Chief Executive in July 2022, after successfully leading The Seafarers’ Charity’s grant-making programme for 9 years.

She describes herself as passionate about seafarers and about Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

She has led the charity’s approach to EEDI which started with establishing a staff-led EEDI working group in 2020 and recently saw The Seafarers’ Charity become the first maritime welfare charity to commit to join Maritime UK’s Diversity in Maritime Charter.

This commits organisations from across the maritime sector to take a proactive approach to close the diversity and inclusion gaps within their workforce.
Deborah has also led the Charity’s involvement in the 2027 Programme – a 10-year initiative aimed at supporting diversification of grant-makers to ensure the inclusion of lived experience and addressing class imbalance in funding organisations.

She is also a member of the Merchant Navy Honours Committee and Chair of the Seafarers International Relief Fund stakeholder group.

Deborah has a very personal commitment to supporting and improving the welfare of seafarers, arising from growing up near Newlyn’s fishing community and her father’s Royal Navy career.

Prior to joining The Seafarers’ Charity, Deborah held senior roles at The Industrial Society and Childbase and was the Fundraising and Business Development Manager at the Small Charities Coalition.

After 25 years in Fundraising, Rebecca was appointed to the role of Chief Executive at the British Deaf Association (BDA). The BDA is the only national representative organisation of British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) in the UK through their membership with the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) and European Union of the Deaf (EUD). Through these organisations the BDA represents the UK at the United Nations, the European Disability Forum, the Council of Europe and other regional and global alliances.

The BDA was founded by Deaf people in 1890 following a devastating resolution at an 1880 global Conference on Deaf Education to ban deaf children from using sign language at school. Decisions made by those educators a century and a half ago still shape Deaf people’s lives in Britain today.

Rebecca is passionate about social justice and Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Rebecca is an elected Trustee of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF) and has served as a Trustee on several charity boards. Rebecca is a Trustee observer on the CIOF’s EDI governance committee.

Sarah has worked in mental health and social justice for 35 years. She has held a number of Chief Executive roles in the voluntary sector including for the prestigious think tank The Centre for Mental Health.

Sarah holds a number of board roles including One Small Thing, Global Leadership Exchange and is a fellow of Sciana Health Leaders Network and Salzburg Global. She regularly appears in the media and is called on by governments and private companies across the world for her mental health knowledge and commentary.

Sarah holds a professional doctorate on the topic of women and leadership and was given an honorary doctorate by Hull University where she happily studied social work in the mid 90’s.

When she’s not at work you can find Sarah spending time with her amazing family and large number of pets.

Zara Mohammed is a master's graduate in Human Rights Law and a Training and Development Consultant.

She was elected the first female, first Scot and youngest Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain in February 2021. She is passionate about community change, empowering young people, and improving diversity and inclusion both within her communities and beyond.

Since her election Zara has spoken on key issues impacting British Muslims across mainstream media and publications, she was a key note speaker at the G20 interfaith summit and was featured in Vogue’s 25 most influential women in the UK.

Andrew is lead Policy Trustee for DSC. He was an international Board Member (and Vice Chair) of the global development charity ActionAid from 2013 to 2020.

He is a former Chair of Safe Passage International, ActionAid UK and of three other UK charities, a Deputy Chair of two others and a former Board Member of the Charity Commission and of the Parole Board.

A former fast stream civil servant, he has held senior leadership positions in NCVO, CPRE, and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and been a special adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the world outside the Church.

He was a p/t adviser to The Samworth Foundation on their grants policies and has been a governance consultant to charities including YHA and OxfamGB. He is a Trustee of the charity Choose Love and of his local Church of England church.

Andrew is a contributor to Civil Society News and blogs about the campaigning role of charities and charity regulation at www.andrewpurkis.wordpress.com.

Ndidi is the CEO of UK Youth; a leading national charity with a growing network of over 8000 youth organisations and national partners who use the educational disciplines of youth work to support the social, personal, and skill development of over 5 million young people.

Prior to this role, she worked as a teacher and school leader for ten years, spent six years as the Executive Director of the charity Teach First, and led on Digital and Customer Voice Strategy for Pearson PLC. She sits on the Board of The National Citizen Service, The Southbank Centre, and Sky's Diversity Advisory Council.

Dhivya O’Connor joined the Foundation as CEO in November 2023. She is an accomplished leader, with over 23 years’ experience across the non-profit and for-profit sectors. Growing up in India, Dhivya witnessed stark inequalities, particularly for women and girls, which has deeply influenced her commitment to championing equality and addressing social injustice.

Dhivya recently served as Interim CEO at The Girls’ Network. She previously led as CEO, United World Schools, Chartered Institute of Fundraising and Children with Cancer UK. A talented fundraiser, Dhivya also brings strategy and business development expertise from her early career in the private sector, working at GE Capital, Lloyds Bank and OctopusTravel (now part of Expedia).

Dhivya is a Trustee of Book Aid International, a Steering Committee Member of Groundbreakers, and Governor of a state primary school. Dhivya is also the host and creative force behind the chart-topping The Charity CEO Podcast (www.thecharityceo.com).

One of the longest-serving CEOs of a UK air ambulance service, Jane was awarded the IoD East of England Director of the Year Award in the Public/Third Sector category in 2018. Jane was also a Trustee on the AAUK Board from 2016 to 2020, which supports the air ambulance community.

Jane was appointed CEO in 2009 and, alongside the Board of Trustees and her Executive Team, has led the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance through truly progressive and transformational advancements, continually striving to raise awareness of the charity and the necessary funding to provide this free life-saving service. Jane’s complex and challenging role has the improvement of patient outcomes at its very core. She combines her energy, passion and commitment to serve the local community, delivering critical care to those who need it most.

In 2022 Jane was delighted to attend her graduation at the University of Essex where she was presented with her Honorary Doctorate.

Natasha Jonas is an incredibly talented professional boxer who made headlines as the first British female boxer to qualify, represent and win at London 2012 Olympics.

The two weight, unified world champion has held the WBO, WBC, IBF and ring magazine titles at light-middleweight and welterweight since 2022.

As an amateur, she won an astounding five national English senior titles, two GB championships, and a plethora of titles internationally. Most notably, bronze medal in the World championships and silver in the European championships.

Winner of British boxing board of controls boxer of the year award in 2022, Natasha became the first female ever to do so. Natasha is an inspirational sportswoman and a role model to many budding female boxers.

Today, amongst fighting and media appearances, Natasha is sought after to share her story of success as a motivational speaker at a variety of parliamentary, corporate and public speaking events. She has most recently been recognised by the city of Liverpool, given the key to the city and memorialised in Toxteth, where she grew up with some artwork.