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Our trustees

The Council of Management consists of up to 16 members elected by the membership or co-opted by the Council.

Mind is governed by a board of trustees, known as the Council of Management, made up of 16 people drawn from Mind's membership and our network of local Minds.

Because Mind speaks for a diverse community, we aim to have that diversity reflected in the Council of Management's membership, half of whom must have direct experience of mental distress.

The Council takes a strategic overview of Mind's activities and the most important role of trustees is to ensure that the organisation is acting at all times in pursuit of its mission and setting the strategy. 

Members have terms of office lasting three years. They are eligible to stand for a maximum of three terms (nine years in total).

Biographies

David Henry OBE - Chair of Council of Management

David's background is in social work and social work education and training. He has been Operational Manager at Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association, black voluntary sector provider of mental health services and currently works at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust, based at Rampton high secure hospital, he is currently equality and diversity advisor for the trust forensic division.

He has been on Council of Management since 1997 and became Chair in 2002.

David has found his involvement challenging, stimulating, and informative, and hopes that he has been able to make some small contribution along the way.  He remains committed to maintaining Mind's status as the pre-eminent mental health charity.

Ryan Campbell - Vice Chair and Chair of Networks and Communities Committee

Ryan has been a trustee of Mind since 2007, most recently as Vice Chair and Chair for Networks and Communities Committee.  Ryan has worked in the voluntary sector throughout career, currently as Director of Development for a drug and alcohol rehabilitation charity.  In this role he works with people who are very often desperately in need of mental health services in order to move on with their lives.

His professional background is in local service-delivery and his current role is responsible for the winning of contracts and funding for addiction services, and the set-up and improvement of these services, including negotiation with national and local commissioners.  In previous roles he was responsible for the delivery of support to local organisations in the Age Concern network, a structure similar to that of Mind.  Ryan has been Chief Executive of a local Age Concern and has appreciation of the pressures and challenges that are faced at local and regional level.

Alison Cowan - Vice Chair and Chair of External Relations Committee

Alison lives in London, works in charity marketing and management and is currently Head of Marketing at Comic Relief.

Alison became a Trustee at Mind with the aim of using her professional and personal experience to make a difference for others experiencing mental distress. She has been a campaigner and spokesperson on mental health issues since 2000 when she took part in the award-winning BBC documentary Black Dog. During the making of the programme Alison was followed by a film crew for 12 months looking at her experience of living with depression. In 2001 she was an ambassador and consultant to the Department of Health mind out for mental health anti-stigma campaign. Alison has appeared on TV and radio and spoken at public and private events to raise awareness of depression and campaign against stigma and discrimination especially in the workplace. In 2007 she helped launch the Time to Change campaign on Radio 4's Today programme.

Alison is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the Institute of Fundraising and the Network of Women Chairs. She is a humanist and supports Ipswich Town Football Club.

Mike Starkie – Trustee and Honorary Treasurer and Chair of Business Management Committee

Mike has a MA Cambridge University in philosophy and political and social sciences, qualified FCA with Price Waterhouse. Mike had a career with BP until 2009, as chief accountant, chairman of the CBI Financial Reporting Panel since 2006 to 2009, member of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group since 2005 to 2009, member of the University of Cambridge Audit Committee since 2007. Previous voluntary sector experience includes - governor of a special needs school (Richard Cloudesley), trustee of the London Library, adviser to Compassion in World Farming.

Lesley Dixon - Trustee and Business Management Committee and Audit Committee member

Lesley has been a trustee of Mind since December 2008 and sits on the Business Management and Audit Committees and is a member of the governance working group.

Lesley’s first involvement in mental health charities was with Our Celebration, a mental health charity based in York that has recently merged with York Mind.

Lesley is the Chief Executive of PSS – a community, health and social care charity based in Liverpool and working across a number of regions in the UK.

Prior to PSS Lesley was the Chief Executive of Leeds University Union, the students' union for students at the University of Leeds. In summer 2010 Lesley was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Leeds in recognition of her contribution to the student experience.  

Lesley is a fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and in addition to a general management background brings particular experience in strategic planning and governance.

Stephen Young - Trustee and Networks and Communities Committee member

Stephen Young - Trustee and Networks Committee member, and Chair of the LMA Fund.

Stephen is a Learning and Development Consultant with a varied portfolio of work across the health, social care and voluntary sector.  A nurse by profession, Stephen has worked mainly in the field of mental health as a senior manager and a clinician with extensive experience of project management, working with both local communities and statutory organisations in innovative and creative ways.  He is also Chair of Social Adventures Ltd which is a Social Enterprise delivering public health outcomes in some of Salford’s most deprived communities.

He is a Registered Mental Nurse (RMN), a Registered General Nurse (RGN) and holds a PhD and MSC by Action Learning and Research. 

He has previously been a member of the Mind Millennium Awards Panel, Chairman of Mind's Real Lives Real People awards panel and Chairman of the Ecominds panel

He has a passion for supporting people to realise their aspirations and dreams. His most treasured achievements are:

• Supported the development and pilot of an Active Citizenship  Programme
• Realising a vision created by mental health service users for a holistic approach to mental health and well being, resulting in the Creative Living Centre.
• Project managed the development of The Angel a healthy living initiate that grew as a result of listening to local people.
• Supported the development and facilitated the action learning programme for the Salford School for Social Entrepreneurs that supported local people to realise their dreams.

Sir Paul Britton – Trustee and External Relations Committee member

Paul took partial retirement from the Civil Service in 2009, where he was Director General for Domestic Policy (and Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet) at the Cabinet Office.

Paul has worked in policy development for 38 years. Up to 1997 main his experience was in housing and local government policy, this included 5 years as Director of Local Government Finance Policy at the former DOE. From 1998, apart from a short spell as Director of Town and Country Planning at DETR, Paul worked in the cabinet secretariat. From 2001 he was Head of the Economic and Domestic secretariat, supporting the Prime Minister and Cabinet on the full range of domestic policy. This included organising the cabinets agenda, preparing its papers and briefing the Prime Minister. In addition, from 2005, he was also responsible for the SETF, the office of the Third Sector and the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. 

He is currently the Appointments Secretary to the Prime Minister.

Melanie Brooks - Trustee and Networks and Communities Committee member.

Melanie joined the Council of Management in 2009 and has been involved in local Minds for over 15 years in a variety of roles. Melanie currently runs her own business delivering consultancy and coaching services. Her latest assignment is as an Interim Associate Director for Social Care in a Mental Health Trust.

Melanie has had a varied career in Health and Social care and has managed advocacy services, commissioned services for Primary Care Trusts and Councils, has been Chief Executive of a local Mind  and a Mental Health Act Commissioner for the Care Quality Commission. Melanie works to bring about service change for people so everyone can be treated with respect and courtesy , getting services that supports good mental health and allows people to achieve their potential.

Melanie is a Psychology graduate, has an MBA, and post-graduate qualifications in therapy and coaching. Melanie is a mum of two young children and in between parenting and work, is a keen runner and runs regularly for Mind as well as local charities.

Kate Watts - Trustee and Business Management Committee member.

Kate has a BSc in Biochemistry and started her career in the pharmaceutical industry working in the UK and internationally. Wanting to use her skills to benefit those most in need, Kate transferred into the charity sector where she has worked with large national charities such as Mencap and the Samaritans as well as smaller, more locally focused ones including St Luke’s Hospice in Harrow where she was a Director. Kate's experience of working in the mental health field also includes being the NHS Non Executive Director lead on Mental Health in Hertfordshire as well as caring for her Father who has Dementia.

Kate feels passionately that people experiencing mental health problems should not be stigmatised and that society's fear and lack of understanding needs to be removed, as does the bullying, prejudice and discrimination that is linked to it.

Andrea Woodside - Trustee and Networks and Communities Committee Member

Andrea joins the trustee board after serving on Mind's External Relations Committee.  A current member of the Networks Committee, she is also an active media spokesperson for Mind, and has acted as a volunteer consultant on Mind's Taking Care of Business campaign (2010/2011).

After a career spent in the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) field, Andrea launched her own workplace wellbeing consultancy in January of 2010, Minding Work, which offers employers of all sizes support in reducing stigma and promoting best practice around mental health at work. Recent projects have included the development of ‘resilience through change’ programmes aimed at employees and managers, the assessment of client organisations' mental health policies, and the development of health promotion programmes to promote disclosure in supportive environments.

Andrea is a member of the UK Employee Assistance Programme Professionals Association, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Workplace, and the Faculty of Public Health.  She also serves on various governmental panels to help improve workplace health legislation and practice.  Active in the hospice movement since 1993, Andrea volunteers as an end of life care supporter at a London hospice.

Linda Seymour – Trustee and External Relations Committee member

In the late 1990s Linda was appointed as a Non Executive Director of an NHS mental health trust. In that role she chaired patients' appeal hearings against their detention under the 1983 Mental Health Act. Consequently she gained invaluable knowledge and insight into conditions in mental health units and the stigma and discrimination attached to receiving a mental ill health diagnosis. She fulfilled a similar role in a different NHS mental health trust during 2007.

For the last eight years she worked full-time in mental health research and policy. Between 2002 - 2006 - she was head of policy and research at a no longer extant mental health charity - mentality.  Among many achievements they delivered a national mental health promotion training programme; published a range of papers to stimulate discussion and debate on the public's mental health and wellbeing; and undertook qualitative research to explore the experiences of people using mental health services and their access to e.g. physical health care and treatment.

From 2006 - 2010 she was Head of Policy at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. In that role she advised the Centre's core teams, on mental health and broader social and public policy issues pertinent to their work on employment and mental health; and on criminal justice and mental health.

She retired in the summer of 2010 and in addition to her role as a Mind trustee she is a Non Executive Director of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE); and a member of the editorial board of the Mental Health Review Journal.

Sarah Rae - Trustee and External Relations Committee member

Sarah Rae joined Mind's Council of Management in November 2011. She has been a committed member of Mind for around 5 years. Sarah has always had an interest in and has tried to keep abreast of mental health issues, but after a very negative experience of acute care, Sarah became determined to have some influence in the decision making process in her local Foundation Trust. This resulted in her training to be an 'Expert by Experience', giving her a broader understanding of current mental health issues. Since then, she has worked for the Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust as a service user researcher being on occasions consulted when grant proposals are being developed, training staff and frequently talking about Recovery on Trust Induction days.

Sarah has been asked to represent the service user voice on a number of committees including:

• Recovery & Social Inclusion - Care Pathway and Service Delivery Workstream
• Peer Worker Steering Group
• Risk Management Task Group

 Sarah has also been invited to join interview panels by both the Trust and the local CLAHRC (Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care). She has been appointed as the Non-Executive Patient and Public Advisor to the Cambridge and Peterborough CLAHRC Board, which undertakes high quality applied health and social care research and focuses on mental health and social care across the lifespan.

Joanna Bogacz - Trustee and Pwyllgor Cymru Member

Joanna is currently studying at postgraduate level as part of her vocational training to become a Solicitor.  Joanna’s professional legal training combines with her therapeutic background to give a holistic focus to her work.  With her special interest being in mental health and social welfare law, she is committed to practise in these areas. 

Joanna lives in Cardiff, Wales.  She has been a member of Mind Cymru’s governance committee, Pwllgor Cymru, since 2009 and has recently been involved with the Welsh Government’s consultation process for the Mental Health (Wales) Measure.  Joanna gained an LLB (hons) degree through the Open University, studied at Birmingham and Cardiff University and has worked as a complementary therapy practitioner. 

The proven focus of Joanna’s work within the mental health sector seeks to empower and inform those who may be vulnerable.  Joanna has both professional and personal experience of working with and supporting those who have mental health problems.  Her recent work in this area includes providing community pro-bono legal services to socially disadvantaged adults, attending at police stations in South Wales to support vulnerable detainees as an Appropriate Adult for Hafal and regularly facilitating 3 day self-management courses for Bi-Polar UK.

Joanna positively promotes the individual becoming an active stakeholder in their own well-being and encourages individuals to have a fulfilled role in their community.   Her determination regarding mental health issues stems from personal experience in the late 1990’s.  Joanna has insight into positive management of disability and advocates fair and dignified treatment for those who may be in need of support to sustain good mental health. 

John Binns -Trustee and Business Management Committee member.

John Binns became a Mind trustee in February 2012, after a period of considerable involvement with Mind’s work.

John is a partner at Deloitte, and after suffering a period of significant depression in 2007, he personally launched a programme of activity within Deloitte to raise awareness of mental health, including a Mental Health Champions network. He worked closely with Mind in the development of this programme and in the subsequent wider work taking the Deloitte experience to other city firms and institutions.

His personal experience has given him valuable insights into how mental health problems can manifest themselves and the services and approaches that are available (or unavailable). John is passionate about improving the awareness and understanding of mental health in our society, and is an advocate of promoting openness about mental health problems. Already, this has included being a spokesperson during Mind week in 2011 and being interviewed for the BBC as part of the launch of phase two of 'Taking care of business', as well as other activities for Mind.

John has a wealth of business experience from his many senior positions within Deloitte and its predecessor forms since 1994. He has 10 years experience working in the social housing sector for both local authorities and a Housing association. He was also a Board member and Chair of the Humanist Housing Association.