Charity trustees play a very important role. They are the people who share ultimate responsibility for governing our charity and directing how it is managed and run. They do not receive any payment and give their time freely to ensure that Coventry Independent Advice Service is run in accordance with our governing document and the law. They help shape our future!
Our current Trustees are:
- Damon Swindell (Chair). Damon was our former AQS assessor who liked us som much that he joined our board! He is a management consultant to the legal profession and works as a freelance quality assessor for Lexcel.
- Mark Monaghan (Vice Chair). Mark is an independent social work consultant and mentor. He has over 20 years’ experience in child protection. Mark was formerly the Lead Social Care Consultant at Signis Group where he provided support to Local Authorities around policy development and procedures.
- Lianne Payne. Lianne is a Specialist Employment Law Solicitor and Head of Employment Law at Askews Legal LLP. Lianne has over 17 years’ experience as a specialist employment solicitor, advising clients on a broad range of employment law issues, including TUPE transfers, redundancies, complex disciplinary and grievances matters, and Employment Tribunals claims. Lianne is a guest lecturer at some of the region’s leading Universities.
- Dr Margaret O’Brien – Margaret joined Warwick Law School in September 2019 after a career in public sector management, where she worked as a management consultant in local and central government, as Head of Services at housing charity Shelter, and in senior management roles in the London Borough of Southwark and City of Westminster. Margaret completed an MSc in Public Policy at Birkbeck College in 2013, and a PhD in Law at SOAS in 2019.
- Naomi Hurst – Naomi is a Strategic Senior Leader with extensive experience across operations, finance and risk. Her work focuses on improving services, strengthening governance and leading organisational transformation across charity, health, education and regulated environments. Her background includes business lending, NHS specialist services, trauma-informed organisations and community-based wellbeing programmes.
- Dr Gulzar Singh – Dr Singh is a senior banking, financial-services & technology executive with over 25 years’ leadership experience across retail banking, operations, payments, financial crime prevention, digital transformation, and enterprise change within highly regulated financial institutions across the globe. He has also held board and trustee positions across the UK credit union, education, renewable energy, social care, and public safety sectors, and maintains advisory relationships with global consulting and insight networks.
- Conner Gill – Conner is an MSc Physics student at the University of Warwick, with extensive experience in problem solving, mathematics, modelling, working with large datasets, and computer programming. He has charity fundraising experience and also runs martial arts classes for young people. He is motivated by a genuine desire to help people and brings an important new perspective to our board.
- Dorothy Apakama – Dorothy is a retired Consultant in Emergency Medicine with over 25 years’ experience in the NHS who continues to work part-time to maintain her clinical knowledge and skills. Alongside her clinical work, she has held several leadership and governance roles, including National Audit Lead for the College of Emergency Medicine, and member of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Clinical Effectiveness Committee. She also served for six years as National Welfare and Social Secretary and three years as National Treasurer of the Medical Association of Nigerians Across Great Britain.
