Financial Review

Sheldon Mills

Chair of Trustees

Sheldon is the Senior Director of Mergers at the Competition and Markets Authority, where he is responsible for UK merger control enforcement. He is a qualified solicitor and prior to joining the CMA he practiced law at King & Wood Mallesons, counselling a range of UK and international clients in antitrust and competition law.

Sheldon holds undergraduate and postgraduate law degrees from King’s College, London and was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales.

Jan Gooding

Trustee

Jan Gooding was Stonewall's Chair of Trustees from April 2014 until April 2020.

Jan is the group brand director at Aviva, the UK's largest and Europe’s leading provider of life and general insurance. Previously, Jan has worked for British Gas and BT, and she has been managing partner of two successful marketing consultancies; antennae and BLUEdOOR.

She is chair of PAMCo (Publishers Audience Measurement Company), an Executive Committee member of WACL (Women in Advertising and Communication London), a Fellow of the Marketing Society.

In October 2015, Jan was ranked 16 in the Top 100 Outstanding in Business list published in the Financial Times. She holds an MA in Economics from Girton College, Cambridge.

In December 2016, it was announced that Jan would become Aviva’s first ever Global Inclusion Director, where she will be responsible for leading the Group’s inclusion and diversity strategy.

Simon Blake OBE

Trustee

Simon is the Chief Executive of the National Union of Students; a role he has held since May 2015. Prior to this, Simon was the Chief Executive of Brook, the young people’s sexual health charity. He also previously worked at the National Children’s Bureau, where he held a number of positions including Assistant Director of Children’s Development and Director of the Sex Education Forum.

Simon is committed to achieving equality for LGBT people at all stages of life. He has chaired Diversity Role Models, written about sex and relationship education for LGBT young people, and been a long-time campaigner for the rights of LGBT young people. He is also a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and a director of Endsleigh Insurance Services. In 2011, Simon was awarded an OBE for services to the voluntary sector and young people.

Jean Vianney Cordeiro

Trustee

Jean is a corporate finance and strategy professional working in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. He previously worked in investment banking at RBC Capital Markets.

He is also a qualified U.S. Certified Public Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst Charterholder.

Jean has a BCom in Accounting and Finance from McGill University and an MSc Finance and Private Equity from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He was born and raised in Montreal, Canada.

Catherine Dixon

Trustee

Catherine is the Chief Executive of Askham Bryan College, one of the largest specialist land-based colleges in England. Catherine is also the Commanding Officer for the College’s first CCF unit.

Formerly, she was the Chief Executive of the Law Society of England and Wales and prior to that was CEO of NHS Resolution, which indemnifies the NHS and supports poorly performing doctors. Catherine also was the General Counsel for the NSPCC and the Commercial Director at BUPA.

Catherine has spent time in Vancouver, Canada, as an Outward Bound instructor, and as a Director at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

Catherine is a qualified solicitor and mediator and has an MBA.

Catherine was brought up in Yorkshire and is married to Sally. She is also a trustee of the PDSA and the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) and is the Co-Chair of the International Bar Association LGBTI Committee.

Ayla Holdom

Trustee

Ayla served in the RAF for thirteen years, did a ground tour in Iraq in 2008, and then spent seven years as a Sea King helicopter captain for the RAF's Search and Rescue Force, based in North Wales, North Devon and the Falkland Islands. She now flies helicopters for the National Police Air Service, supporting Police Forces across the UK. Ayla came out as transgender around 2010 and remained serving with her operational Search and Rescue unit throughout. The support and pragmatism of her colleagues and the wider armed forces made that transitional time not only possible, but empowering and successful. Ayla is the professional she is today, because she wasn’t forced to hide who she is.

Alongside her day-job, since 2012 Ayla has been an advisor and volunteer for All About Trans, a small charity with a big impact working to positively change how the media understands and portrays trans people. Ayla is also a proud patron for Mermaids, the UK's charity supporting gender-diverse kids, young people and their families since 1995.

In 2015 after taking part in a Stonewall Leadership Programme and delivering a Keynote speech at Stonewall's Workplace Conference, Ayla joined the Stonewall Trans Advisory Group, as Stonewall began its journey to being fully and proudly trans-inclusive.

In 2018, Ayla was portrayed in the critically acclaimed stage production ‘Still Point Turning’ by the Sydney Theatre Company and featured as one of many ‘RAF Stories’ at the RAF Museum, London. Ayla also flies Sea King helicopters again as a civilian since leaving the RAF, for the privately run Historic Helicopters - so you may see her and the team showing off and flying their restored aircraft at airshows around the UK.

She lives in a small village on a hill in Dorset with her wife, Wren (an ICU doctor), their four cats and numerous chickens. In November 2020, Wren and Ayla welcomed their newborn daughter, River, into the family.

Michele Oliver

Trustee

Michele 'Mitch' Oliver is Global Corporate Brand & Purpose Director for Mars Incorporated.

In this role Mitch leads Mars, Incorporated brand strategy and developing a corporate strategy around the Mars, Incorporated Purpose. Mitch also leads and focuses Mars, Incorporated efforts to define and drive the 'make a difference' marketing across their portfolio of consumer brands from Maltesers to Pedigree and beyond.

With over 20 years’ experience in the consumer-goods industry, Mitch joined Mars UK on the graduate programme in 1995. Since then she has held a variety of roles across the business, before moving into marketing positions at a local, regional and global level including marketing VP on the UK board.

Mitch is a passionate supporter of all diversity in business. She has been an active champion of women in business and of representation in advertising. She is also a keen supporter of working parents and is proud to have role modelled working flexibly in senior roles. In 2017 Mitch was been named as the Drum’s Marketer of the Year, as well as one of the 2017 Ad Age Women to Watch in Europe. She is a non-executive director of the Marketing Society.

Andrew Pakes

Trustee

Andrew is a deputy general secretary at Prospect where he leads the union’s work on policy, legal services, organising, communications and equalities for over 144,000 members across a diverse range of professions.

Prior to this, Andrew worked as an agency director, a senior official in regional government and as a political advisor to ministers and senior politicians. He started out his career as President of the National Union of Students (NUS) where he developed his passion for education and equalities work, and led the union’s then work around the equalisation of the age of consent.

Andrew has always been interested in social inclusion and employment rights, and has had leading roles in a number of trade unions and the charity sector before taking up his current role at Prospect.

He is a former Trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and is currently a non-Executive Director of the Co-operative Development Society, one of the UK’s largest mutual and community housing associations.

Ros Parker

Trustee

Ros is the Chief Operating Officer and Equality and Diversity lead for Amnesty International UK and has been working in finance and resources roles in the charity sector for the last 10 years. She is also an active member of the Amnesty LGBTI network, the Board Treasurer of the British Institute of Human Rights and the Board Treasurer of Sisters for Change, a charity which aims to provide the world’s most marginalised women access to information and justice, and works to put an end to the social acceptance of violence against women.

Ros started her career in 2004 as a Chartered Accountant working for KPMG after qualifying from Cambridge University with a first class honours degree in Astrophysics.

Tim Toulmin

Trustee

Tim is the founder and Managing Director of Alder Media, a London-based agency specialising in crisis PR and issues management. He is a director of travel PR firm MyTravelPressOffice and a Specialist Partner of Pagefield Communications. He is also a trustee of the charity Parents and Abducted Children Together.

Between 2004 and 2009, Tim was the Director of the Press Complaints Commission, where he started his career in 1996 after graduating from Peterhouse, Cambridge with a degree in History.

Mohsin Zaidi

Trustee

Mohsin Zaidi is a barrister specialising in white collar crime at leading criminal set 6KBW College Hill. Before transferring to the Bar Mohsin was a solicitor at magic circle law firm Linklaters LLP, working on international disputes between global financial institutions and FTSE 100 companies.

Prior to his appointment to the board of Stonewall, Mohsin was General Counsel/Legal Director of Pride in Lojndonmoh in his spare time. For his work at Pride in London, he was shortlisted for the award of 'Most Innovative European In-House Lawyer' at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers awards. Separately, Mohsin has twice been ranked in the Financial Times Outstanding list of Future Leaders. Between 2013-2014, Mohsin worked as Judicial Assistant to Lords Sumption and Wilson at the UK’s Supreme Court. During this time, he worked on a number of high profile cases of public importance, including Bull v Hall, the case involving Christian hotel owners who refused a double-bedded room to a same-sex couple.

Mohsin holds a BA in Law from Keble College, Oxford University. Mohsin was born and raised in Walthamstow, East London and remains a Governor of his former secondary school.

Meri Williams

Trustee

Meri is an experienced technology leader, known for building and scaling technology organisations in a range of sectors including banking, ecommerce, government, telco and manufacturing. She is currently CTO at mobile-first challenger bank Monzo, after serving as CTO at award-winning online print & design company MOO for the previous two years.

Prior to that she led engineering at Marks & Spencer, delivery at the Government Digital Service, and spent the first ten years of her career at Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest fast moving consumer goods company. She’s led teams ranging in size from 30 to 300, mostly with folks spread across the world.

A published author and international speaker, she is the host and co-curator of The Lead Developer conference in London, Austin and New York. She is also a Technology Advisor for Kindred VC, which practices equitable venture, where any entrepreneur that is backed by Kindred becomes a co-owner in the fund.

What you can do

working to achieve acceptance without exception

Our Total Income

£ 8,315,995

Donations And Legacies £m

£1.73 m 2%

Grants £m

£1 m -47%

Fees £m

£3.3 m 23%

Programmes £

£633,954 -14%

Sponsorship £

£458,061 -7%

Events £

£685,875 14%

Investments £

£46,095 -13%

Other income £

£434,676 3%

£ 1.62m

£ 4.31m

£ 1.86m

£ 1.33m

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