This year's speakers

Conference chair

Cecile Gillard, Legal Manager, Charity and Voluntary Sector Unit, Burton Sweet

Cecile is a lawyer and a specialist in charity and company law. As well as advising on legal and regulatory issues, she particularly provides support for organisations and professional advisers in governance and constitutional matters. Her work supports social enterprises, charities and other “not-for-profits” in England and Wales and in Scotland. 

Cecile has served on a number of ICSA and Charity Law Association working parties, helping to produce best practice guides and comment on charity and company law reform.  Elected as a Fellow of the RSA in recognition of her work with the charity and voluntary sectors, Cecile is also an Affiliate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries.

Keynote speakers

Sam Younger, Chief Executive, Charity Commission

Sam joined the Charity Commission as chief executive in September 2010. Sam has extensive experience of leadership in regulation, in public policy and in charity. His previous roles include founding Chair of the Electoral Commission, Director General of the British Red Cross, and Managing Director of the BBC World Service. After leaving the Electoral Commission he was interim Chief Executive of the housing charity, Shelter, and also held interim roles with the educational charity Bell Educational Trust and with the Electoral Reform Society.

Sam is an independent member of the Greater London Authority Standards Committee and a director of Electoral Reform International Services. His previous non-executive roles include Chair of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and Chair of Council at the University of Sussex.

Sam was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 2009. He is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and holds a number of honorary and advisory roles in academia.

Richard Leaman, Chief Executive, Guide Dogs for the Blind Association

Speakers

Fiona Colquhoun
Director, Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution 

Fiona is a CEDR Solve panel Mediator and Director, who specialises in conflict management within the business context and organisations in all sectors. She is also an ACAS Panel arbitrator and a Henley Management College Executive coach.  Fiona handles a range of commercial, employment and mediations, including relationship breakdowns, managed exits contractual, disciplinary and grievance, and all types of discrimination cases.  She also acts as an independent investigator, adviser and Chairperson providing a range of different independent interventions.

Previously Fiona spent nearly 20 years as a Board level Human Resources Director in the global Telecomm and IT industries and 10 years in the NHS.  She has also held voluntary positions, been an NHS Non Executive Director and is currently a School Governor.

Pesh Framjee
Partner, Head of Non Profits, Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP

Pesh is a partner and Head of Non Profits at Crowe Clark Whitehill. He joined the firm in September 2008 from Deloitte, where he was Head of Non Profits. He has a wide range of audit and advisory clients. He has been involved in the not for profit sector, both professionally and as a volunteer, for over 30 years. Pesh is a Chartered Accountant but uniquely he is very knowledgeable about charity law and practice as well as fundraising. He is a member of the Charity Law Association and a Board Member of the Institute of Risk Management. Pesh writes and lectures internationally on matters facing the sector. He is joint author of Charities - The Law and Practice and has written two books on Charity Trading and he has much experience of governance, strategy, trading, tax matters, risk management, performance measurement and knowledge management in the charity sector.

He has been appointed by the Charity Commission to act as sole trustee and interim manager of three charities and undertaken special work for the Charity Commission both in the UK and overseas. He has been Finance director of two charities and is Special Advisor to the Charity Finance Group.

Pesh is a member of the Charity Commission SORP Committee. He is also a charity trustee.

Philip Kirkpatrick
Partner and Joint Head of Charity & Social Enterprise Department, Bates, Wells and Braithwaite

Philip is the joint head of the Charity and Social Enterprise department at Bates Wells & Braithwaite London LLP.  He advises charities and social enterprises on a wide range of subjects, with mergers, collaborative and group structures and reconstructions being among his specialist areas.

He advises on governance matters generally and is the founder of BWB's governance consultancy, OnBoard, which brings together the legal and non-legal aspect of governance.

Philip sits on the standards committee of the Institute of Fundraising and is a trustee of 4 charities and a director of another non-profit company.

 
Ruth Lesirge
Visiting Fellow, Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School

Ruth is a Visiting Fellow and Tutor on the Cass CCE degree programme and is a recognised figure in adult and community education, particularly with adults returning to study and management development. She has a special interest in Chair, chief executive, board and trustee development

Ros Oakley
Principal Consultant Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business Scholl

Ros has wide ranging experience of work inside and alongside the voluntary sector, with a focus on public policy, governance, strategy and fundraising. She has a particular interest in effectiveness and sustainability, is a Principal Consultant of the Cass Business School's Centre for Charity Effectiveness and a Visiting Fellow at London South Bank University. She has an MBA from the London Business School.

 
Chris Preistley
Partner, Withers LLP

Chris has a wealth of experience in advising charities and social enterprises on their commercial projects, whether domestic or international. He also advises businesses working with charities as well as on the CSR or philanthropic initiatives.

He is particularly well known for his work on public private partnerships, including academies and other school projects, as well as advising charities on public service contracts. Chris advises National Lottery distributors and Department for Culture Media and Sport sponsored non-departmental public bodies including the UK Film Council.

He is currently advising on several academy projects, and is standing legal adviser to the College of Optometrists and CIPD. He regularly advises CRUK, Macmillan Cancer Support, the Tate and British Red Cross.