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Welcoming New Board members

Board

June 4, 2024

The Equality Trust’s goal is to build a more equal society through partnerships, expertise, and lived experience. As well as creating a better society, living those values means The Equality Trust also works as a better, more authentic, and useful charity! That’s why we’re excited to welcome some new members to our Board of Trustees with a fantastic mix of experience and interests who are already making a big difference to our work.

A little while ago we committed to publishing blogs occasionally to explore some of the workings of our Board as a matter of transparency. The role of Trustee is a voluntary one and part time, but the Board of Trustees is absolutely central to the governance of the Equality Trust and ensuring that we have the right strategy, as well as the means and ambition to achieve it.

Our new Trustees come from a range of backgrounds and bring with them some great experience which will strengthen us as an organisation:

Karen Turner has worked in the arts for over 25 years, including leadership roles with the Crafts Council, ICA and now National Youth Theatre as Executive Director/COO.  At NYT Karen has been driving equality and access programmes, in particular centring the needs of disabled and neurodivergent young people to engage in creative opportunities. As governor of a non- mainstream school and herself a carer to disabled / neuro divergent children, Karen is interested in addressing inequality in particular through a disability lens, considering income disparities for disabled families, social care and whole life opportunities for independence, housing and employment to enhance quality of life for those with lived experience. 

Karen says “I hope to use my many years of charitable governance experience, fundraising and charity sustainability to amplify the vision and focus of the Trust. I am not a policy specialist, but I want to understand the broader potential of the Trust, and to support building the Trust into an organisation that can deliver on a very big ambition.”

Mary Hill is Head of Policy for Healthcare Inequalities Improvement at NHS England, where she has oversight of policy development and delivery on a range of strategic health inequalities priorities. She has spent over 17 years working across a range of policy and programme leadership roles in the NHS, local government, and the voluntary sector. Mary’s experience spans partnership working, strategy, large scale change, and the integration of health and social care, as well as a range of policy briefs, including child poverty and children’s social care.

 Mary says “The Spirit Level has been a source of inspiration for my work since it was first published, and the follow up with a focus on mental health and wellbeing reaffirmed the case for working towards a more equal society.  I am excited about supporting the Trust to identify the practical actions that we can all take to work towards equality for all.” 

Tom Allanson is currently an Operational Researcher at the Ministry of Justice.  He has been Partnerships and Grants Officer for Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity, a regional funder of frontline homelessness organisations. He recently graduated with an MSc in Social Research Methods and Statistics focused on the availability of social and affordable housing and its effects on homelessness.

Tom says: “The Equality Trust to me has been a leading voice on inequality through strong research, campaigns and tangible actions.  Inequality holds everyone back, but particularly those already at the sharp end of society. The cost-of-living crisis and turbulent economic and political landscape has only heightened the need for us all to do our bit.

I’m looking forward to support TET to continue to produce and contribute to eye-opening research on inequality. How we communicate this research and the action it can inspire will be really important this year as we head towards a general election. I hope our research and campaigns will shape policy that can genuinely be effective in dismantling inequality.”

Yamini Cinamon Nair is Senior Research and Statistical Analyst at the Greater London Authority (GLA). She works on embedding a wellbeing approach to public policy and leads the development of the London Wellbeing and Sustainability Measure and London’s Six-Capitals  Framework. She is commencing a part-time PhD at Cambridge University on the sociological dynamics of policymaking. Yamini holds an MSc in Inequalities and Social Sciences from the London School of Economics and Political Science  and a BA in Geography from Cambridge University. She is passionate about disabled rights and co-chairs the GLA’s staff disability network..  

 Yamini says “I’m keen to support the TET team, particularly in an election year, to build a vision for the future based on hope and optimism.  How do we build a future that addresses housing crises, growing wealth inequality, an ageing population, and poor productivity growth? And what’s the role of a more progressive taxation system, not just for income but for wealth inequality?

I hope that my wellbeing and inequality expertise can strengthen TET’s role in participatory research and place-based policy.”

Together, our new Board members have an exciting mixture of views and expertise, and are united in working towards a more equal society that works better for everyone.