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Meet our Board of Trustees and Leadership Team
Brook’s staff and trustees work together closely to make sure every step we take brings us closer to our overarching vision of young people’s lives being free from inequality, rich with opportunity and enriched by happy, healthy relationships.
Our Board of Trustees is responsible for the overall control and strategic direction of the charity. There are currently eight trustees, bringing a wealth of experience from a variety of sectors to support our Leadership team with decision-making on strategic issues and hold them accountable for their leadership of the organisation.
Our Chief Executive and Leadership Team have overall responsibility for implementing the strategy set by the Board of Trustees, shaping our goals and ensuring we achieve them.
Helen has more than 30 years’ experience working at senior level in the private and public sectors and specialises in strategic development, social and economic regeneration, and developing new business.
Since Helen joined Brook in April 2016, she has led the organisation through a successful rebrand and delivered an ambitious strategy which saw Brook transform its digital offer and expand its provision to people of all ages. Under Helen’s leadership Brook has launched its brave new strategy for 2023-2026, with a refreshed visual identity and a new strategic priority to fight stigma.
Helen moved to Brook from the national youth charity Ambition, which she led from 2010. She restructured the organisation establishing it as a leading voice within the youth sector.
Helen started her career as director of Thomas Miller & Co, an insurance company in the city of London. In 1997, she changed direction to work in the voluntary sector, becoming Head of Foyers at East Thames Group.
Dougie has 20 years’ experience of working with young people in education and wellbeing settings. He trained as a teacher and spent much of his teaching career in leadership roles including Head of Department and Associate Headteacher.
He has extensive experience of teaching in non-selective and selective schools as well as alternative provision units for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties. He worked on a series of strategic projects with exam boards including the design of GSCE specifications in 2011 in addition to being an experienced marker and moderator.
Dougie joined the third sector in 2016 and has led the transformation of Brook’s Education and Wellbeing offer for young people in addition to providing strategic leadership for Brook’s ground-breaking Let’s Talk Period project and growing Brook’s professionals’ training and workforce development offer. He has also expanded Brook’s Education portfolio to include community-based health promotion services and HIV prevention for adults. Dougie is also our Caldicott Guardian.
He is a qualified therapist with an interest in childhood trauma and supporting the victims of violence and crime.
Anatole has been working in Sexual & Reproductive Health since 2003 when he started specialist training in GenitoUrinary Medicine at Chelsea & Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.
During his training he did a Harkness Health Foundation Fellowship and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) at the Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health in Boston before returning to complete training, a one year locum Consultant position at the Homerton University Hospital and a permanent Consultant position at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in March 2009.
Anatole started working for Brook in Brixton as a medical officer every second Saturday in March 2005 and then became the Clinical Lead in September 2011. As a member of the Clinical Leadership Team he provides quality assurance, clinical governance and training within the service.
Anatole has been a clinical lead in Guy’s & St Thomas’ since June 2011 and during this time he has been involved in a number of digital projects that improve patient care.
Anatole’s interest in the health of young people was further strengthened when studying the MPH where he learnt about the impact high quality education, healthcare and social environment can have on the life trajectories of young people. It is such a pleasure to work with passionate and committed colleagues across Brook to improve the lives of young people.
Laura joined Brook in 2014 and has been responsible for developing Brook’s first digital strategy and initiating organisation-wide digital transformation.
Laura has also led on a full rebrand and relaunch of the organisation and has strategic oversight of social media, press, events and corporate partnerships.
Laura joined Brook from NHS.uk where she led on the development of public-facing web and mobile apps. This included the NHS Couch to 5k podcast series which Laura scripted and voiced.
Sally joined Brook in 2013, and is responsible for a range of corporate functions including strategic planning, risk management, estates management, governance and procurement.
She has 18 years’ experience in the charitable sector, starting her career as a volunteer at Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art and going on to lead the development team where she was responsible for securing and diversifying income from a range of public, private and international sources. Sally is also our Senior Information Risk Owner.
Sally is a Chartered Marketer and a Director of Homebaked Bakery, a community owned and run co-operative in Anfield.
Kathleen has over 20 years of experience working in healthcare leadership in the not for profit and public sector.
Prior to joining Brook in 2023, Kathleen was Chief Operating Officer at the The Confederation, Hillingdon where she collaborated with a group of visionary GPs to establish a Community Interest Company to take a more enterprising, creative and innovative approach to developing services and bring care closer to the patient, growing over 7 years from being the sole employee to employing over 150 staff. Prior to that, Kathleen was Deputy Managing Director of Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group.
Kathleen’s expertise spans driving innovative business development and spearheading complex, multi stakeholder projects. Kathleen is motivated by leading operational service delivery that directly benefits patients. She is passionate about motivating and inspiring teams to put service users at the centre, committed to provision of services focused on vulnerable groups and motivated by increasing access to services and inclusion.
Dame Sally became the Chair of Brook in 2023.
Dame Sally has more than 40 years’ experience as a senior leader in schools and colleges. Most recently, she spent 18 years as the CEO of Activate Learning, a group of educational provision, during which she transformed the organisation leading several successful mergers and winning five Beacon Awards.
A keen advocate for vocational education, Dame Sally is Chair of Learning with Parents and The Education & Training Foundation, a Council member at the University of Bradford and was the President of the Association of Colleges from 2020-2022. In recognition of her services to education, she was awarded a CBE in 2013 and a Damehood in the New Year’s Honours 2023 List.
Pamela became a Trustee of Brook in March 2021.
Pamela has over 25 years’ experience working at executive level in the not for profit and public sector. She has held Executive Director roles across housing, health, and social care. As a former housing executive Pamela led on customer services and community development strategies.
She is currently CEO of Stowhill Consultancy, Chair of Inquilab Housing Association, Board members of Sovereign housing and an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Advisor. Her previous roles include, Sustainably Advisor to the Mayor of London and Board Member of Barclays Foundation.
Pamela is passionate about working with people and communities to ensure they have equality of opportunity and access to the services they need the most.
Clare became a Trustee of Brook in July 2021.
With a passion for strategic partnerships that break down barriers for young people all over the world, Clare has worked with the private sector to effect positive change for more than a decade.
She is currently the global lead for private sector engagement at the Clean Air Fund. Prior to this she led the corporate partnerships team at Plan International UK; overseeing their award-winning partnerships with AstraZeneca, Credit Suisse, Chelsea FC and The Body Shop among others.
Before joining the international development sector Clare worked in renewable energy; collaborating with business to influence a greener UK energy policy and deliver public-facing campaigns and events.
Peter became a Trustee of Brook in July 2022.
He is a chartered accountant who emigrated from Australia to London in 1988. He worked for 19 years in the UK investment management industry at Close Brothers Group. As a Divisional Director, Peter created and ran a property fund management business that ultimately had over £1 billion of funds under management.
After leaving Close Brothers in 2008, he formed his own management consultancy company Acme Strategic Management Ltd. He has been a Director, Trustee or Advisor to several charities including housing associations and human rights organisations. He was previously Chair of The Food Chain and is currently a trustee of the National AIDS Trust and The Bell Foundation.
He is passionate about ensuring all people, especially young people and those most vulnerable, have access to appropriate sexual health services without discrimination or judgement.
In his spare time Peter has been an occasional DJ (aka DJ Flipper) and spends most of his time adding to his extensive vinyl record collection.
Sandy became a Trustee of Brook in November 2022.
Sandy has held a variety of senior customer service and experience roles in the transport and social housing sectors. She has a track record in leading change, most recently in the transformation and modernisation of The Guinness Partnership’s leasehold services where she designed and implemented a new operating model delivering savings, increasing income and improving the customer experience. During her career she has designed and delivered service improvements, standards, customer propositions and customer strategy, and has experience in contact centre operations, operational crisis management, continuous improvement and mobilising new contracts and operations.
She is passionate about the value of equity, diversity and inclusion, and is a collaborative and inclusive leader, with a track record in increasing employee engagement and belonging.
Sandy is a Trustee at Leadership 2025, a charity focusing on increasing ethnic representation in social housing’s senior leadership, and is an Associate Consultant with Inclusive Employers where she works on inclusion-related projects for a wide range of clients.
Peter became a trustee of Brook in June 2023.
Peter is CEO of Prospectus, recruiters to the charity and beyond-profit sector, and an experienced Board member. Peter’s background is in finance, operational management and business strategy. Peter has worked in partnership with charities on several projects covering employability and supporting young people and is passionate about volunteering.
Peter’s voluntary work has included his position as Chair of Trustees at Timebank, the national volunteering charity, and he has participated on the Nationwide Building Society Community Board, awarding grants to housing related charities and projects. Peter is currently a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Mentor Mon Morlais Ltd, a project of Menter Mon, which aims to benefit local communities, the economy and help tackle climate change by using renewable energy to generate clean low carbon electricity.
Saloni became a trustee of Brook in June 2023.
Saloni is co-founder of LMK (Let Me Know), a charity that educates young people about healthy and unhealthy behaviours, helping them avoid abuse and thrive in their relationships.
Saloni served as Chair for Healthwatch Camden, a statutory health and social care charity, as Chair of Camden Patient Public Engagement Group, and as Lay Member for NHS England for UK National Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Group.
She cares deeply about helping communities have their say in the health and social services that impact their lives. In particular, she wants to make a difference for young people: to empower them, to help them to have a voice that is clearly heard.
Saloni is an accomplished pharmacist with a US Doctorate (Pharm D.), a Master of Public Health (MPH), a current UK pharmacy licence and extensive clinical experience. She has broad experience in different healthcare systems globally, both as professional and volunteer.
Leila became a trustee of Brook in July 2023.
Leila Hashemi is an experienced Communications Strategist and Campaigner with a background in the nonprofit sector. Over the last seven years, she has primarily worked in digital communications, research, and campaigning with a focus on Sexual and Reproductive Health, climate justice, and social inequalities.
Leila is a Strategy Director at Shape History, a social impact communications agency based in London. Since 2020, Leila has worked closely with Brook on the Love Sex Life (LSL) Partnership, for which she led a community-based research report and developed a tailored three-year communications strategy and plan. The objective was to improve the sexual and reproductive health of Black African and Caribbean residents in Lambeth, Southwark, and Lewisham. Leila is passionate about reducing social and health inequalities facing migrant communities, an interest that stems from her previous role at the Kurdish and Middle Eastern Women’s Organisation.
Kanika became a trustee of Brook in November 2023.
Kanika is 24 and lives in Edinburgh, working for the Scottish Government. Since January 2022, Kanika has volunteered with Brook as a member of the 20-24 National Participation Forum. In this time, Kanika has been involved in the Brook forum is so many different ways, including appearing on Ruby Rare’s BBC Radio documentary ‘The Virtual World of Sex Education‘, attended a focus group with the RCPCH about telemedicine abortion services and created several videos for Brook’s Big Live Lessons.
Dee (they/them) became a trustee of Brook in June 2024.
Dee Whitnell is a trans, non-binary and neurodivergent content creator, activist and writer. Alongside running @S3xTheorywithDee on social media, they are founder of the Trans Kids Deserve to Grow Up campaign which has been shared by over 4 million people. With an MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture, Dee is an award-winning qualified sex educator and has experience of working and teaching in schools, particularly with LGBTQIA+ and SEND young people. Earlier this year they made history on the first ever all trans panel in parliament, and will soon be a published author of Beyond Bananas and Condoms. They’ve worked with Brook for 4 years to create content, and have also been featured on Channel 4, PinkNews and ITV.
Simon became a trustee of Brook in June 2024.
Simon Dixon is a designer and digital transformation leader focused on helping organisations to deliver inclusive and human centred products and services. He started his career as a support officer in a mental health team. Since then he has worked his way up to becoming an exec director for an NHS Integrated Care System. He has played a key role in delivering digital products, policy and strategy across national health organisations, including NHS England, Public Health England and NHSX.
Since sitting in a hospital cafe in one of his first jobs and chatting to people about their needs, his passion has always been co-designing human-centred and inclusive services. He is a massive advocate for starting with people and their needs, and ways of working such as user centred design, agile delivery in multidisciplinary teams and solving problems in experimental ways. He has been responsible for successfully introducing these methods into large organisations and building high performing digital delivery teams. Outside of work, he has a published paper in a peer-reviewed journal on using design to solve a complex health challenge, does regular talks and has done guest lectures at several academic instructions.