Leadership Team & Board

The Leadership Team

Rob Owen OBE

Chief Executive

Rob Owen joined St Giles Trust in February 2007 after a career in investment banking. He joined Nomura as a graduate trainee in 1987, joining the Japanese equities desk. He moved to Schroders Japan in 1992 to work in international sales and then progressed to ABN Amro as Director on the emerging markets desk.

He left the City to do an MBA to pursue a career change in a place where he could make a social difference. He has been on multiple polar and high altitude expeditions raising money for charity, as well as completing the Marathon Des Sables and the Devizes to Westminster kayak race. In 2015, he was awarded an OBE for his work in the criminal justice field.

Malcolm Walker

Assistant Chief Executive & Finance Director

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Andy Cross

Director of Services

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Andy has worked in social housing, homelessness and offender services since 1987 in the public and voluntary sectors. Over the years he has worked for Hillingdon Council, a number of Housing Associations particularly Family HA, Shepherds Bush HA, Metropolitan Housing Trust and St Mungo’s Broadway. He has been at St Giles Trust since 2003.

His roles have included a wide variety of client facing jobs including housing advice, housing and hostel management, resettlement support, welfare rights advocacy and support as well as developing and managing education, training and employment services including at St Giles Trust. Andy has been the Director of Services since 2008 and is responsible for operational and business development.

Katy Vaughan

Director of Fundraising and Communications

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Maria McNicholl

Development Manager

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Maria has worked at St Giles Trust for many years leading service delivery in prisons. She developed the first flagship Peer Advice Project at HMP Wandsworth in 2001, training prisoners to NVQ Level 3 in Advice and Guidance and supporting them to provide resettlement advice to their peers in prison. Alongside winning multiple awards, it was successfully transferred to the community, resulting in many of the people we had trained in prison working or volunteering for St Giles Trust.

She completed a MA in Prisoner Education at the Institute of Education, University of London and has also worked on several pan-European resettlement projects adapting the peer model to programmes working with offenders in Italy, Roma people in Hungary and disadvantaged families in Portugal.

Evan Jones

Head of Child Criminal Exploitation Development

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Evan has worked in homelessness and offender services since the late 80s both in the statutory and voluntary sectors; he has worked for: Westminster Council, Carr Gomm, North Lambeth Day Centre, Broadway, Southwark Council and St Giles Trust. His roles have included resettlement, shared housing management, floating support, street outreach, housing allocation and now at St Giles Trust he develops new projects, manages existing ones and chases funding for both.

Maggie Cramb

Head of Skills and Employment

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Maggie has worked in the Skills and Employment arena for the past 20 years, supporting services for very disadvantaged people to move closer to and into sustainable employment. As well as five years of freelance working she has held a number of senior posts in voluntary and community organisations, including at the Refugee Council, Women’s Education in Building and the London Voluntary Sector Training Consortium. She has been a member of the St Giles Trust senior management team since 2009, and has set up new projects in Wales, Yorkshire and Kent, and oversees the Trust’ skills and employment work.

Stellamaris Mohammed

Head of Human Resources

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Stellamaris has worked in HR and organisation development for about 20 years, she has wealth of experience in diversity, people and organisation development and has worked in the voluntary and local government sectors. She worked with Action for Children, The Children’s Society, Citizen Advice, Lifeline Community Projects, Depaul UK & London Borough of Camden. She is very passionate about causes that advocates for the marginalised in the society. Her volunteering activities includes coaching and mentoring of ex-offenders, advocating for single parents in her local community and preparing 8-11 years olds for first Holy Communion.

Danny Chapman

Head of London Services

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Danny started his career as a voluntary youth worker in 2000 before gaining experience within a variety of roles including mentoring and student support at a vocational training centre, Lead Community Personal Adviser within the Connexions service, Careers adviser and Service User Engagement within the Criminal Justice Sector before joining St Giles in 2013 initially working as team leader on our Youth skills and employment project before becoming the London Skills and Employment Manager in 2018.

Danny now oversees all our London and South East Projects.

Becki Navarro

Head of Regional Services

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The Board

Duncan Gibson

Chair

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Gary Jones

Board Member

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Alfy Hayson

Board Member

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Alfy was appointed Head of Strategic Portfolio Management at NCS Trust (National Citizen Service) in 2020. He is a qualified Programme Manager with experience in Portfolio Management and Governance and a proven track record of delivering high quality PMO expertise across multi-disciplinary sectors. Experienced in successfully designing & implementing a portfolio office and risk function in corporate settings, promoting consistency, insight, prioritisation and quality of programme delivery, resulting in informed strategic decision making and benefits realisation.

Qualified with a Law Degree & Masters, Alfy has devoted his working life at organisations in the private, third and government ALB sectors working in youth, welfare to work and criminal justice, where social purpose and helping improve the lives of disadvantaged and marginalised groups lie at the heart of the core values and ethos of the business.

Julie Rice

Board Member

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Pippa Murray

Board Member

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Ameeta Rowland

Board Member

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Ameeta has worked in regional and then local government for over 10 years. She has worked for a variety of London boroughs in a range of areas, including working with the voluntary and community sector and commissioning employment and welfare advice. She currently works for Kensington and Chelsea Council. A passionate south Londoner, Ameeta is committed to giving back and in her spare time is a volunteer mentor at the Baytree Centre, in Brixton. Ameeta joined the board in 2018.<

Janet Hills MBE

Board Member

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Janet is a former President of the National Black Police Association (NBPA) and former Chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association (MetBPA). She was a serving Police Officer with 27 years’ service. She has held a number of posts on the MetBPA Executive, including First Contact Support Co-ordinator and General Secretary, before becoming the first female Chair of the MetBPA in 2013 and then the first female police officer elected as NBPA President.

Janet joined the Metropolitan Police Service in 1991. She began her service at Brixton Police Station where she started on response team before venturing into the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Janet has worked in a number of departments including the burglary and robbery squads and the Community Safety Unit. She went onto specialise in the Human Trafficking Unit before returning to Brixton on promotion as a Detective Sergeant. She was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List 2021.

Caroline Waddington

Board Member

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Caroline trained as a Chartered Accountant before embarking on a career in banking where she has held leadership positions in Finance and Operations. She is currently the EMEA CFO for Credit Suisse and a member of the UK Executive Committee and Board. In addition, she is a Trustee of the Credit Suisse EMEA Foundation, co-sponsor of the European Women’s Network and Senior Champion for the LGBT & Ally Network. Caroline has previously been a trustee for an educational charitable trust and joined the Board at St Giles Trust in 2020.

Erica Handling

Board Member

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Erica is an executive coach and a non-executive director on the Board of the Government Legal Department. Previously she was a lawyer and was European General Counsel at Barclays Investment and Corporate Bank and most recently at asset manager BlackRock. Prior to that she was a structured finance partner at law firms Weil Gotshal and Ashurst. She is currently a Trustee of charity Working Chance which helps to place women who have been through the criminal justice system into employment.

Sally Eley

Board Member

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Sally is the Director of the City & Guilds Foundation – the purely philanthropic part of City & Guilds that brings to life the purpose through a range of activities including the Princess Royal Training Awards, the Future Skills Commissions, the bursary programme, engaging young people and measuring the beneficial impact the City & Guilds Group has in society.

Sally was responsible for developing the Princess Royal Training Awards and continues to ensure that they are both robust and accessible and offer employers royal recognition for the impact training has on their organisations and people. Through the Awards alumni Sally and her team are building a powerful cohort of learning and development professionals who are making a significant difference to the productivity and well-being of UK plc.

The Future Skills Commission for Prisons supports the proven benefits of equipping people with convictions with the skills that will reduce reoffending through a range of initiatives and partners.

Sally held the role of Communications Director at UK Skills and was part of both the WorldSkills International and WorldSkills London 2011 teams. Prior to joining City & Guilds, Sally had a successful career as a freelance communications consultant with clients in the education, training and care sectors.

In her spare time, Sally is endeavouring to train her new puppy, Charlie!

Charles Pitts-Tucker

Board Member

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Leadership Team & Board

The Leadership Team

Rob Owen OBE

Malcolm Walker

Andy Cross

Katy Vaughan

Maria McNicholl

Evan Jones

Maggie Cramb

Stellamaris Mohammed

Danny Chapman

Becki Navarro

The Board

Duncan Gibson

Gary Jones

Alfy Hayson

Julie Rice

Pippa Murray

Ameeta Rowland

Janet Hills MBE

Caroline Waddington

Erica Handling

Sally Eley

Charles Pitts-Tucker

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