Chris Ward

Treasurer, Board of Trustees

Chris is a Tax Director at PwC, where he has been advising clients for around 15 years, and is a chartered tax adviser and accountant. Outside of work he enjoys most sports, in particular running and rugby, as well as travelling and has previously completed a half marathon in the Arctic Circle!

Naomi Karslake

Trustee

Naomi worked at Notting Hill Housing Trust, a Charitable Housing Association for many years covering a range of areas, front line housing management, new project development and partnership working with specialist agencies. In the latter role in particular she developed skills around governance and management of smaller voluntary organisations. Then after a stint at the Aylesbury Youth Offending Team, she joined Oxfordshire Advocacy, providing Human rights advocacy to vulnerable people across Oxfordshire, as well as managing the volunteer community advocacy programme provided by volunteers.

Her voluntary roles have included Chair of the Board of Arncott Enterprises that ran the Visitors’ Centre at Bullingdon Prison, until the contract was passed on to PACT, and also Chair of Pulse, a Social enterprise running community health and housing projects in London and Bristol. During the Covid-19 pandemic she has been involved local initiatives to deliver food, prescriptions etc to local villages.

Henry Allmand

Trustee

Henry is the CEO of Heart of Bucks, the Buckinghamshire Community Foundation. In this role he works actively within local communities in the county, alongside philanthropists and stakeholders, to encourage local giving and engagement. Prior to this, he held management positions in local government in Bucks and trained on the National Graduate Scheme for two years.

Henry has an honours degree from the University of Manchester in Criminology, and a masters’ degree in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam, a postgraduate diploma in Leadership and Management, and is currently studying towards an MBA.   He holds a Non-Executive Director role, has trained as a reserve with the British Army, previously held voluntary positions with local charities, and currently volunteers as an adviser for enterprise and skills in a local secondary school.

Michelle Nichols

Trustee

Michelle is an experienced communications professional and senior leader with over 25 years’ of experience working in both the public and private sector. For the last 10 years of her employment, she worked as Head of Communications for Network Rail and prior to that she headed up the communications function at Thames Valley Police, leading on strategic communications, crisis communications and media management. Michelle sat as part of the Chief Constables management team advising the Chief and senior officers on the force response to critical incidents, issues impacting public confidence and major incidents.

In 2018, Michelle decided to set up her own business, Purple Pitch Communications and now works with a portfolio of clients including law enforcement, travel and tourism, neurodiversity service providers and cyber security.

As well as volunteering as a marketing trustee for the charity, Michelle is also a mentor for the Women Leaders UK charity based in Milton Keynes.

Joy Shakespeare

Trustee

Joy worked in Local Government Children’s Services for many years, where her senior roles included responsibility for Youth Offending Services, Leaving Care, Youth Services and Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children.  She worked as Head of Early Help for Buckinghamshire County Council from 2012 until May 2018 when she took the decision to take early retirement in order to explore new challenges.

Since then, Joy has worked as in service design and commissioning for a number of local authorities and has also had roles in the development and delivery of training for the College of Policing and Oxfordshire County Council.  She was an independent chair of Home Office Modern Slavery panels between 2019 and 2022 and is the vice chair of the Buckinghamshire Fostering Panel.

Joy is professionally qualified in psychotherapy, coaching and careers guidance and offers therapeutic support to individuals and groups through her private practice.

Colin Cross

Trustee

Colin is a qualified Chartered Accountant who has over 30 years of experience of leading service delivery organisations, working with clients in the public and private sectors, both nationally and overseas. He has worked at a senior leadership level for a number of major international companies, such as IBM and Capgemini, where he was Vice President with Global responsibility for Service Management and End User Services. Since taking early retirement Colin has been appointed to the role of Non-Executive Director on the Board of the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust, and also represents the Trust on the Management Board of the Northamptonshire Youth Offending Service. He is a Trustee of Community Care North Bucks, where he also volunteers for the Hospital Car Service. Prior to being appointed as a Trustee, Colin was a Volunteer Caseworker with the Victims First Emotional Support Service of Thames Valley Partnership.

Rupert Coles

Trustee

Rupert is a strategy consultant at PA Consulting and a member of the leadership team within the Public Services sector, focussing within Justice and Home Affairs but also working with international organisations such as the United Nations, Interpol and Europol.

He has over 25 years’ experience advising clients in central government and law enforcement on national policing programmes and now specialises in driving a whole system approach to tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Prior to consulting, Rupert led ICT Operations at Thames Valley Police for almost 9 years and has a background in technology and people centred change.

Rupert is an age grade rugby coach and a lapsed runner, having previously completed 4 marathons in a day, and running 7 marathons in 7 days across the Sahara.

Join our Board of Trustees

Do you have the passion and commitment to support a value-driven organisation with strategic vision and independent judgement? With relevant experience and a willingness to devote the necessary time and effort, you could be an ideal Trustee for the Partnership. To submit an Expression of Interest for this volunatary role, please email admin@thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk to request a Trustee Information Pack.