Our Trustees

Radha Chakraborty is Campaigns Director of DMI, an NGO delivering national and multi-country behaviour change campaigns to improve child health and cognitive outcomes across sub–Saharan Africa. She is Chair of the Bell Foundation, whose focus is on English language education, is a Non-Executive Director of Screen Yorkshire and ABE Global and was Vice Chair of BookTrust from 2020 to 2024. 

After a Mathematics degree at Imperial College, Radha qualified as Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor at PwC before becoming a partner at Towers Perrin (now Willis Towers Watson) where she led one of the GB lines of business. She was also Operations Director at Comic Relief.

Vicki is Chief Executive of Good Things Foundation, the UK’s leading digital inclusion charity, tackling data poverty amongst those experiencing vulnerability and building the nation’s digital skills. 

Previously Vicki was Chief Experience Officer at St John Ambulance where she ran the charitable arm of the organisation delivering education and first response across communities in England. Prior to this she was Chief Partnership Officer at innovation foundation Nesta, where she led both the foundation’s expansion to new territories and its grant making, including sponsoring new approaches to early years that ensure all children in the UK have a fair start in life. 

Vicki was awarded MBE in 2021 for services to social action.

Ellen is Chief Executive of the British Dyslexia Association. She was previously Managing Director of CoramBAAF, the UK’s largest membership organisation for professionals involved with children and young people in their journey through the care system, and Coram Family and Childcare, the UK’s leading childcare charity.

Ellen has also been Director of Children and Families at NatCen, the UK’s leading social research organisation, and Chief Executive of Family and Childcare Trust, where she worked for five years, and led the merger into Coram in 2018. She brings 20 years of experience of strategic leadership, research, policy, advocacy and communications from previous roles including at the Children’s Society, the National Autistic Society and Parliament. Ellen is also a trustee of Leukemia UK.

Matthew is an Executive Consultant specialising in behaviour change in areas such as healthcare, organisational culture and equality and diversity. Matthew was previously Director of Behaviour Change at NHS England, where he created and embedded NHS RightCare as a national improvement programme and then led the National Menopause Improvement Programme. 

Matthew is a Professor at Warwick Business School, with a focus on sustainable health systems, Honorary Professor of Population Healthcare Improvement at the University of Salford and was previously Professor of Business Processing and Knowledge Transfer at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. Matthew has held several director positions across local and national NHS bodies, including in Finance, Transformation and Improvement. He has written seven publications on sustainable healthcare improvement, finance and business process engineering. 

Steve has more than 30 years of experience in children’s services and social work, including as the Director of Children’s Services for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight councils. He has contributed to a number of significant national policy initiatives, including on SEND, youth justice and children’s social care, and he is a Past President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. In recognition of his contribution to children’s services, Steve was awarded an OBE in 2018.

Steve is currently a non-executive director at the Department for Education and continues to work with local authorities, improving their services. He is also a trustee at the National Children’s Bureau and a governor at the Pathways SEN School. In his spare time, Steve enjoys running, watching football and cricket, going to the theatre and cinema and playing his electric guitar.

Gautam is a chartered accountant and a former senior audit partner at KPMG London. From 2000 to 2003 he was chairman and chief executive of KPMG’s practice in India, which he helped to establish. Gautam is a non-executive director of Moxico Resources plc, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS FT and Hoptroff London Ltd. He is a member of the finance and audit committees of the National Gallery, having previously been a trustee and chair of these committees, and a Governor of The Purcell School.

Gautam was also a non-executive director of Barts Health NHS Trust from April 2012 to March 2022 as well as the Board’s vice-chairman and senior independent director. He was formerly a non-executive director of Barts and The London NHS Trust from September 2010 to March 2012.He has also been a founder board member of the UK India business council and the international board of AMREF Health Africa, the chair of the audit committee of The Law Society, and a member of the Governing Body of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Tim is Chief Executive of Dartington Service Design Lab, an independent social research and design charity. He has spent more than two decades working with numerous public systems, charities and foundations to help shape a series of bold investments and experiments designed to improve child outcomes. Underpinning all his work is a deep commitment to generating and using evidence, fused with human-centred and systemic design approaches.

Tim is also a Visiting Professor at University College (in the School of Psychology and Language Sciences) and was a 2021 Fellow of Practice at the Government Outcomes Lab (in the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University). Tim is an avid reader of literacy fiction and sci-fi.

Hilary was formerly CEO of Hachette Children’s Group, a role she held from 2014 until 2025. She led the Raising Readers project at Hachette during 2025, an ongoing initiative to support children’s reading for enjoyment, and has now retired from full-time publishing. Hilary has significant experience in children’s books, including in senior roles for Egmont, Usborne and Scholastic Children’s Books. She chaired the Children’s Group of the Publishers’ Association between 2018–2021 and represented Hachette UK on the Publishers Association Council. She is a primary school governor with responsibilities for reading, writing and SEND. In her spare time, she enjoys music, cooking and reading contemporary fiction. 

Nigel spent 18 years with Carphone Warehouse Group until its merger with Dixons Retail in 2014. As a chartered accountant, he held a number of senior finance roles within the group, including as UK and then Group Finance Director before becoming Chief Financial Officer. He was also on the board of Virgin Mobile France. In addition, he was a non-executive director at TalkTalk Telecom Group plc from 2017 to 2021.

Nigel is a trustee for a number of charities, including the David Ross Education Trust, Renaissance Foundation and Ensemble Pour La Difference. He is also an investor in several social impact businesses. He has an MA in modern history from Oxford University. Nigel is married with one daughter and in his spare time enjoys reading, collecting records and cooking.

June has more than 30 years hands on experience gained from within the Early Years, Social Services, Social Enterprise and Learning and Development sectors with specific skills in Business and Stakeholder Performance, Business Growth and Development. She has an excellent record of initiating and leading innovation and award-winning growth, not least creating the first Social Enterprise Childcare Group in the UK.

Ed joined the King’s Trust, formerly Prince’s Trust, in April 2023 as Director of Communications. Prior to joining the Trust, he worked at the United Nations as Global Chief of Strategic Communications & Brand for the world’s largest humanitarian agency, the World Food Programme. Having started his career as a journalist, Ed has over 20 years of experience in leadership positions in media, at global agencies and in-house, covering consumer, government and charity communications and campaigns, both in the UK and internationally.