Turn2us management
Thomas Lawson - Chief Executive, Turn2us. Executive Chair, Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd
Thomas Lawson has worked in the social sector since the early 90s in international development at UNICEF, HIV at Terrence Higgins Trust and NAM (the charity behind aidsmap.com), criminal justice at Prisoners Abroad and more recently in youth work at the award-winning Leap Confronting Conflict.
Recently he has been challenging the sector to address the barriers to success in the sector for people from Black, Asian and other minoritised ethnic communities. Tom has served on the boards of the charities: Centre for Youth Impact, Heart ‘n Soul and the National Peace Council. Tom is a non-executive chair of his family’s retail firm, Lawsons, and executive chair for Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd, which is Turn2us’s wholly owned subsidiary care home business.
Thomas joined Turn2us as Chief Executive in March 2019. He became a member of the Elizabeth Finn Homes board in April 2019, before being appointed as its Executive Chair in August 2021. Thomas is interested in how the social sector can work with, and challenge, state bodies and companies to create an inclusive society in which everyone can thrive. He is passionate about the role that people with lived expertise can play in the future of the leadership of the social sector and in addressing the complex problems we face.
Jo Kerr - Director of Impact and Innovation
Jo Kerr has dedicated her career to the social sector, focusing on strategy, leadership and change through a digital lens. Jo joined Turn2us in January 2020 after two years as a freelance consultant and leadership coach. Jo is interested in innovating how we work as well as what we do, and is passionate about co-producing our products and programmes with people with lived experience of poverty.
Jo’s last in-house role was as Assistant Director of Digital for Breast Cancer Care. Before this, Jo was Girlguiding’s first Head of Digital Communications. Agency-side, Jo was managing director for London at Reason Digital, overseeing their work with national charities.
Jo is a Fellow of both the Intersticia Foundation and Newspeak House — the London College of Political Technologists. She is also Chair of the Board of Trajectory Theatre.
Thomas Mathew - Director of Finance and Resources
Tom Mathew joined Turn2us as Director of Finance and Resources in February 2020. He has held similar positions in the charity sector for over a dozen years, including at the City of Dublin YMCA and the award-winning youth charity Leap Confronting Conflict. In a previous life, Tom work professionally as a writer. He is an award-winning essayist and a grant recipient through the Irish Arts Council.
At Turn2us, Tom oversees the charity's finances, risk management, human resources and ICT.
Simone Ranson - Head of Digital
Simone joined the Turn2us Digital Team in October 2019. She has worked in the Charity and Public Sector throughout her career; and has led on digital innovation at Diabetes UK and The Scout Association. Simone heads the Digital Team at Turn2us, leading a multidisciplinary team of Technical Developers, Product and Project Managers to improve our digital services through feedback and evaluation, enabling us to deliver a digital platform which supports people in financial need.
Sara Willcocks - Head of External Affairs
Sara joined Turn2us in June 2019. Having started out in consultancy and the corporate arena, she joined the charity sector 10 years ago and has worked within a variety of PR, communication and marketing roles. Most recently she was the head of marketing and communications for a faith based charity that supports vulnerable children and families. At Turn2us, Sara and her team are responsible for leading the external communications and policy work that underpins the charity’s purpose and strategic aims.
Michael Clarke - Head of Information Programmes
Michael Clarke has previously worked in senior digital content and services roles for Asthma UK, the University of London, commercial digital agencies and BBC Online. His teams deliver information programmes covering welfare benefits, income maximisation, referrals to other service partners and other resources empowering users to get the income they have a right to and need, move forward with their lives and thrive.
Sarah McLoughlin - Head of National Grants Programmes
Sarah joined Turn2Us in November 2021 after 4 1/2 years at Nesta, the innovation foundation, where she managed a range of national grant programmes focused on helping governments and communities reimagine public services. These included the Savers Support Fund, utilising social action and community engagement approaches to increase financial resilience.
With almost 20 years of experience in the charity sector, Sarah has worked as a practitioner, manager, and senior leader for a range of organisations focused on social change in London and across Greater Manchester. Sarah volunteers at her local foodbank in North Paddington as well as providing phone support to women experiencing a breast cancer diagnosis for Breast Cancer Now.
Sarah is passionate about shifting power and reducing the structural inequalities within the funding sector so that more people are involved in decision-making and ultimately able to thrive.
Caroline Carter – Head of Supporter Engagement
Caroline is a senior level fundraiser with a dedicated career in the charity sector spanning over 20 years. She joined Turn2us in July 2022 with a solid background in supporter development and acquisition having previously worked at Terrence Higgins Trust, The Children’s Society, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and The British Red Cross. During her 8 ½ years at Terrence Higgins Trust she developed new strategies around mid-value giving and innovative digital acquisition, as well as working on propositions around legacy giving.
Caroline’s focus and expertise for her team at Turn2us is to connect beneficiaries and supporters through meaningful supporter journeys.
Jackie Brett - Co-head of Local Programmes
Jackie Brett joined Turn2us as co-head of Local Programmes February 2022. Local Programmes is a place-based funding initiative that will drive Turn2us's approach to learning from, and shifting power to, people who are closest to financial insecurity, with the aim of changing the systems that cause financial insecurity. Turn2us are scoping programmes in Barking & Dagenham and Middlesbrough and see these as long-term partnerships with local communities. Jackie joined Turn2us because of its commitment to coproducing all of its work and challenging systemic inequalities. Jackie left school at 16 and has worked as care worker, an auxiliary nurse in a geriatric hospital, a sweet factory and other factories. She worked in local Voluntary & Community sector organisations in East London for over 25 years, working as the Director of VCS Strategy and Programmes at Hackney CVS, and then CEO of Hoxton Health prior to joining Turn2us.
Anna Docherty - Head of Human Resources
Anna joined Turn2us in September 2019 as Human Resources Manager. Her whole career as been in generalist human resources roles, originally in large blue chip organisations including at Natwest, Ford Motor Company and American Express. She also spent some years running her own HR consultancy supporting small businesses with general HR support. This is her first HR role within the charity sector.
At Turn2us, Anna oversees all the human resources work which includes recruitment & induction, learning and development and policy development.
Sophia Salem - Head of IT
Sophia Salem joined Turn2us as Head of IT in February 2021. She held a similar position at the award-winning youth charity Leap Confronting Conflict. In a previous life, Sophia has worked as a consultant to deliver IT transformation projects in the private sector.
At Turn2us, Sophia oversees the IT needs of the charity as part of the Finance and Resources directorate.
Barbara Stylska – Group Head of Finance
Barbara joined Turn2us Finance Team in January 2019. She has worked in the charity sector throughout her career, and has held various finance roles, including at Comic Relief and The Serpentine Galleries. At Turn2us, Barbara and her team are responsible for the day-to-day management of the financial accounting for the charity and the commercial subsidiaries Elizabeth Finn Homes Limited and Elizabeth Finn Trading.
Statement on Senior Salaries
Read our Statement on Senior Salaries
Trustees
Carrie Stokes - Chair of the Board of Trustees at Turn2us, and Non-Executive Director of Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd
Carrie Stokes joined both Turn2us as Chair of the board and Elizabeth Finn Homes as a Non-Executive Director, in April 2022. She also Chairs our Nominations & Remuneration Committee.
Carrie is an independent strategic brand consultant and executive facilitator with 30 years’ experience influencing and advising boards and executive teams in the private and non-for-profit sectors. Her clients have included The John Lewis Partnership, London 2012 Olympics, London Business School, Leap Confronting Conflict and Radar (now Disability Rights).
Passionate about addressing foundational issues that impact people’s potential to grow, broaden their horizons and succeed, she has balanced being a Director of a WPP owned agency and then her own business, with working pro bono for charities that focus on food security, financial insecurity, disability rights, adult literacy and youth issues.
Helen Chambers - Trustee
Helen believes in challenging established thinking and has been instrumental in designing and delivering many ground breaking innovative and collaborative approaches within government and the voluntary sector tackling a wide range of social issues.
Both within her work in Scottish Government as Head of Child Poverty, and a founder of Inspiring Scotland, she has overseen the investment of over £200m into responses to alleviate Scotland’s ‘wicked’ issues.
Her history is that of a serial social entrepreneur founding a number of organisations from the award winning Equality Network through to most recently, Inspiring Scotland; a funder and capacity builder of the voluntary sector in Scotland.
She has been a member of a number of academic groups on equality, social impact, research and evaluation including representing the UK in the European Union’s Social Impact Study Group and the School of Management Advisory Council for the University of St. Andrews.She was also a Steering Group member for Collective Leadership Scotland.
Helen has held a number of Fellowships, including founding Fellow of Pioneers for Change, a Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and is a Fellow of the RSA.
Helen Chambers became a Trustee in 2019 and Chairs the Edinburgh Trust Committee.
Steven Hunter - Trustee and Hon. Treasurer
Steven Hunter is a chartered accountant with more than thirty years’ experience, the last twenty of which have been spent running and building small businesses in the publishing/marketing sectors.
After qualifying with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), he spent 12 years there before heading up the financial reporting function at Mercury Communications, part of the Cable & Wireless group. He then co-founded a magazine publishing company (subsequently sold) and in 2005 set up a content marketing business which was sold in 2015 and which he left in 2019.
Steven is a keen golfer and skier and has two grown up children. He became a Trustee in June 2017 and is the Honorary Treasurer and Chairs the Finance & Investment Committee.
Edwina Johnston - Trustee of Turn2us and Deputy Chair of Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd
Edwina joined the Board of Trustees for both Turn2us and Elizabeth Finn Homes in December 2020 as Lead Trustee for Safeguarding and Chair of the Audit, Risk and Governance Committee.
Edwina retired from Choice Care in August 2020 where she was CEO from 2009 and prior to that Finance Director from 2002. Choice Care provides residential care and supported living services to adults with learning disabilities and mental health disorders. Prior to Choice, Edwina was Finance Director of a listed import and distribution business, having previously qualified as an ACA with Price Waterhouse.
Edwina is based between Newbury and South Devon and is married with three grown up daughters and one grandson.
Thomas Morgan - Trustee of Turn2us and Non-Executive Director of Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd
Tom became a Trustee of Turn2us in March 2019 and a Non-Executive Director of Elizabeth Finn Homes in April 2019.
Originally from Lincolnshire, Tom has been based in London for the past 18 years where he is an Executive Director with responsibility for the UK healthcare practice at CBRE, the global property advisory business.
Tom advises clients in relation to all property aspects of the health and social care sector, covering care homes, retirement living, hospitals and primary care. Tom specialises in investment advisory across these different markets and works with a range of clients from local not for profit organisations to multi-national investment businesses.
Away from work, Tom is married with two children and spends his spare time enjoying the North Norfolk coast, watching and occasionally playing sport as well as coaching youth football teams in the FA South London Youth league.
Kalm Paul-Christian FRSA – Trustee
Kalm is an investment banker working in the Financial Institutions Advisory Team at NatWest Markets. There he advises executive management teams to execute strategic and corporate finance decisions for sustainable growth.
He began his career with Rothschild & Co in the Global Financial Advisory division before joining The Social Investment Consultancy where he advised charities, social enterprises, corporates and investment funds on revenue diversification, social business models and impact evaluation.
He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a member of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers. He is also trustee of the Switchback Initiative, and a junior adviser to Chatham House.
Kalm became a Trustee in December 2020 and sits on the Nominations & Remuneration Committee.
Jo Wickremasinghe - Trustee
Jo has nearly 20 years experience in digital product and programme management. Jo has led a number of digital product teams at News UK, Which?, Microsoft and the BBC where she was responsible for the launch of the 2011 Design Award nominated BBC Homepage and the market leading BBC Weather apps.
During her time at Which? she launched a number of new digital businesses including Which? Trusted Traders. At News UK she oversaw development of The Sun online, growing to be the number one digital newspaper in the UK; introduced data driven experimentation to optimise the subscription funnel for The Times; as well as ‘lean start up’ methodologies to incubate new business ideas.
She is currently Product Director at Zoopla. Born and raised in Australia, Jo started her career as an Aerospace Engineer, moving to the UK in 1998 to work for British Aerospace. The hype of the first dotcom bubble in 2000 enticed her into technology, and she’s never looked back.
Jo became a Trustee in March 2019.
Natasha Otero-Nevitt - Trustee
Natasha Otero-Nevitt joined the board in June 2021 and has a career history in school leadership and school improvement, having worked as part of senior management in schools and as a Specialist Leader of Education. After helping parents access special educational needs support, Natasha started volunteering for legal charities, something which she enjoys immensely and continues to do. From this pro bono legal experience of casework and advocacy, Natasha won scholarships and awards to undertake the Graduate Diploma in Law. She subsequently won further scholarships to study for the Bar, which she has just completed, and which confirmed her passion for equality and access to justice. Natasha had experience of working with Turn2us in co-production before becoming a trustee.
Sandy MacDonald - Trustee
Sandy MacDonald has a professional background in Corporate Affairs, Responsible Business, Sustainability and Marketing. He has focused on working within and across sectors to drive social and environmental change, inclusion and wellbeing. Previously Global Head of Corporate Sustainability at Standard Life Aberdeen plc, where he was responsible for all aspects of sustainability strategy, reporting and community impact, Sandy was appointed as Director of Public Policy & Communications at Scottish Financial Enterprise in May 2021.
Sandy’s strong, active interest in social justice and tackling inequalities is also reflected in his voluntary and non-Executive career. He is a former trustee of charities including Children 1st and Venture Scotland, a former Chair of the Living Wage Scotland leadership group and was an Independent Commissioner on the Edinburgh Poverty Commission. He is a founding trustee of Everyone’s Edinburgh and sits on the Nominations Committee of the National Trust for Scotland.
Sandy became a Trustee in April 2022.