Our People

Our patron is Gus O’Donnell is a former British senior civil servant and economist, who between 2005 and 2011 (under three Prime Ministers) served as the Cabinet Secretary, the highest official in the British Civil Service. Gus chaired the development group of founding partners setting up the Centre and the Commission on Wellbeing & Policy. He joined Frontier Economics as Senior Advisor in 2012 and became Chairman in 2013.

As well as the Board Chair of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, Peter is the CIPD’s chief executive. He writes and speaks widely on the development of HR, the future of work, and the key issues of leadership, culture and organisation, people and skills.

Peter is a Fellow of the CIPD, a Fellow of AHRI (the Australian HR Institute) and the Academy of Social Sciences. He’s also a Companion of the Institute of Leadership and Management, the Chartered Management Institute, and the British Academy of Management. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Lancaster and sits on the Advisory Board for the University of Bath Management School. He holds honorary doctorates from Bath University, Kingston University and Birmingham City University.

Chair, Shelter England

Helen took over the role of chair of Shelter in May 2018, bringing her wide experience of governance and leadership. Most recently, Helen’s been involved with chairing Charityworks, and is a deputy lieutenant for Oxfordshire.

Chief Executive Ealing Council

Paul is the lead chief executive in West London for growth and at Ealing Council and he is leading the Future Ealing transformation programme. His experience of partnership working includes leading for SOLACE on community wellbeing, adult services for London Councils and Thrive LDN, London’s initiative to promote mental health wellbeing.

David is Director of Community at Coin Street Community Builders, leading the award-winning social enterprise’s work in the community, nestled by the South Bank in London. This includes housing cooperatives, nursery, children’s centre, gym and sports facilities, youth work, social action and an enterprise, arts and wellbeing offer for adults and seniors.

David draws on 25 years of experience working with communities to create change. He started his career as a community worker – knocking on doors, turning pub lounges into parent and toddler sessions, and teaming up with residents to problem solve together.  He has never lost the instinct to listen for the bark of a dog before putting the leaflet through the letterbox!

Since then, he has run grant programmes helping community groups build new parks and greenspaces from scratch and supporting “at risk” young people to makeover their neighbourhoods and build leadership skills; led a consultancy team advising charities on strategy, fundraising and partnerships;  steered policy work and advocacy on green infrastructure; and designed and delivered large-scale philanthropy initiatives nationally and internationally across a range of cause areas for clients including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Cabinet Office.  

David is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a fully certified member of the Institute of Fundraising.

Monika started her medical career as a General Practitioner. She subsequently became a specialist in Occupational Medicine, which she has practiced both in the public and corporate sectors.  

She is currently European Head of Health and Wellbeing at Mars. She has experience in setting workplace wellbeing and mental health strategies and leading teams to operationalize these. She has a decade of experience in delivering resilience programs globally at team and individual levels. More recently she has been involved in creating the global manager mental health training program.  

She coaches all levels within organisations up to executive level.  She is a strong advocate of harnessing the power of mentoring and coaching to enable people to lead more fulfilling lives. 

Her interests outside work include practising yoga and mindfulness and supporting the mental health of school aged children.

CEO of New Philanthropy Capital

Dan became Chief Executive of NPC in 2011 following a variety of posts in public policy and economics. NPC is a charity that operates as a think tank and consultancy aiming to improve the impact of the social sector. He was Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit and Senior Adviser to the Prime Minister on the Economy from 2007 to 2010.

Dan has been Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Treasury and has worked as a special adviser to the Secretary of State in the Education Department as well as at DTI and DCLG. He was a Director in the Economics segment of FTI Consulting. He ran the New Local Government Network think tank between 2002 and 2005, which was voted Think Tank of the Year in 2004 and was Senior Economist at the IPPR in the 1990s.

He is a trustee of St Mungo’s, 19 Princelet Street and of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, and a former member of the Research Committee of the ESRC and of the Greater Manchester Economic Advisory Panel. He is also a member of the Advisory Boards for Big Society Capital, Impetus–PEF, and the Centre for Public Scrutiny, and was a member of the Charity Tax Commission.

Partner, Commercial Property, Wedlake Bell

Sarah is a commercial real estate lawyer with a wide range of experience from many different types of commercial property transaction. She acts for both landlords and tenants, investors and developers and handles all aspects of commercial property work, including disposals and acquisitions, leases, property finance, property development and property management. Sarah also deals with the property aspects of corporate transactions.

Sarah considers herself a generalist, but has particular expertise advising corporate occupiers on HQ and regional office moves, property development and investment, portfolio management and clients in the Charities, Retail, Student Accommodation and Hotel sectors.