Board of Trustees
Trustees are ultimately accountable for the organisation and their governance responsibilities include developing strategy together with the Chief Executive Officer, ensuring compliance with the law and maintaining proper financial oversight.
Our trustees are recruited for a term of three years and can serve a maximum of two terms. Board meetings take place quarterly, currently on a weekday evening, and usually last about three hours.
We are currently seeking to appoint a Treasurer and more information about this can be found here.
Board members
Greg Ussher – Chair
Dr Greg Ussher has been working in the field of LGBT health and well being, and Equalities, for 22 years.
Much of this work was in Australia, and for the past 8 years Greg has worked in the UK.
Greg is currently Deputy CEO of the Metro Centre, a Lay representative on Greenwich Clinical Commissioning Group, a Trustee of Outhouse East in Essex and Chair of the Kent/Medway LGBT Community Reference Group. In 2012 Greg also chaired the Organising committee for the National LGBT Health ~summit which was successfully held in Canterbury in September 2012, and also conceived of the National Youth Chances (NYC) Project.
Greg has a PhD in the history of sexual health, and has spent much of his working career focusing on HIV prevention, HIV support and sexual health promotion. Greg can be contacted at greg@metrocentreonline.org.
Kirsten Hearn – Vice chair
Kirsten is an Independent member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and is the chair of its Equality and Diversity sub-committee. She is a non executive member of the Office for Disability Issues Disability Delivery board and is a member of Equality 2025, the UK Advisory Network on Disability Equality, which provides disability equality advice at the heart of government. She is the chair of Inclusion London, the Deaf and Disabled People’s organisations community interest company. She is a trustee of the consortium of LGBT Community and Voluntary organisations and the chair of its Human Resources sub-committee. She is also a member of the Arts Council England Independent Disability Equality Advisory Group.
For eight years, Kirsten was a member of the Transport for London Board where she championed social inclusion. For sixteen years, she was an Equality specialist and senior manager in local government before escaping the day job to create and run Whole World Design, a successful empowerment coaching and training consultancy, specialising in evolutionary change with a smile.
Kirsten has two fine art degrees, is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner and NLP coach. She is also a stand-up comic, singer, musician, writer, sculptor, broadcaster, tree-lover and bird-fancier.
Kirsten is a blind lesbian and campaigner for peace, human rights and justice and is a supporter of non-violent direct action. Her mission in life is to celebrate the lives of and promote the rights of disadvantaged people at every opportunity.
Sarah Carr
Sarah Carr is a Senior Research Analyst at the Social Care Institute for Excellence who is managing a major workstream on the personalisation of adult social care services. She has worked for the National Institute for Social Work, Oxleas NHS Trust and at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health as well as in voluntary sector provider services. Sarah is an Honorary Fellow at the Faculty of Health, Staffordshire University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Sarah is a trustee of the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) and a founder member of the Personalised Care in Mental Health Research Group, based at the Institute of Psychiatry. She has also been a trustee at PACE and a Member of INVOLVE, the national advisory Group, funded by the Department of Health, which aims to promote and support active public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research. Sarah is a long-term user of mental health services and has written, presented and advised on her own experiences as well as general mental health practice and policy, service user empowerment and participation and LGB equality issues, both nationally and internationally.
Kevin Poulter
Kevin has been a specialist employment solicitor since 2003. He has worked principally in the Yorkshire region with medium and large size commercial firms offering legal advice and support across the full spectrum of employment law and human resources management. Kevin writes for several professional and mainstream media on employment law issues and appears regularly on Gaydar Radio news offering commentary on legal developments.
Kevin has been a Board Member and spokesperson for the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society for many years and was actively involved in its establishment and launch in 2007. The organisation now has in excess of 80,000 members. He has been a supporter of Stonewall and Pride London for several years and has recently focused on developing the national Gay Employment Lawyers network.
Robert Cookson
Rob has over ten years of experience of working within the voluntary sector, including at chief executive level for two Council for Voluntary Services. His main passion concerns the fight for true equality and reducing the social isolation and stigma faced by isolated communities.
Currently Rob is the director of operations for the Lesbian & Gay Foundation, providing leadership around service delivery and development. As lead director for measuring outcomes he also has a passion for demonstrating the impact voluntary organisations make on peoples lives. He is currently studying for a Masters in Community Practice. Rob lives in Manchester with his partner Richard.
Hannah Taylor
Hannah is currently Projects Coordinator at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue on the Islam, Diversity and Social Cohesion programme. With a background in equality and diversity, particularly in relation to faith, interfaith and LGBT issues, Hannah is currently specializing in the use of social media within these contexts to influence attitudes, tackle intolerance and inspire social change. Hannah recently established Nothing Holy About Hatred, a social media campaign which brings together people of all faiths, denominations and non-religious beliefs to take a pledge against homophobia within their own communities.
Previously, Hannah worked as Community Development Officer at Kirklees Faiths Forum, an organisation which works to build interfaith relations and improve community cohesion in Kirklees in Yorkshire. She has extensive experience in equality and diversity within the pubic, voluntary and community sectors, including previous experience as a trustee for Yorkshire Mesmac and a steering group member for Kirklees Council’s LGBT Employee Network.
Hannah has a BA (Hons) (International) in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Leeds University, where her studies included Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Buddhism, Islam, the Hebrew Scriptures, Multiculturalism, and Muslims in Modern Britain. As part of her degree, she studied abroad for a year at the University of South Carolina.
Myles Kunzli
Myles has over 20 years experience in the voluntary and community sector in the UK and Australia in both volunteer and paid roles. His paid work has largely been in the legal aid sector through government agencies, community law centres and second tier organisations as a community educator, development worker, trustee and manager. Myles has recently returned to London after a stint in home town Perth, Australia where he was Executive Director of the Community Legal Centres Association. He has previously been a volunteer telephone counsellor and chair of an LGB support agency and a HIV prevention peer educator with gay men.
Myles has a Masters in international and community development and is a qualified social worker and teacher. He has a passion for access to justice and human rights.
Thanks
The Board would like to send its deepest thanks to James Roberts, our former Chair of Trustees. James has led the organisation through a period of uncertainty and has helped secure the immediate future of the organisation. We wish James the very best for his future endeavours and look forward to his continuing connections to the organisation.
