Our people

Barbara joined Blagrave Trustee Board in March 2021 with hopes of making a difference in people’s lives.

She joined the Civil Service Fast Stream and has been able to do so in a range of roles, including working as a policy advisor at BEIS, Private Secretary to the Chief Medical Officer, Head of Incident Management working on COVID-19, Head of Parliamentary and Public Engagement and presently the Head of Workforce – Charging Reform Implementation. Barbara’s passion for diversity and inclusion lead to the founding of A Touch of Colour (ATOC) an organisation which seeks to drive racial equality in the workplace for which she has been selected as a Laureate of the Future by the PeaceJam Foundation.

In her spare time, Barbara enjoys travelling, photography and videography – the latter of which she developed as a Barbican Young Reviewer.

Boudicca joined Blagrave Trustee Board in March 2020. She graduated with a degree in music, started a live band and is a Songwriter for independent music company Good Soldier.

Her previous roles include Music Programmer at International Youth Arts Festival, hosted by Creative Youth and Creative Director at Brighton Youth Fest in 2019. Boudicca also campaigned to protect youth services in her teens and raised awareness and funds for Audio Active – a youth charity in Brighton for their first all-female production workshops to encourage other young women to study technology in music.

She also continues to make music for social change, performing her own songs and poems, and supporting grassroots organisations to bring other like-minded artists to the frontline.

Clare joined the Blagrave Trustee board in 2016 and is Head of Grants at the Henry Smith Charity; she was previously Head of Grants at NHS Charities Together.

In the past Clare has been the CEO of the Isle of Wight Youth Trust and the Regional Head, South and West for BBC Children in Need where she was responsible for a multi-million pound grant portfolio as well providing leadership to a team of staff and volunteers, strategically inputting into the charities policies and objectives to find, fund and collaborate to make a difference to children and young people’s lives.

Clare worked in Dance for 15 years before moving into the Charity sector holding posts including Fundraising Manager for the Jubilee Sailing Trust and Cancer Research UK. She is currently Vice Chair of Swindon Dance National Dance Agency.

Daze joined Blagrave Trustee Board in March 2020. She is a climate change activist and works as a freelance consultant on environment, climate, intersectionality and youth engagement and was previously the Regenerative Cultures Coordinator at Extinction Rebellion Youth UK.

Previously Daze was the Creative Director at Earthrise Studios, a digital media company dedicated to communicating the climate crisis through research, design and filmmaking. Daze also has a degree in History and Politics from Goldsmiths University.

Eddie joined Blagrave Trustee Board in March 2021. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Welcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, Eddie is also a PhD student at the Department of Psychiatry, where he previously supported the Young People’s Advisory Group, a team of adolescents that co-produce research on mental health issues that matter to them.

In March 2020 he co-founded Help Your High Street, an initiative to support independent shops during the COVID-19 lockdown. Having been homeless during his school years, he deeply appreciates the importance of supporting young people in the transition to adulthood.

Hannah joined Blagrave Trustee Board in November 2023 and has worked within philanthropy and funding for 8 years across a variety of roles. Most recently at the UK National Lottery Community Fund as Head of UK Portfolio where she has designed and developed a wide range of funding programmes and managed an extensive portfolio of complex and systemic grants.

Hannah is also the founder of the Participatory Grantmaking Community, which has grown to include over 1,800 funders worldwide who seek to devolve decision-making power to the communities they aim to serve. She currently works for TransCap Initiative as Head of Community Activation, supporting the growth of the systemic investment field to tackle some of the world's most complex problems. She started her career in the social sector, with a particular focus on disability justice.

She lives in Manchester with her wife and loves frogs.

Naomi joined Blagrave Trustee Board in February 2021 and is currently CEO of The Talent Tap, a social mobility charity supporting aspiring students from 18-24 to gain equal access to the workplace.  Prior to this Naomi spent 20 years in Corporate Communications and Event Production working as a Director at Fisher Productions and at mcm Creative Group.

Naomi is a director of Dust Architecture which she set up with her husband in 2010, and is no stranger to running SMEs and small charity management which will help in her role as trustee.  Naomi is also an Enterprise Advisor for the Careers Enterprise Company / Solent LEP.

Naomi is passionate about tackling social inequality with a focus on young people. Naomi is based in Hampshire.

Nasra joined Blagrave Trustee Board in November 2023 and is a multi-award-winning women and girl’s rights campaigner, TEDx speaker and writer from Bristol, UK. She has recently delivered a TEDx talk called ‘What If Young People Ran the World?’, exploring the power shift of philanthropy decision-making away from traditional donors to young people. Nasra works in Programs at Global Fund for Children focusing on the youth-led participatory grantmaking streams, most notably the youth-led program Spark Fund. She was a recipient of the Diana Award for her efforts to end female genital mutilation since the age of 15.

Nasra envisions a funding sector that will resource young people to create change and make decisions on what their community needs. Blagrave Trust's focus on empowering and supporting young people resonated strongly with Nasra and saw joining their Board as an opportunity to contribute to an organization whose values and initiatives resonate with her philanthropic values.

Reema joined Blagrave in February 2024 as an Independent Member of the Finance and Investment Committee. Reema is passionate about supporting charities focused on serving the needs of underserved and marginalised communities. She has served as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for Henna Asia Women’s Group (2015 - 2019) and is currently a volunteer at Jeevika Trust (since 2023).

Reema has 18 years of business and product marketing experience. Reema left the investment management industry in 2023 and joined Impact Boards EM, where she is a Co-Founder and Member of the Executive Committee. Reema is also part of HERmesa, supporting the growth of early stage, female-founded businesses since 2023. She is an advisor to an impact data start-up, Fidata Limited, who aim to accelerate the path towards Net Zero by improving the accountability and quality of ESG data reporting.

Sam has joined Blagrave in January 2024 as a Finance Lead Trustee. With extensive experience in charity finance, he has served as a professional funding advisor, project manager, and participated in grants and investment panels for various UK, EU, philanthropic grant, and social investment programs. Sam brings to Blagrave a wide range of experience, having had a career that includes 14 years in local government and over 20 years working in a wide range of charities, development trusts, youth and community enterprises, as well as social investment houses.

Sam’s focus has always been working in and with communities facing financial, social, environmental, and economic exclusion, his passion lies in empowering individuals and communities to overcome barriers and injustices, which aligns perfectly with the mission of the Blagrave Trust.

Now retired from full-time commitments, Sam remains active as the lead finance trustee for a local Development Trust. In his leisure time, he enjoys outdoor activities like hill walking and mountain biking, as well as spending quality time with family and friends.

Segun joined Blagrave Trustee Board in November 2022 and is a qualified management accountant and currently works for the Children’s Society as their Finance Director. Previously he worked for the youth charity Restless Development as Finance Director and Comic Relief as a Senior Finance Business Partner working closely with the grants team.

Segun’s passionate about helping to make finance fun and easy to understand. He spent over 5 years working for Humentum as a financial management specialist training over a thousand NGO professionals in good practice financial management, strategic financial management and grant management.  Outside of his professional work he is also a social entrepreneur and mentor.

Passionate about inspiring young people, he is the author of a motivational book called, You Might As Well.

Victor is an Independent Member of the Finance and Investment Committee after serving as a Blagrave Trustee from February 2021 to June 2024. Victor works in Business Development for ClayStack previously with Figment, one of the world’s leading providers of blockchain infrastructure. He was previously an Associate at J.P. Morgan Chase working in the Platform Sales division. He has also dedicated his time to supporting philanthropic causes including mental health, improving educational attainment of children from working class backgrounds and youth justice.

In his final year of university, he partnered with DebateMate, and taught an after-school debating club in a Birmingham inner-city primary school. As a result of this experience, he co-founded My Brothers Keepers’ Bookclub. A series of book clubs with the aim of turning boys from low socioeconomic backgrounds into the most active readership group in the U.K. He is also passionate about reforming the youth justice system and expanding the conversation about mental health to young people.

In April 2018, Victor travelled as part of the British delegation to Strasbourg to report to the Council of Europe on the state of Children’s Mental Health and Child-Friendly Justice. He hopes to continue to contribute to these issues in the future.