The Blagrave Trust is delighted to welcome four new Trustees to our Board!
After an open recruitment we were thrilled with the quality of applications – so strong were our candidates that we have appointed four! Victor, Naomi, Barbara and Eddie bring further diversity to our Board as well as a wealth of knowledge and expertise, including lived experience of the issues that we seek to address as a funder – core to our approach to governance. That brings our trustee total to 9. In line with our mission and our role in supporting the Young Trustees Movement, we now have 7 trustees aged between 21 and 38 years of age including our Chair – and 4 of whom are under 30. Take a closer look at their bio’s here.
Victor
Naomi
Barbara
Eddie
Victor Azubuike, is an Associate at J.P. Morgan Chase and a co-founder of 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, “I’m really excited about joining as a Trustee with Blagrave. Blagrave’s mission statement to empower and transform the lives of young people resonates deeply with me. I’m looking forward to understanding more about all the partner organisations we work with”.
Naomi Ambrose, CEO of The Talent Tap, a social mobility charity from the region where much of our core funding is given, supporting aspiring students from 18-24 to gain equal access to the workplace. Naomi is a director of Dust Architecture which she set up with her husband in 2010 and 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.
Barbara Ojei Agwaziam, works as the Head of Incidence Response in the Department of Health and Social Care as well as being the founder of a Touch of Colour (ATOC) an organisation which seeks to drive racial equality in the workplace for which Barbara has been selected as a Laureate of the Future by the PeaceJam Foundation, “I wanted to be able to give back in a meaningful way, and joining Blagrave Trust Board will allow me to do so within a Trust that is not afraid to think outside the box in the way it centres young people in problem-solving and decision making as demonstrated by the great work being done via Challenge and Change”.
Edward Jacobs is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wellcome 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. Having been homeless during his school years, Eddie deeply appreciates the importance of supporting young people in the transition to adulthood.
We are delighted to welcome them to our team, joining the staff, our growing number of Young Advisors and all our amazing partners working hard to invest in teenagers and young adults.