Our Board

David Elliott

Chair of Penrose

David is a widely experienced economics and strategy consultant with experience in the private, public and charitable sectors. David is also Chairman of The Generating Company, one of Europe’s leading contemporary circus companies and was previously Director of Strategy and Economics at Environmental Resources Management (ERM) where he was a member of the UK Board. Prior to ERM, David spent 11 years as a management consultant with KPMG.

Joan Weight

Vice Chair

Joan's recent experience has been as the Chair of two LIFT (Local Improvement Finance Trust) companies. She has significant boardroom experience as most of her work for the last 16 years has been at Director and/or Board level. Her early career was in the private sector and more recently she has been working with public-private partnerships. 

Laura Bamford

Laura has worked extensively in illustrated publishing, successfully completing two MBOs, and has very broad international experience working in North America, Australia and France.

Michael trained as a psychiatric nurse. He has worked within a variety of NHS and private clinical settings , progressing from staff nurse to director of clinical services. After completing his MBA, he worked at director level management in private healthcare. Eight years ago he became self-employed as an interim manager - recent roles include NHS divisional general management and  NHS  turn around projects. This year he had gained a fellowship with the Chartered Management Institute.

Justine Cawley

Justine is an external funding specialist. She spent the final six months of her NHS career being seconded to the GLA where she co-wrote a £9.5m big lottery bid. She is currently self employed working with Universities, and the health and Social Care Sector on large funding proposals, developing strategies, partnership development, evaluations scoping exercises and developing health and social care courses for the University of East London.

Nabil Khan

Nabil is a Project Manager at a London local authority.  He has considerable experience of leading public sector transformation projects across a range of business areas and brings an insight into local government contract, procurement and finance strategies to the board.  An alumnus of the University of London and Warwick Business School, he started his professional career on an accountancy graduate scheme. Here he worked on social care cost modelling so has a sound understanding of the changing nature of third sector commissioning. A dedicated public servant, he also sits on the board of a local primary school.

Ewan King

Ewan is Director of Business Development at the Office for Public Management (OPM), a leading not for profit, employee owned enterprise that provides research, consultancy and leadership development to public service organisations and the voluntary sector. Previous to leading business development, Ewan was the Director of OPM’s research team, which was responsible for delivering major research studies and evaluations for central government, regional and local public services. With a strong interest in the role of the voluntary sector in providing high quality public services, Ewan has worked with a broad range of charities including Action for Children, Marie Curie, The Health Foundation, and I CAN. He was educated at Warwick University and the London School of Economics. He previously worked for the Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP.

Vishaal Lau

Vishaal is a Chartered Accountant with extensive experience in business strategy and finance in senior roles for organisations such as as Vodafone, PwC and OC&C Strategy Consultants. He holds a MBA from London Business School. He founded NuSound Radio, a not-for-profit community radio station based in the London Boough of Newham, and is currently a Director of the venture.

Susan Lewis

Susan has had a long career in the criminal justice system and was recently an Assistant Chief Probation Officer in London for many years. More recently she has been a senior manager at East Living Ltd, providing housing, care and support. Additionally she has experience of working for RSLs. Currently she is an independent member of the Parole Board for England and Wales.

Helen Ralston

Helen was a member of the senior management team for a FTSE 250 company and then chief executive of a major national charity. She has been a trustee of Central Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau and two residential schools for boys aged 6 -18 with emotional and behavioural issues. She is now a trustee of a national medical charity and a magistrate in Surrey.