Please note that all correspondence should be sent directly to the Foundation and not addressed to individual trustees.
Vicki Amedume MBE, Chair
Originally training as a scientist with degrees in both pharmacology and computer science, Vicki Dela ran away to join the circus and performed across the world as one of the UK’s leading aerial artists. In 2006 she founded and is the Artistic Director of Upswing – an award-winning performance company that expands the possibilities of circus not only as an art form but as an evolving and adaptive set of practices that can help us imagine and shape the world we want to live in. With Upswing Vicki has created/directed large-scale ‘headline’ events for festivals, projects in found spaces, theatre projects, and innovative participatory projects. Outside of Upswing she is Creative Director and joint CEO at the Albany, an Associate Director at The New Vic Theatre and has provided circus and aerial direction to a range companies including The RSC, The National Theatre of Scotland, New Vic Theatre, The Royal Exchange and Kenny Wax Productions as part of the creative team for the Olivier Award winning ‘The Worst Witch’. In 2022, Vicki was awarded an MBE for “services to circus”.
Vicki was appointed Chair of the Foundation in June 2025.
Aaliya Seyal
Aaliya Seyal is Chief Executive of Legal Services Agency, a law centre working to promote access to justice in Scotland. She brings over twenty years’ experience in leadership roles across the voluntary legal advice sector. Her previous positions include senior roles at Citizens Advice Scotland, Airdrie CAB, the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre and the Immigration Advisory Service, where she oversaw operations across four international offices.
Aaliya has a longstanding commitment to promoting equal opportunities and social justice, and has worked extensively to improve access to advice and representation for marginalised communities. She currently serves as a lay member of the Access to Justice Committee of the Law Society of Scotland, and has previously contributed to its Equality and Diversity Committee and Civil Legal Aid Quality Assurance Sub Committee. She is also a member of the Consumers in Vulnerable Circumstances Committee of Consumer Scotland.
Her broader governance experience includes serving on the Board of the Scottish Refugee Council and as a committee member of the National Lottery Community Fund in Scotland.
Asif Afridi
Asif Afridi is the CEO of the Barrow Cadbury Trust. Previously, he was Deputy CEO of brap, a UK-based equality and human rights charity. Asif is a trustee of Lankelly Chase and was a panel member of the Independent Inquiry into the future of Civil Society (2016-18). Asif has published widely on topics of poverty, racism and social cohesion and previously worked in the field of international human rights protection.
Nick Capaldi
Nick’s early career was as a performing musician, having studied at Chetham’s Music School Manchester and the Royal College of Music in London. He went on to hold senior positions with South West Arts and Arts Council England. Until 2021 he was Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales.
Nick has held a number of non-executive roles including as a Governor of Cardiff Metropolitan University and as a member of the UK Government’s Advisory Panel for UK City of Culture 2025. He is currently on the national Committee of the King’s Award for Voluntary Service and a Board trustee of the English Symphony Orchestra. He is also a Magistrate sitting in the Family Court.
Nick holds an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from City University London and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022.
Nick is Chair of the Foundation’s Arts Committee.
Ashley Coombes
Ashley is a Managing Director at UBS Wealth Management leading a team in the Ultra High Net Worth group. Ashley advises her clients on liquidity events, how to effectively use their wealth to improve and fund their lifestyle and how to create a successful legacy, covering issues from portfolio management and intergenerational wealth transfer to philanthropy.
Prior to this, Ashley worked for Bloomberg LP. Ashley is a CFA Charterholder, member of the CFA Society of the UK and holds a degree in Industrial Economics BSc (Hons) from the University of Warwick.
Ashley is the Foundation’s Treasurer.
James Jenkins
James is an experienced active equities investment manager who has managed Global ESG portfolios for more than decade. He is Head of Global ESG Equities at Columbia Threadneedle Investments (EMEA) with responsibility for maintaining a clear investment process, generating net revenue growth and delivering strong investment performance. James has an MA (Hons) in History from the Edinburgh University and is a member of the CFA Society of the UK.
Pontso Mafethe
Pontso has spent over 25 years working on social justice, particularly gender justice. As of April 2024, she is the Vice President of Programs for the Global Greengrants Fund.
Most recently Director of Programmes for the African Women’s Development Fund, Pontso’s career has also included roles with Action Aid, Comic Relief, International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. She has also worked as a freelance consultant and co-authored a BOND report on “Racism, Power and Truth: Experiences of People of Colour In Development.
Pontso has been one of the BBC’s 100 Women, a member of Steering Committees for The Red Umbrella Fund and The Girl Generation, and an Advisory Circle member for the Healing Solidarity Collective. Pontso is currently Chair of the Programmes Committee and Board member of EMpower – The Emerging Markets Foundation, Board Chair for Make Every Woman Count, and is a member of the Equality Fund Advisory Panel and the Human Rights Funders Network Global Racial Justice Advisory Network. Outside of work, Pontso enjoys amapiano music, pretending to garden, and learning to fly helicopters.
Pontso chairs the Foundation’s International Development Committee.
Virginia Magwaza
Virginia Magwaza is a South African social justice, black feminist activist and human rights activist who has been involved in different social justice struggles locally and internationally. Her involvement in socio-economic rights issues, environmental justice, workers rights, women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights has been highly significant.
She has a vast experience of working in donor organisations focusing in the Southern African region with organisations and groups working on women’s issues, trade unions, human rights and LGBTIQ+ issues.
She is a founder of an organisation Parents, Families & Friends of South African Queers (PFSAQ) that mobilises queer people’s parents, families and allies into becoming public advocates for dignity, equality and social inclusion of LGBTIQ+ people within the society. She is the 2021 Queer Parenting Feather Awards winner, life, group and relationship coach, a well known campaigner, public speaker and organiser.
Toby Nangle
Toby is an independent economic and financial market analyst.
He spent twenty-five years in asset management, most recently as Global Head of Asset Allocation at Columbia Threadneedle before resigning in 2022 to start Principals with Principles, a non-profit project seeking to help asset management firms cut their ongoing direct linkage to international human rights crimes.
He is an Associate of the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank focused on improving living standards for those on low-to-middle incomes, and sits on the Investment Committee of the learning disability charity The Baily Thomas Charitable Trust.
Toby contributes regularly to The Financial Times, mostly on financial markets, monetary policy, and pension systems.
Toby chairs the Foundation’s Investment Committee.
Jillian Popkins
Jillian is the Chief Commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI). She began her career in international development as a VSO volunteer, teacher training in rural China in the early 1990s. From 1998-2014 she worked in policy, advisory and leadership roles at the UK Department for International Development. This included acting as founding Country Director for Girl Hub Ethiopia (now Girl Effect), where she set up a public-private collaboration between DFID and the Nike Foundation with a mission to empower adolescent girls and end child marriage. Jillian has spent over half her career in China, and has held senior roles at both ActionAid and UNICEF UK.
Rhys Pullen
Rhys is a qualified solicitor working in Wholesale Banking (WB) Compliance within ING Bank. He is the head of WB Compliance within ING’s retail banking organisation. He is a graduate of the universities of Durham and London. Rhys has previously been a governor at several schools in London as well as trustee of a number of charities. He also chairs his firm’s UK community involvement committee.
Rhys chairs the Foundation’s Audit Committee.
Judith Robertson
Judith Robertson is the former Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. As part of this role she sat on the First Ministers Task Force for Human Rights Leadership in Scotland the recommendations from which led the Scottish Government to commit to incorporate four human rights treaties into Scots law.
She spent a period as Programme Director of See Me, Scotland’s mental health anti-stigma programme and spent the greatest part of her working life with Oxfam as Campaigns Manager, Programme Manager for Oxfam’s UK Poverty Programme in Scotland and then latterly as the Head of Oxfam Scotland.
Judith’s other Trustee roles are currently as Chair of Sunny Govan Community Radio and member of the board of MusicAll, an inclusive music education charity for young people with profound and complex additional support needs.
Judith sings in the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and has had a long-standing interest and engagement in the arts in Scotland.
Judith chairs our Strengthening Civil Society Committee and is Vice Chair of the Foundation.
Sam Thorne
Sam Thorne is Director General of Japan House London. Prior to that, he was director of Nottingham Contemporary and artistic director of Tate St Ives.
In 2013, Sam co-founded Open School East, a free-to-attend study programme in London, which has since moved to Margate. His book, School: A Recent History of Self-Organized Education, was published by Sternberg Press in 2017.
Sam has curated and co-curated exhibitions in the UK and internationally, has taught and lectured widely, and is a regular contributor to a wide range of magazines and journals. He is a contributing editor to frieze magazine and a trustee at the Ampersand Foundation.
Emebet Wuhib-Mutungi
Emebet Wuhib-Mutungi is Global SRHR Hub and Programme Lead at Plan International.
Previously she was a Senior Health Adviser at BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international development charity. Emebet has 19 years’ experience working in the communication and international development sectors, with particular passion for and expertise in health and gender. She uses her extensive experience of how projects are implemented on the ground, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, to ensure her advice is practical and relevant to project teams and values collaboration and creativity to enable all people to live longer and healthier lives.
Between 2011 and 2013, she was Programme Manager at Plan International overseeing projects in Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda around sexual and reproductive health and rights. Before this she was Deputy Director for the award winning Young Empowered and Healthy (Y.E.A.H) campaign in Uganda.