Our trustees

Lucy de Groot CBE, Chair

Lucy was until September 2014 the Chief Executive of CSV (Community Service Volunteers), the UK wide volunteering and social action charity leading their transformation programme. Her previous experience includes being the Executive Director of the Improvement and Development Agency for local government, a senior civil servant at the Treasury, and Chief Executive of Bristol City Council. Lucy started her working life as a community worker in London and Manchester. An experienced non-executive, she has chaired two Children Services Improvement Boards, is on the advisory panel for the NCVO, a trustee of New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), and a Governor of an adult education college and trustee of a national sports volunteering charity.

Asif Afridi

Asif Afridi is Deputy CEO at brap, a UK-based equality and human rights charity. brap adopt an inclusive and rights based approach to equality, drawing on their 21 years of practical experience promoting social justice. Asif is a trustee of Lankelly Chase and the Pilgrim Trust 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.

Vicki Amedume MBE

Vicki joined the Baring Foundation as a trustee in 2017. She has over 18 years of experience of working in circus arts, following her initial training as a research scientist. She founded Upswing in 2006 after a career as an aerialist to deliver a variety of performances, programmes and participatory experiences that use the playfulness and wonder of circus to bring people together and enable them to discover new potential in themselves and in others. Beyond her own company, Vicki’s experience ranges from producing large-scale outdoor arts; consultancies and collaborations in dance and theatre; to participatory arts and sector development initiatives in circus and street arts. She is Visiting Artist at Rose Bruford College, Visiting Lecturer in Circus at Bucks University, and Guest Lecturer at the National Centre for Circus Arts. She trained at Live and Direct, Birkbeck College, Circus Sarasota, Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC, France), Leeds University and the National Centre for Circus Arts. She is a Clore Leadership Fellow.

Vicki chairs the Foundation’s Arts Committee

Rob Berkeley MBE

Rob Berkeley was Director of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading race equality think tank from 2009 to 2014 and Deputy Director between 2005 and 2009. His doctoral studies at the University of Oxford focused on exclusion from school. Rob has previously been Chair of governors at Rockmount primary school, Chair of Naz Project London, a Trustee of Stonewall and the Equality and Diversity Forum, and a member of the Commission on 2020 Public Services. He was Executive Chair of the Black Gay Men’s Advisory Group and is currently managing editor of a new website, Blackout UK, and a governor of Park Campus, Lambeth’s secondary Pupil Referral Unit.

Rob is Vice Chair of the Foundation.

Ashley Coombes

Ashley is an Executive 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.

Shauneen Lambe

Shauneen Lambe was the executive director of Just for Kids Law, a charity that provides holistic support and legal representation to vulnerable children and young people and drives systemic change through strategic litigation and policy reform. She remains a consultant to the organisation. She was called to the bar in England and Wales in 1997 and qualified as an attorney in Louisiana, USA where she represented people facing the death penalty. In 1999 she helped set up the charity Reprieve, remaining on the board until 2006. In 2006 she set up Just for Kids Law with Aika Stephenson. Shauneen has been a World Economic Forum ‘Young Global Leader,’ and one of NESTA/The Observer’s ‘Britain’s New Radicals’. She has been chosen as a Shackleton Leader and an Ashoka Fellow. In 2013 Shauneen was shortlisted for Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year and Liberty’s Human Rights Lawyer of the Year for her work with young people. She is a board member of legal charity, Birthrights.

Shauneen chairs the Foundation’s Strengthening Civil Society committee.

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 began a 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, most recently for UNICEF as Chief of Social Policy. Until recently, she was ActionAid UK’s Director of Policy, Advocacy and Programmes, where she was responsible for institutional funding, programme quality, research, policy and advocacy for development and humanitarian work and is also a Trustee for Action on Disability In Development (ADD) International.

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.

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.