Lord Bill Morris of Handsworth - Chair, non-executive member.
Lord Bill Morris was born in Jamaica, arriving in Handsworth, Birmingham, England in 1954. He worked his way through the ranks of the Transport and General Workers' Union to be elected as Britain's first black General Secretary in 1991, and was re-elected in 1995 retiring in October 2003. Bill was a Non-Executive Director of the Bank of England until 2006 and during 2004 he chaired The Morris Inquiry (a public inquiry) into the professional standards of the Metropolitan Police.
In November 2003 he received a Knighthood from the Queen. In April 2006 he was granted a Life Peerage and took his seat in the House of Lords on 13th June. He takes the title The Hon Lord Morris of Handsworth OJ.
Basil Clarke MBE - non-executive member.
Basil owns a building company and worked as electrical site engineer for East Birmingham Hospital and Dudley District Service Centre. In 1989 he was awarded an MBE for services to the community.
Greg Croydon - non-executive member.
Since 1996 Greg Croydon has been Group Treasurer at IMI plc, a multinational engineering company based in Birmingham. Previous to this Greg worked in Internal Audit at GKN.
Greg was also a Director of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) between 2004 and 2010 and is still involved as a sub-committee Chair. He ran the Midlands Regional Group of the ACT between 1997 and 2001.
Greg became involved with the Social Housing Sector in 2000when he joined prime Focus Finance as a Director.
Anna East - non-executive member.
Anna East is a solicitor whose career commenced at Eversheds. She later became Head of Legal and Company Secretary of Britannic Group PLC and Halfords Group PLC where she specialised in property and company law, corporate governance and regulation. She is Deputy Chair of Heartlands Hospital and a Director of Dudley Building Society. She is also Deputy Chair of Dowells Trust Housing Association and a Governor of the King Edwards Schools.
Karl George MBE - non-executive member.
Karl George is a high profile entrepreneur, business consultant, presenter and author specializing in business strategy ,governance and leadership. After starting work in the engineering sector, where he trained as an accountant, he formed his first professional services business at the age of 23. Karl also devotes considerable time to voluntary work in the Afro-Caribbean and wider business community.
Karl has worked with a wide range of organizations in the Public, Private and Voluntary sectors and is the founder of the Governance Forum a group of specialist organizations which support the Third sector in the whole area of governance. The Governance assessment process which he founded has been endorsed by Sir Adrian Cadbury and the Tenant Services Authority.
Rosemary Gray OBE - non-executive member.
Rosemary retired in 2003 following a long career in higher education. She was Principal/CEO of Walsall College of Arts and Technology and, while there, she received an OBE for her work on Sustainable Development Education. Her job role also involved her in a great deal of partnership activity related to regeneration. Rosemary is currently a Board Member of Edexcel, a large national awarding body in the Education Sector.
Richard Hyde - non-executive member.
Richard qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse and after working for 3i PLC joined Brian Hyde Ltd as CEO. The business distributes hand tools and plumbing consumables and is a previous winner of West Midland's SME of the year. He is also a non executive director of Centro, the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority and Deputy Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, a charity that manages the Shakespeare properties and archives. He is a non executive director of the Government Office for the West Midlands and Chairman of the West Midlands Regional Observatory and was previously Deputy Chairman of Advantage West Midlands, the West Midlands Regional Development Agency.
Anthony Jones JP - non-executive member.
Anthony is Chair of the Remuneration and Executive Selection Committee of Midland Heart. He is Chair of an NHS Hospital Trust and has held a number of international assignments in his career including the Director of Human resources at Jaguar Cars until retirement.
Robert Lake - non-executive member.
Robert Lake is a qualified social worker, beginning his career in Bolton and later moving to Coventry. He spent 19 years climbing the social work profession and became Director of Social Services for Humberside County in 1991.
Robert was then appointed as Director of Social Services (ultimately becoming Corporate Director for Health and Social Care) for Staffordshire before opting for early retirement in May 2005. Since then his chaired the Staffordshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust and worked with the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care as Director for Social Care Information Delivery.
Peter Pawsey - non-executive member.
In a career spanning over 40 years as a Chartered Civil Engineer Peter Pawsey has considerable experience in Property Development, encompassing strategic and detailed planning, multi-disciplinary technical study and design, construction and facilities management, including varied and mixed housing developments. He has extensive executive and non-executive Board experience in various organizations, large and small, across the public and private sectors, including formerly director of Tarmac Construction ,Executive Chairman of Advantage West Midlands Rural Regeneration Zone and non-Executive Director of the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund.
Phillipa Richards - non-executive member.
Phillipa Richards retired in 2005 from a long and successful career at Citibank, a major financial services organisation. During her Citibank career she held a number of executive roles, including Chief Operating Officer for Citibank International from 2003-2005. She has extensive experience of general management, risk management, corporate governance and operations, providing her with a range of specialist skills.
Ravi Sahota - non-executive member.
Previously a Community Economic Development Officer for Birmingham City Council, Ravi is Chief Executive of Pioneer Links, a Company providing project development support to public, private and voluntary sector organisations. Ravi has many years' experience in the field of community, social and economic regeneration.