New appointments to the Board of the Charity Commission

Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has today announced six new appointments to the Board of the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

The new board members are:

Peter Clarke
Clarke is a retired senior police officer. He was deputy sssistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service where he was head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch and National Co-ordinator of Terrorist Investigations. Previous roles included Head of the Royal and Diplomatic Protection Department and deputy director (then Acting Director) of Personnel for the Metropolitan Police. He is a trustee of Crimestoppers, a patron of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London, and a non-executive Director for the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Claire Dove
Dove is a leading social entrepreneur who has been involved in the development of the social enterprise sector for over 25 years. She was recently awarded the Queen’s Lifetime Achievement Medal for Promoting Enterprise. She is chief executive of the Blackburne House Group and chair of Social Enterprise UK. Dove is a deputy lieutenant for Merseyside, a Fellow and governor of John Moores University, Vice Chair of Liverpool Community College and a business ambassador for the Northwest.

Orlando Fraser (legal board member)
Fraser has an established reputation at the Chancery Bar, with 18 years experience advising on and presenting complex financial cases, including trusts and commercial fraud. A founding Fellow of the Centre for Social Justice, he chaired the Voluntary Sector Working Group on Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Commission Report: “Breakthrough Britain”. He sits on NCVO’s Advisory Council and has had a range of involvement with charities.

Tony Leifer (legal board member)
Leifer has had a distinguished career at both D J Freeman and Olswang LLP Solicitors, at each of which he was partner and formerly Head of the Corporate Department. He is a Member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and is Chair of their Constitution Committee and a member of the Board’s Executive Committee. Mr Leifer is Chairman of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality and Trustee of YaD and the Corrine Burton Memorial Trust.

Nazo Moosa
Moosa has 20 years experience of working in industry, specifically in the technology, media and internet sectors. She was a director of The Carlyle Group, has served as a Board and remuneration committee member of Transics (Euronext listed transport technology company), Chairperson of BMM (digital marketing services company) and later as a Board and audit committee member of LBi (Euronext listed digital agency now part of Publicis).

Gwythian Prins
Prins is Research Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Buckingham. For over twenty years he was a Fellow in History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and latterly University Lecturer in Politics. Much of his work has been in Africa or on strategic matters. During the latter 1990s he served as Senior Fellow in the Office of the Special Advisor on Central and Eastern European Affairs, part of the Office of the Secretary-General of NATO, Brussels. He is currently a member of the Chief of the Defence Staff’s Strategy Advisory Panel.

In announcing the appointments, Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said: "This is a time of great change and opportunity for the charitable sector with its organisations now rightly involved in many areas of public services delivery.

"The need for a strong regulator to protect the public’s confidence in that work is vital. So I am pleased to make these new appointments to strengthen the Commission’s board with a new set of skills, knowledge and experience."

William Shawcross, Charity Commission chair, said: "I am delighted to welcome these new board members to the Commission and I greatly look forward to working with them. I would also like to thank those current members of the Board who are departing for the invaluable service they have given the Commission.

"We had some 280 applicants for the vacancies we are filling - such a response is gratifying. It shows how many people are willing to commit themselves to the effective regulation of the charitable sector. I am confident that our new board will be able to do just that."