The Board

Andrew Watson (Non-Executive Chairman)

Andrew has 15 years' professional services experience as a commercial lawyer, including seven years at Andersen where his latter years were as Head of the Andersen Legal Thames Valley office. At Andersen he was responsible for bringing about the highly successful integration of the legal practice into the established Andersen family and for the Andersen Legal WW people development programme. After leaving Andersen in 2001 he joined Thirdspace, a co-venture between Alcatel and Oracle into broadband television, successfully selling Thirdspace to Alcatel in mid 2003. His current roles are diverse. As well as being a Non-Executive Chairman of Charity Business, he is Head of Legal at Terra Firma investment, Quadriga, a consultant to Rouse & Co, the global IP practice and a non-executive board member at Couraud, the leading people strategy consultants to legal practices.

Mark Freeman (Chief Executive)

Originally from Calgary in Canada, Mark is an Arthur Andersen qualified chartered accountant (Canada). He has been involved in the UK charity sector since 1995 and is well known for his work in re-engineering charity finances and operations. Mark has strong experience of managing rapid growth, particularly when he was FD of the Health Foundation, where the business grew from £200K turnover to £20m turnover in just three years. He launched Charity Business in March 2000 after being involved in two major research exercises – one for Marie Curie Cancer Care and one with business consultancy Arthur Andersen – which conclusively showed that using shared services would result in substantial savings for UK charities. Freeman unrepentantly advocates a new style of charity finance, and describes Charity Business as “refreshingly unlike anything else on offer” to the sector.

Garth Bearman (Investor and Non-Executive director)

Garth was formerly the founder CEO of Swire Blanch Limited an international Lloyd’s broker. With the successful sale of the business he became an advisor to Capital Z Partners (UK) Ltd. With funds in excess of $US4.5bn, this was one of the largest specialist funds in the financial services sector. In addition to other commercial interests he founded three property development companies. In 1999 he founded with his partner Charles Carter, Capital BC Partners Ltd, an advisory, consulting and investing company specialising in the financial services sector.

Val Austin (Non-Executive Director)

Val is an IT professional who brings with her knowledge, not only of the IT solutions that the business is highly dependent upon, but also experience of in-house, outsourcing and off-shoring arrangements, encompassing operational service delivery for applications and infrastructure. Her previous experience includes senior executive management positions at both the Automobile Association and RAC plc ,where she was involved in Customer Relationship Management initiatives. Val brings a broad range of business skills and is currently completing a part-time MBA at Warwick Business School.

Tracey Reddings (Non-Executive Director)

As Executive Director of Charity Financial Services at CAF (Charities Aid Foundation), Tracey brings a wealth of charity and financial services expertise to the Board. One of the key commitments within CAF is to improve the work of charities, which links in with Charity Business’ vision to support and inspire charities to achieve more. Tracey has over nine years of experience in the charitable sector, having built a strong network working with umbrella bodies, professional advisors, financial services organisations and charities. Tracey is also Chief Executive of CAF’s banking subsidiary CAF Bank Ltd and CAF Marketing Services Ltd, authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.