Our Board of Trustees handles our overall direction and management. Our members select 50% of our Trustees and the Board nominate the other 50% for their skills and experience.
Our Hft Trustees come from diverse backgrounds. They’re chosen for what they can bring to our delivery of support and services. Many have an excellent understanding of the issues that affect learning disabled people. Some have family members with learning disabilities. Some are carers or friends of learning disabled people. And some have skills in policy development or specific skills that can help us run effectively.
Our Trustees and executive team share a common goal. To make sure we deliver the best support possible so that people we support have every opportunity to live their lives their way.
Dr Mairi McLean – Chair of Trustees
Mairi has over 35 years’ leadership experience across health, social care, housing and government. She’s currently Chief Executive of Manage Europe Ltd, where she advises boards on governance, organisational performance and leadership.
Mairi is also a qualified social worker and brings commercial sector experience together with her extensive health, housing and social care experience.
Previously, Mairi has held Chief Executive roles at Northampton Borough Council and Waveney District Council. She’s also served as Non-Executive Director, Vice Chair, Interim Chair and Chair of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust. There, she led governance reset and performance improvement during regulatory scrutiny.
Outside of work, Mairi would describe herself as a happy person with a lot of energy. This is the outlook that she’s taken into her work and everyday life. As Chairwoman, she wants to make sure our Board of Trustees sets a high standard and builds on our values and commitment to enabling learning disabled people and their families to live the best lives possible.
Andrew Manning
Andrew started his career as a civil servant and has worked for over 30 years advising on the development of risk, governance and business transformation solutions. He then moved to one of the big-four consulting firms and spent 14 years working with a wide range of government, non-profit and charitable institutions providing innovative solutions.
Andrew then worked for a number of mid-tier professional service firms building risk advisory practices, operating at senior equity Partner level. He’s worked and advised executives, non-executives and Trustees on technology, governance, risk and solutions.
He’s worked with a wide range of charities and non-profits during his career. He also has a lot of experience of providing governance and transformation services to learning and disability support services. Andrew’s experience encompasses working in highly regulated sectors and he’s advised on legal and regulatory compliance across these industries and sectors.
Jonathan Laredo
Over the past 40+ years, Jonathan has had a varied career, mostly in finance and property. He became an investment banker (post big bang) in his thirties. After 10 years, with two friends, he founded an investment management firm until it was sold in 2012.
In 2014, Jonathan set up a commercial property company in Ireland, which was floated on the Irish and UK stock exchanges in 2018. He remained as Chief Executive until 2022 when it was bought by a Canadian private equity firm. After a short transition period, Jonathan retired in December of that year.
Now that he’s retired, Jonathan would like to repay some of the luck he’s had in both his career and life with a positive social contribution. He’s using his skills and experience to make a positive contribution to the lives of the people we support.
Paul Morgan
Paul has spent over 30 years working in the charity sector. His experience is in international, national, regional and local charities with turnovers ranging from the hundreds of millions to a few tens of thousands of pounds per year.
Paul has done most types of fundraising, from traditional community fundraising through to major gift, lottery, statutory and charity retail work. He also has a lot of experience organising events from challenge events to Royal Gala functions.
Paul is married with two teenage children. In his spare time, he’s a treasurer for his local church and a small charity that supports young people in Central London. He’s also a Chair of the South Central Committee of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising. Paul has been a Trustee for Hft for over seven years.
When Paul was a teenager, his mother taught young learning disabled adults at a local college. Paul helped out with a community group she ran every Wednesday for two years and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Over the time with Hft, Paul has seen many developments in the charity and is excited to see how Hft develops in the coming months.
Robert Whetton
Robert is a chartered management accountant who worked in the charity sector for 24 years and before that for various manufacturing businesses.
He was Director of Finance and then Director of Operations for an organisation that developed and operated care homes and supported living services for older people. During this time, Robert helped establish five retirement villages in and around Bristol that provide care and support to older people with a range of health and support needs.
Robert is originally from Derbyshire and has lived in Bristol for more than 40 years. He’s married to Ange and has two children. He enjoys playing and being involved in cricket and is a qualified umpire and committee member of an exceptionally large cricket club. Robert and his family often visit the Peak District, Lake District and Wales to walk up hills and recently began a quest to explore as many Plus Beaux Villages de France as we can.