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Meet the Team

Alice Wallace

Director

Alice has had a leading role with LGBT+ organisations, community development, grants administration, mental health and public health.

Alice has worked for voluntary and statutory organisations and freelance, as volunteer through to senior manager. Her role is to develop Opening Doors London to ensure that it is a vibrant organisation meeting the needs of the LGBTQ+ communities.

Adrian Beaumont

Operations and Comms Manager

Adrian has operational control for the delivery of a range of services and programmes for members, the befriending and telefriending team, volunteer team and also ODL's comms and marketing team.

Their background is in LGBTQ+ campaigning, as director of national and regional operational service delivery programmes within sexual health and HIV and wellbeing services and MSM research projects. They are a qualified counsellor, have run their own businesses and have worked extensively in the public and third sector.

Dr Chryssy Hunter

Volunteer Coordinator

[email protected]

Chryssy coordinates our extensive volunteering activities – everything from supporting the team identify new opportunities to recruiting and inducting new volunteers into the organisation.

Chryssy is a published author in the LGBTQ+ field and holds a PhD on the Equality Act. She has managed teacher trainings projects in North Korea and Libya, and is a board member of TAGS [a swimming group for trans and gender nonconforming people] and Gendered Intelligence, and is a member of the Bent Bars Collective.

Ian McGeough

Community Engagement Coordinator

[email protected]

Ian leads the coordination and delivery of all our member engagement activities and events including our digital and health and wellbeing programmes and specialised services. 

Ian’s background is stakeholder engagement and he is passionate about improving social inequality, social mobility and sustainability. He’s also a huge music and film fan and enjoys dog walks and gardening.

Meghan Herring 

Befriending Coordinator

[email protected]

Meg leads and coordinates our befriending and telefriending services. They love matching volunteers and members, working hard to make sure it is the right fit for the member. Meg is also ODL's safeguarding lead.

They've always worked in the charity sector previously at Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust helping with the running of their support and information services. When they aren't at work they are out on their bike or volunteering for Switchboard.

Fabricio Catroppa

Befriending Support Officer

[email protected]

Fabricio is our Befriending Support Officer supporting the LGBTQ+ communities. He has more than 10 years' experience working on a variety of community projects recruiting, supervising, training and managing volunteers working on befriending, mentoring and advice & guidance projects.

Fabricio loves gardening and walking his dog in the countryside.

Nsanza Muleba

Befriending Support Officer

[email protected]

Nsanza helps deliver much needed support through our network of Befriending and Telefriending volunteers to LGBTQ+ people aged over 50. 

Bernadette Latour

Administrator 

[email protected]

Bernadette ensures our members, volunteers and staff are kept informed and supported and is responsible for updates to members, data reporting, liaising with various stakeholders and supporting the operational delivery of services across member engagement and volunteer services.

Laura Benin

Communications and Marketing Officer

[email protected]

Laura coordinates and delivers our key messaging through targeted campaigns, liaising with press and media, arranging interviews, ensuring our social media is on trend and promoting the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people aged over 50.

Paula Harrowing

Community Partnerships and Fundraising Coordinator

[email protected]

Paula creates and develops ODL's community fundraising campaigns; from selling artworks to sponsorships and promoting dedicated project support campaigns.

Jim Glennon

Training and Policy Coordinator

[email protected]

Jim joins ODL following twenty years’ experience in the development of health and social care training and consultancy at a local, regional and national level, including work with several leading LGBT+ organisations.

He has also worked as policy advisor to Volunteer Centre Kensington and Chelsea and chaired Policy Group meetings of the Government funded Community Development Foundation. His role will be to develop the training and consultancy area of ODL, and to support our Ambassadors in representing ODL at external meetings.

Louise Carolin

Training & Consultancy Team Administrator

[email protected]

Louise supports Jim to deliver ODL's training and consultancy programme. She has a background in LGBT+ journalism and has worked on well-known titles including Diva and The Pink Paper. Louise also volunteers for ODL as a group facilitator.

Professor Ben Thomas

Research and Policy Officer

Ben brings a wealth of experience having worked in the NHS, the Department of Health and several universities over the last thirty years. His research interests include improving the health and well-being of older LGBTQ+ people, particular mental health, reducing loneliness and isolation, and the stress and stigma faced by vulnerable and minor groups.

Ben has served on several ministerial reviews and advisory committees to governments across the UK and internationally including Malaysia, South Korea, Australia, and China. He has contributed to a number of national major policy initiatives. Ben is a Professor of Mental Health and Learning Disabilities at London South Bank University; he has published widely including editing three textbooks. He is a director and trustee for several charities concerned with mental health and sheltered housing.

Maria Robinson

Ambassador Development Officer

Maria graduated from St Martins with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She has 25 years experiences as a Service and Development Manager’s within health and social care settings, including the NHS. Maria is a documentary producer. Her work in support of services promoting positive social change has been screened at Labour Party Conferences, and the Tate Modern. 

Rob Hamilton

Business Strategy and Fundraising consultant

Rob is a Business Strategy and Fundraising consultant with over twenty five years executive experience in the third sector. A fully qualified Body Psychotherapist and Executive Coach and with post-graduate studies in Education, Finance and Management he has a wealth of knowledge of the issues affecting third sector organisations and the behavioural science of organisational development. Having raised in excess of £40m from charitable trusts, foundations and statutory bodies he has an in-depth understanding of voluntary sector funding, supporting ODL to maximise our potential to secure the funding required to deliver our objectives.

Sessional Workers

We have a dedicated team of sessional workers who work alongside the Member Engagement Team with varying specialisms including the many aspects of Dementia, LGBT+ BAME/PoC communities and trans and non-binary communities.

ODL Trustees and Patrons

We are delighted to have the support of a team of Trustees and Patrons who use their skills and experience to help steer Opening Doors London towards continuing success.

Board of ODL Trustees

Julia Shelley

Chair of Trustees Julia has had a long career in voluntary sector leadership and was CEO of Age UK Lambeth. She has also been a trustee of other LGBT+ organisations.

Annie Southerst

Co Vice-Chair Trustee Annie is an Opening Doors London Ambassador and had a career in mental health and physiotherapy. She has also been a trustee and worked for other LGBT+ organisations.

Hitesh Tailor

Co Vice-Chair Trustee Hitesh is a Chartered Accountant and has served on the Boards of a number of not for profit organisations including Deputy Chair of the Audit Committee at Age UK.

Councillor Rishi Madlani

Trustee Rishi is Head of Sustainable Finance and Just Transition at NatWest Group and Co-Chair of its LGBT+ staff network. He is also a Bloomsbury Ward Councillor and the Camden Borough LGBT+ champion.

Janet Guthrie

Trustee Janet is a retired social work and sociology lecturer and former Camden councillor. She is a trustee of other charities.

Gemma Keenan

Treasurer Trustee Gemma has had a long career in banking and currently holds a leadership role in Business Risk at Lloyd’s Banking Group.  She is Chair of a Divisional LGBT+ staff network.

Paul Williamson

Trustee Paul has worked in health and social care services for over 25 years in various roles as a consultant, in central government and non-governmental public bodies. He currently works in the intelligence directorate for the Care Quality Commission, the national regulator for health and social care. He has previously worked as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Department of Health and Social Care responding to the public inquiry into the events at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

Daniel Ricard

Trustee Daniel is the Operations Leader in PwC's Sustainability and Climate Change business based in London and is also an Ambassador for the firm's LGBTQ+ network Shine. After mentoring the ODL corporate volunteering team for a number of years, Dan joined the board of Trustees in October 2020. He is also the founder and co-chair of NEXUS, a cross-organisation network which brings together the leaders of corporate LGBTQ+ networks to share best practice. 

Bradley Reback

Trustee Bradley has always worked with older people  firstly in the voluntary sector and then establishing his own care business. He has served as Chair of a housing association  and is a trustee of a homeless charity.  He used to lead LGBT history walks around London.

ODL Patrons

Liz Barker

Patron Liz is a working peer (Lib Dem), and used to work for Age Concern England where she pioneered national work around LGBT+ older people.

Lord Chris Smith

Patron Lord Smith has generously agreed to be one of our ODL patrons. Lord Smith began his political career as a Labour Councillor for Islington Borough, becoming MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983.  The following year he came out as the first ever openly gay MP and when Labour came to power in 1997 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Chairman of the Millennium Commission, the first openly gay Cabinet Minister anywhere.

Published: 20th February, 2019

Updated: 13th January, 2021

Author: Bella Normark

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Opening Doors London charity number: 1167919. ODL is also a company limited by guarantee (10123607).