The FfWG trustees are elected at the Annual General Meeting and hold office for three years, with an option to be re-elected for a further three years. Three members of the Board are ex officio representatives from BFWG. They are all passionate about women’s education and want to ensure that the charity is as successful as it can be. They are the custodians of the charity’s assets and ensure that it is governed to the highest standard possible. To enable this, the trustees come from a variety of backgrounds and have a variety of skills. They come from higher education, the law and the investment sector. Our current Board members are:
Shirley-Anne Sherriff, BA (Hons)
Shirley-Anne is our current chair. She has worked in the global manmade fibres business for more than 35 years. With extensive experience in product commercialisation and management of textile chain activities, she moved into independent consulting in 1994. She co-founded Opus Business Consultants, a specialist fibres consultancy with a particular focus on market research, strategy and sustainability. Born in South Africa, she is committed to women having access to the transformative powers of good education, as well as valuing the benefits that they can, in turn, bring to their families, communities, and broader society.
Judith Aston, PhD, MA, PGCertHE, BA
Judith is Associate Professor of Film and Digital Arts at the University of the West of England, Bristol working across academia and industry building interdisciplinary teams for teaching and research. She started her working life based in Cambridge developing pioneering creative technology projects in the UK’s fledgling interactive and immersive media sectors. She is aware of the glass ceiling for women in academia and is passionate about equal rights in terms of access to education.
Caroline Graham
Caroline is a solicitor specialising in company law and corporate transactions and governance. Previously she founded and managed a small charity that works with deprived children and families in western Uganda.
Caroline brings to the trusteeship, both a commitment to the aims of FfWG and relevant expertise, both as a lawyer and as a current and former trustee of other charities.
Felicity Selcoe CFA
Felicity has spent over a decade working in investment advisory across multi asset class investing in several global private banks including Julius Baer International and JP Morgan. Felicity has a BA in Economics and Politics and an MSc in Finance from the University of Leeds. Felicity is a full CFA charter holder, and a CISI Chartered Wealth Manager. Felicity has a passion for sustainable investing, symbolised by the fact that she was one of the first in the United Kingdom to take the CFA ESG investing qualification in March 2020.
Jennie Landsberg
Jennie has been a long standing member of BfWG and held many posts within this organisation. Jennie’s career began in the investment department of a stockbroker. After having three children she undertook a BEd (Hons) and went onto begin her next career in teaching primary aged children. Following this path led her to a headteacher role and then she continued her work as head of service for two large education authorities leading substantive teams focusing on improving standards and children’s outcomes. Her masters degree and further qualifications focussed on effective leadership and school improvement. In her retirement she has continued to undertake a range of voluntary roles both as a governor in schools as well as a trustee for various charities.
Professor Cynthia Burek
Cynthia has been a member of the British Federation of Women Graduates for over 50 years, holding senior leadership roles within the organisation and Graduate Women International, where she established a doctoral research grant in environmental science.
An Emeritus Professor of Geoconservation at the University of Chester and former Open University geologist, she has supervised doctoral students, published extensively, and edited four books on geoconservation and women in geology. She is a Trustee of the UNESCO GeoMôn/Anglesey Global Geopark and was awarded the 2022 Halstead Medal for her pioneering contributions to geoconservation, geological education, and the promotion of women in geology.
She is a longstanding advocate for conservation, science communication, gender equality, and sustainable development.
Bunmi Adefajo MEng, EngD
Bunmi has almost two decades of experience in the energy sector and is passionate about energy innovation and promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) interest in girls and women.
She has been a Principal Consultant at an engineering consultancy specialised in connecting Renewable generation. Other previous roles include Strategy Analyst in oil and gas service company engaging in cross-sector and multi-national stakeholder relationships.
Bunmi devises innovative solutions which enable the decarbonisation of the energy sector, and she serves as a Trustee for a Women’s Charity based in Liverpool and on the Sustainability Advisory Group for an energy distribution company with over £10 billion total regulated asset value.
Dr Rachel Fletcher
Rachel is Head of EMEA Sustainability Research at Morgan Stanley, where she leads research on environmental, social and governance issues, with a focus on risks and opportunities for institutional investors. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from UCL and has built a career spanning academic research, finance, and sustainability. Rachel is passionate about education and widening access to opportunity, and is delighted to support FfWG’s work as a Trustee.
Gemma-Louise Craggs BSc (Hons), MSc
Gemma is the Senior Head of Principal Giving at The King’s Trust, where she leads a team to secure transformational funds to economically empower marginalised young people. During her time at The Trust, she set up a fund – Women Supporting Women – to enable specific interventions that help disadvantaged young women. She has worked in the charitable sector for the past thirteen years, which includes working at the University of Oxford as the Associate Director of Development for Principal Gifts. Gemma started her career working for the Liberal Democrats during the coalition period. She is passionate about social mobility and how education is a key enabler for this – especially for women.
Gill Ramsay MA (Hons)
Gill is a BFWG nominated Trustee on the FfWG Board. Gill is a graduate of the University of St Andrews and a retired civil servant. During her career she worked first in London and subsequently in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, covering a number of different areas of work. During her time as a member of BFWG she served two terms as a Trustee of their Scholarship Fund, with the final two years as Chair. Gill volunteers at a small charity in Newcastle where she is the Chair of its Steering Group.
Dr Nikita Hari, MEng, PhD FFF SFHEA
Dr Nikita Hari is Head of the Teaching, Research Design and Support Group in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. She holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge and is a Google Higher Education Faculty AI Fellow, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Honorary Associate Professor at University College London.
A former FfWG grant recipient and BFWG Regional Alternate, she has extensive leadership and governance experience across academia, charities and professional bodies. A passionate advocate for women in STEM and widening participation, she has received numerous honours, including recognition as one of the UK’s Top 50 Women in Engineering, and is committed to supporting the next generation of women researchers.
The Theodora Bosanquet bursary was hugely beneficial to my PhD in enabling me to have a sustained period of research in London. It enabled me to visit three different archives, and consult a wide range of sources within them, giving me the time and space to make connections between them. The volume of material I needed to consult would just have been impossible in small archive trips of a day or two.
Hannah Speed
Glasgow University 2024