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Oxfam's trustees

Oxfam's trustees are ultimately responsible in law for the charity, its assets and activities.

They form the Council of Trustees, which is the governing body of the Association of Oxfam (a not-for-profit limited-liability company). They are appointed because of their commitment to Oxfam and their experience and skills which enable them to undertake the responsibilities of trusteeship of a large and complex charity. 

Reports on council meetings can be found on the plans, reports and policies pages.

Karen Brown, Chair

Karen Brown was previously Vice Chair of ActionAid International and Chair of ActionAid UK. She began her career at Granada Television. In 1987 she joined Channel 4 as Deputy Commissioning Editor of News and Current Affairs (with particular responsibility for "Dispatches"), before being appointed Commissioning Editor for Education (1992), Controller of Factual Programmes (1996), and ultimately Deputy Director of Programmes (1997-2000). Subsequently she has been a management and communications consultant in Whitehall and for several publicly funded bodies. She holds an LlB from the University of Bristol.

Brown is a trustee of the Mary Ward Settlement and Chair of the International Development Media Panel. She was formerly Learning Champion for Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Vice-Chair of BAFTA, a Council Member of NIACE (National Institute for Adult & Continuing Education) and of the General Teaching Council.


David Pitt-Watson, Hon. Treasurer

David Pitt-Watson is cofounder of Hermes "shareholder stewardship" businesses, which became the largest of any investment manager in the world. They established Hermes as a global leader in good governance and responsible investment. He is currently Chair of Hermes activist funds, and a director and trustee of other organisations.

His early career was spent at Deloitte, where he was a partner for twelve years, ultimately running its strategy consultancy practice. He was for two years the Finance Director of the UK Labour Party, including responsibility for the integrity of its financial systems and fundraising.

A graduate of Oxford and Stanford Universities, David was Visiting Professor at Cranfield University School of Management from 1990 to 1996. He has published widely on issues of governance and other aspects of institutional economics. He currently works with Oxfam as a member of the Investment Committee of its Enterprise Development Programme.


Vanessa Godfrey

Vanessa is an experienced Managing Director, Finance Director and agent of major change.  Most of her career has been spent  at the Post Office, now the Royal Mail Group plc,in a number of very different roles including Programme Director, General Manager ,  Regional Finance Director, and Managing Director of Parcelforce Worldwide (2001-06),   Currently she is working in the Royal Mail Strategy Unit on medium term projects and is also leading the Pensions Reform Programme.  She has completed a number of change management assignments and is a regular public speaker, with experience also in radio, TV and press interviews.  In her working life Vanessa has played an important role in promoting gender and diversity, and has a strong commitment to social justice.  She shares Oxfam's values and is keen to apply her skills and experience in the charitable sector. 


Maja Daruwala

Maja has been working to advocate for rights and social justice for the past 20 years.   A barrister who has worked in England, Singapore and Sri Lanka, she is currently Executive Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (an international NGO based in New Delhi that works for the practical realisation of human rights).   She is the founder chair of the People's Watch in Tamil Nadu and sits on several charitable boards in New York, London and India.   These include the Open Society Institute Justice Initiative, the International Women's Health Coalition and the International Records Management Trust. 


Rajiv Joshi

Rajiv currently works as Outreach Coordinator in the International Secretariat of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) and is also studying a Masters in Public Policy and Administration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York. He has recently completed his BA degree at Strathclyde Business School where he received a First Class Honours in Economics. 

Rajiv Joshi has been a community activist since the age of nine and has served two terms as Chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament, representing the constituency of Glasgow Govan. He has been involved in mobilizing young people globally through the Commonwealth Youth Forum, World Youth Congress and AIESEC, the world's largest student organization. 

In May 2007 he was elected to the International Board of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, where he serves as the youngest ever Director. In the same year he was appointed to the Scotland Committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) where he served for two years, and in April 2008 he joined the Board of the Centre for Scottish Public Policy. 

Rajiv is also a Senior Advisor to the British Council where he provides guidance on education and governance and served as Vice-Chair of Young Scot between 2005 and 2009. In 2007 he was awarded BME young male of the year and also received the Sunday Mail Young Scot Award for Citizenship and Democracy. Rajiv has supported Oxfam for a number of years, working closely with Oxfam in Scotland.  


Matthew Martin

Formerly with the World Bank, Overseas Development Institute and Oxford University, Matthew is now the Director of Development Finance International Group, an NGO which he has been running since1991.  DRI builds developing country capacity to negotiate more and better aid, debt relief and private flows to reduce poverty, and conducts supporting research and advocacy.   The organisation has worked with governments, policy makers and international institutions in a wide range of countries, and its debt strategy projects are executed by the non-profit company Debt Relief International.    Additionally Matthew has 15 years of experience in assisting global social movements (e.g. Debt Crisis Network, Jubilee Debt campaign, Make Poverty History) and has worked with a number of UK NGOs including Oxfam.  


James Darcy, Vice Chair

James is an international lawyer with ten years of operational experience as a former Oxfam manager, co-ordinating programmes in Central Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and South and East Asia. Formerly head of the Humanitarian Policy Group, he is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), working on fragile states, aid risks, humanitarian engagement and the security-development interface. Besides general management and humanitarian policy experience, he specialises in areas of policy relating to the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, along with refugee and human rights protection issues. He is also an expert in the field of needs assessment and situational analysis, particularly with regard to food security; James has numerous publications in these various fields.


Marjorie Scardino

Marjorie is Chief Executive of Pearson, the international education and media business made up of Pearson Education, Penguin and the Financial Times Group.  She was the first female Chief Executive among the UK's FTSE 100 companies.

Until January 1997, she was chief executive of The Economist Group (of which Pearson owns 50%), and, prior to 1985, she was a partner in a Savannah, Georgia law firm. With her husband, Albert Scardino, Marjorie founded and published the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Georgia Gazette. They have three children.  

Marjorie is a non-executive director of Nokia Corporation and a member of a number of charitable and advisory boards, including The MacArthur Foundation, The Carter Center and The Victoria & Albert Museum.  Marjorie was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2002. 


Gavin Stewart

Gavin's working career has been spent in the financial services industry primarily with Insurance and Investment Management companies across a range of different disciplines from IT to Marketing. He was Chief Executive of Resolution Asset Management for over 5 years.
He has been a long term Oxfam supporter and has been involved with the Enterprise Development Programme from its early days and now sits on its Board. He is also involved with the Small Enterprise Impact Investment Fund where he is on the Investment Advisory Committee and from its founding in 2010 he has been the Chair of the Oxfam Scotland Advisory Group.
Gain has been involved in a number of other voluntary roles including chairing his local school board, working with Pilotlight (a charity he highly recommends), and being a member of the  Glasgow University Investment Advisory Committee.  
He is a keen sports fan - mainly of Partick Thistle - and plays the bagpipes, a fact which he says is difficult to keep quiet.


Nkoyo Toyo

Nkoyo is an MP for the PDP in Nigeria, and was formerly the Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia. She is a lawyer and development consultant, and in 1994 founded Gender and Development Action (GADA). She is Executive Director, and co-ordinates work around policy and programme, particularly related to gender awareness and women's equal participation in development. 

Nkoyo has undertaken a variety of consultancy roles on policy, gender and development issues (primarily in Nigeria, but elsewhere in Africa too). She has worked for many development partners, including the United Nations, World Bank, European Uion, DfID and UNIFEM. She has served as board member on many committees including that of the Commonwealth Foundation as a member of the Civil Society Advisory Committee and Board of Trustees. 


Nkoyo has been keenly interested in politics, and emerged as a candidate for the People's Democratic Party (PDP) at the April 2011 Nigerian elections.


Steve Walton

Steve is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and, for 24 years, was an audit and business advisory  ('ABAS') partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). He has had considerable experience in advising multi-national and domestic, listed and private companies in the UK and overseas, in all sectors including governing bodies. Most recently, he was the leader of PWC assurance services to PE backed businesses and was a member of the London Executive and the ABAS National Regional Executive. He was also the partner responsible for Assurance Risk and Quality in London Mid Tier. He retired from PwC in June 2012.
Steve's main current non-executive appointment is as a Council member and Officer of Nottingham University which has campuses in the UK, Malaysia and China and a turnover in excess of £500m. He is also Chairman of the Audit Committee and a member of the Finance and Strategy Committees. Previously he was Honorary Treasurer of 'The Seashell Trust'.


Tricia Zipfel

Tricia has worked for more than 30 years with residents and workers in some of the most deprived areas of the UK.  She co-founded a national action research project that pioneered neighbourhood management, tenant co-operatives and advised government on social housing and community empowerment policies.  From 2001-2006 she was seconded to the department for Communities and Local Government as senior community adviser.  

Her main involvement with Oxfam has been through the UK Poverty Programme.  She joined the Association in 2007, serving on the Recruitment and Development Group, and became a trustee in December 2009. 

Tricia currently works free-lance and is a research fellow at the Young Foundation.  She is also a director of 'Just Change', an international 'fair trading' network linking local communities in India and the UK; a trustee of 'Faith in the Future' a Muslim-led, inter-faith project in east London; an active member of London Citizens; and a member of the 'Create Consortium' campaigning for welfare reform.   

In 2007 she was awarded an MBE for her work with local communities and her contribution