The former motor racing champion became president in 1999 and continues to work tirelessly to promote the charity. Nigel has taken on a host of fundraisers raising more than £1 million for UK Youth.

HRH, patron since 2003, makes a number of personal appearances each year on behalf of UK Youth, and has a genuine understanding and passion of the positive impact UK Youth has on young peoples lives.

Matt has worked in financial services for over 30 years, specialising in leading large transformation programmes and managing significant teams across multi-regional structures. He is the founder and CEO of 10th Bridge Consulting and has held leadership roles at major financial institutions, where he led complex change initiatives and built and ran large specialist teams. Alongside his consulting work, Matt supports young entrepreneurs through mentoring and advisory roles, helping to develop the next generation of business leaders. 

Anna leads Global Finance Operations for Pearson and has held various Finance Leadership roles across Pearson including Chief of Staff to the CFO, Process Transformation and Finance Business Partner. She is a qualified accountant with extensive experience in commercial finance, particularly in the education and media sectors and has held Finance positions at Nuffield Health, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. She has recently been short listed for the 2025 NXT GEN Female Finance Chief Financial Officer of the Future Award.

Jolanta Lasota is Chief Executive of Ambitious about Autism and the Schools Trust. She Chairs the Autism Alliance and is a member of the Autism Strategy Implementation group. She is a member of the Commission on Countering Online Conspiracy in Schools and a Trustee of UK Youth. Her career includes Director roles in national voluntary sector organisations, including Turn2Us, Speech and Language UK and the Governance Hub. Jolanta has lived experience of autism and is passionate about creating a more inclusive world.

Jodie is the Chief Executive Officer of Oxfordshire Youth, vice-chair of the Oxfordshire Children’s Trust Board, chair of the Children and Young People’s Forum and co-chair of the Charity Leaders Forum. A strategic leader and big-picture thinker, Jodie is passionate about equality, social justice, system change, youth voice, and the power of youth work to change lives. 

Gabrielle is an academic paediatric resident doctor in Northwest London and multi-award-winning children and young people’s health advocate. She has worked across the charitable sector, healthcare system and with government. As a clinical fellow at the Health and Social Care Select Committee, she led the inquiry into the First 1000 Days of Life until September 2025. At Children in All Policies 2030, advancing the WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission recommendations and Sustainable Development Goals, she championed children’s voices in global health. A Trustee of UK Youth, she focuses on leadership for kindness and enabling patients and trainees as equal partners in quality improvement.

Iain has been a trustee of UK Youth since 2016, including chairing the Board’s inaugural Impact and Risk Committee, and became a trustee of the Thames Rivers Trust in 2025. With over 25 years’ experience in the technology sector, spanning global corporations and innovative startups, he is currently Senior Vice President at the financial technology and payments company Dojo. He has held senior roles across Sales & Marketing, Partnerships, Operations and Engineering at Stripe, Google, IBM and Cisco in Europe, UK and Australia. A native Australian, Iain lives in London with his wife and two daughters and actively supports charities in the UK and Australia.

Nneka is a Senior Director at Alvarez & Marsal, advising Board and Executive clients across Financial Services, with a focus on Wealth and Investment Management, on strategy, performance improvement, operational due diligence, governance and regulatory matters. She previously served as Chief Operating Officer at a Principal Partner Practice of St. James’s Place and spent nearly 10 years in Management Consulting at Deloitte and Accenture, including secondment as Chief of Staff to the Deloitte UK Chair. A Trustee at UK Youth and Chair of its People Committee, she also serves Prism the Gift Fund and BusinessLDN, and mentors widely, previously serving as School Governor.

Jon is the CEO of the Youth Endowment Fund and previously a Special Advisor within the Department of Education and a consultant at McKinsey and Company. He founded three youth initiatives, including the National Citizen Service, and founded and scaled a charity from three volunteers to 1,000 staff. His main priority in life is to be a decent human being, support young people in progressing through the youth work he has been involved in, to serve young people through the initiatives he has founded, and to be a decent husband and father.  

Colin’s executive career spanned more than 35 years in blue-chip companies in media and technology, consumer goods and pharmaceuticals through roles in the UK, Europe & USA. He has held the roles of Chief Operating Officer, Chief Transformation Officer and Group Finance Director at Sky, plus a range of senior finance and procurement roles in his time at PepsiCo. He is an active advocate for improving social mobility, born from personal experience and having been sponsor and champion of both D&I and mentoring programmes at Sky. He is currently progressing roles as a board advisor and not-for-profit non-executive director. 

Gill Budd is a commercial and charity solicitor who has led governance, risk, legal and compliance for major charities, including Teach First, Save the Children UK and Plan International, following a career in private practice and the commercial sector. She is Chair of ShareGift, and a trustee of RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People) and Hampstead Theatre. She has previously served as trustee of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, The Aldridge Foundation and Community Links, and has extensive experience on finance, audit, risk, nominations and succession committees across the charitable sector. 

Jacob is Chief Impact Officer at UK Youth. He ensures that the charity’s work is informed by the best available evidence, the needs & preferences of young people, and continuous learning. He joined UK Youth in 2021, after eight years leading research & strategy at the mental health charity, Mind. His career has included multiple research projects, service development, and policy roles focused on young people. These include working on youth unemployment policy for Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Thora is Director of Network Delivery at UK Youth, overseeing youth development programmes that test and scale new approaches to youth work, leading support for sector infrastructure, and strengthening mechanisms to share power with young people, including through the #iwill movement. She has 20 years’ experience across education and youth. A founding member of Teaching Leaders (now Ambition Institute), she focused on developing middle leaders in challenging schools. Most recently, she established and led the national network of 87 Teaching School Hubs, which in their first year trained 30,000 teachers through the Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications.

Kayleigh has 20 years’ experience in the youth sector starting her journey as a member of her local youth club.

In her current role, Kayleigh is responsible for leading and mobilising an innovative leadership development programme to attract new leaders to the youth sector.

She is a JNC-qualified youth worker with a passion for developing projects that bring communities together and supporting young people to have their voices heard.

David Watts is Director of Outdoor Learning at UK Youth and Chair of the Institute for Outdoor Learning Youth Work Sector Specialist Group. He leads UK Youth’s national strategy for outdoor learning youth work and provides strategic leadership for Avon Tyrrell, the charity’s 65-acre outdoor activity centre and heritage site, welcoming more than 30,000 visitors annually while operating as a successful social enterprise. With experience across outdoor learning and business management, David champions equitable access to experiential learning that builds confidence, life skills and positive outcomes for young people.

Pervez is a qualified accountant (FCMA) with over 25 years’ experience across Finance, Operations and Change Management in the UK and internationally. He has held senior roles including EMEA FD for Bausch & Lomb Eyewear, alongside COO and CFO positions within the charity, social enterprise and international development sectors. His work has focused on strengthening governance, financial sustainability and organisational effectiveness. Alongside his professional career, Pervez is actively involved in youth development and voluntarily runs a Berkshire-based charity delivering regular sports, education and mentoring programmes for young people from underserved communities. 

With 23 years’ generalist HR experience, Jane has held senior leadership, Business Partner, consultancy and mediation roles across the charity and nonprofit sectors, including at The Fairtrade Foundation, Cats Protection, Crown Agents, Sightsavers and the National Children’s Bureau. She specialises in people strategy, change management, wellbeing, leadership development and engagement. A Chartered Fellow of the CIPD (FCIPD) and accredited workplace and civil mediator, she holds qualifications from The TCM Group, London School of Mediation, BPP Business School, the University of Sussex and the University of Kent. Jane also contributes through governance and community leadership and champions inclusive, high-performing workplaces.