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 a multi-award-winning children and young people’s health advocate. She has worked across the charitable sector, healthcare system and with government advocating for children and young people.

She worked as a clinical fellow at the Health and Social Care Select Committee, leading their inquiry into the First 1000 days of Life until September 2025. Whilst working at Children in All Policies 2030, an initiative launched in 2021 to further global progress to the Sustainable Development Goals through multi-sectoral action and the recommendations of the WHO – UNICEF – Lancet Commission, she focused on the inclusion of children and young people’s voice in global health work. Gabrielle is a Trustee of UKYouth, a charity focused on increasing the number of young people who can access high quality youth work through using joined-up approaches.

Her current thinking is focused on individual and systems leadership and how we can equip and mobilise all health care professionals to lead with and for Kindness. As a member of the International Planning Advisory Committee for the IHI BMJ International Forum for Patient Quality and Safety in Healthcare, she is considering how patients and trainees can be equal partners in quality improvement work.

Iain has been a trustee of UK Youth since 2016, including chairing the Board’s inaugural Impact and Risk Committee. Iain became a trustee of the Thames Rivers Trust in 2025.
Iain has 25+ years of experience in the technology sector within some of the world’s largest technology companies through to young innovative startups. He is currently the Senior Vice President of the financial technology and payments company, Dojo.

Prior to Dojo, Iain has worked extensively in Europe, the UK and Australia and has held senior positions at technology firms including Stripe, Google, IBM and Cisco across Sales & Marketing, Partnerships, Operations and Engineering.

Iain is a native Australian and resides in London with his wife and two daughters. On weekends you will often find him cycling in the Surrey Hills, on tennis courts in southwest London, or enjoying watching his daughters grow up.

In addition to his service to UK Youth, Iain has also served as a patron and volunteer for many charities in Australia and the UK and is currently an enthusiastic contributor to the Friends of Richmond Park.

Nneka is a Senior Director at Alvarez & Marsal, where she works closely with Board and Executive clients across Financial Services, with a primary focus on Wealth and Investment Management, to address strategic issues, from performance improvement and operational due diligence to governance and regulatory matters.

Nneka previously served as Chief Operating Officer at one of the Principal Partner Practices at St. James’s Place for over 3 years, and prior to this, she spent almost 10 years in Management Consulting at Deloitte and Accenture, including a secondment as Chief of Staff to the Deloitte UK Chair.

In addition to Nneka’s Trustee role at UK Youth where she also chairs the People Committee, she serves a Trustee at Prism The Gift Fund, and as a Non-Executive Director at BusinessLDN.

A passionate mentor and champion of social mobility, Nneka mentors with the Social Mobility Foundation, GAIN (Girls Are INvestors), Women of Colour Global Network (WOCGN), Bridging Barriers and EnCircle. Nneka previously served as a School Governor for 6 years, focusing on workplace readiness and SEND support.

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 Opera􀆟ng 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 his own 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 and has led on governance, risk, legal and compliance for various charities, including the UK education charity, Teach First, and the international children’s charities, Save the Children UK and Plan International, after a career in private legal practice and the commercial world. She is the Chair of the charitable foundation Sharegift, a trustee of RNID (the Royal National Institute for Deaf People), Hampstead Theatre, and has been a trustee of numerous other charities, including the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, The Aldridge Foundation, and Community Links. She also has extensive experience as a member of finance, audit, risk, nominations and succession committees of various charities.

Jacob ensures the charity’s work is informed by the best available evidence, the needs and preferences of young people, and continuous learning. He joined UK Youth in 2021, after eight years leading research and strategy at 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. He is also chair of trustees at Off the Record, the South West’s pioneering youth mental health charity. 

Thora comes to UK Youth with a senior career spanning, operations, strategy, programme development and delivery across the education and youth sectors.

Previously, Thora worked at the Teaching School Hubs Council, where she led the executive team in the annual £17 million delivery of the Government’s national 87 teaching school hubs. Within its first year, the network was able to scale to deliver training to more than 30,000 people. 

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 is responsible for overall management and strategy of UK Youth outdoor learning and the leadership and development of UK Youth’s Avon Tyrrell Outdoor Activity Centre, a successful social enterprise business.

With more than 20 years’ experience of working in the outdoor learning and youth sectors, David is instrumental in the centre becoming a leader in the delivery of outdoor learning for young people in the UK. David also has considerable experience of leading charity operations and sits on several external professional groups that include safeguarding advisory panels.

Before joining UK Youth, David was in the military where he led several summer and winter expeditions to various countries. He remains a keen participant in outdoor activities.

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.