Anna Walker

As well as her post at the Healthcare Commission, Anna has also undertaken various senior government roles including Deputy Director at the Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL) during the mid-1990s and Director general at the Department for Trade and Industry, responsible for the Government’s energy policy during the late 1990s. She has also had responsibility for land use and rural affairs at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and is currently the Chair of the Office of the Rail Regulator and a member of the board of Consumer Focus.

She joined the NCYPE as a Trustee in June 2009.

Ann Wilks

Currently Chair of the School Governing Body and a member of the NCYPE Board of Trustees and College Governing Body. Ann graduated from Oxford and worked for a short spell as a journalist at The Economist. Apart from a year or two at home after her daughters were born, she has spent her career in the Civil Service, mainly at the Department of Trade and Industry.

Ann also chairs a charity which is working to regenerate the architecturally outstanding local town hall near her home for arts and community use.

Brian Neville

Brian is a paediatric neurologist with special interests in epilepsy and disability. He was originally appointed to Guy’s Hospital, where he played a major part in setting up the integrated neurology/disability service for children in South East Thames. He was later appointed to the Chair of Paediatric Neurology at the Institute of Child Health (UCL) and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in 1989, where he developed the clinical and academic group as the largest in Europe. From 2004-2007 he occupied the Prince of Wales’s Chair of Childhood Epilepsy.

Professor Neville has been Secretary and President of the British Paediatric Neurology Association and has worked extensively on the UK and European paediatric neurology training programme. He founded the European Academy of Childhood Disability and is an advisor to Contact-a-Family and to several parent support groups. He has published more than 180 original peer-reviewed papers and his current research is particularly related to epileptic encephalopathies.

Giles Maberly

Giles was educated at Whitgift School and qualified as a solicitor in 1966. He joined the Firm in 1970 and has been Senior Principal until on arriving at age 65 becoming a Consultant.

Giles is Vice-Chair of the NCYPE a former Vice-Chair of Surrey Squash Racquets Association, current Vice-Captain of Tandridge Golf Club and a former committee member of Surrey Playing Fields Association.

Helen Cross

Professor Helen Cross is The Prince of Wales’s Chair of Childhood Epilepsy and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Neurology at UCL-Institute of Child Health, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, London and the National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy, Lingfield. She qualified from Birmingham University in 1984, trained in paediatrics in Birmingham and subsequently in paediatric neurology in London, obtaining her PhD in 1998.

Although she has a significant research commitment, she has been involved specifically in developing epilepsy services, particularly the epilepsy surgery programme, working across four departments. She is Chair of the ILAE Commission for Paediatrics, Assistant Secretary to the Board of the European Paediatric Neurology Society, Chair of the Trustees of Epilepsy Research UK and President of the British Paediatric Neurology Association. She is on the Editorial Board of Epileptic Disorders, Developmental Medicine Child Neurology and European Journal of Paediatric Neurology. In 2007 she was awarded an Ambassador for Epilepsy Award by the ILAE. Her research interests include neuroimaging as well as the role of early surgical intervention and new treatments in childhood epilepsy. In addition she is involved in national and international collaboration in the development of epilepsy services, teaching and research.

June Davies

Currently Chair of the NCYPE College Governing Body and a member of the NCYPE Board of Trustees.

Following an early period in the Civil Service, June has enjoyed a long career in the field of education as an Ofsted and Adult Learning inspector, as a College Deputy Principal and as a practitioner. Since 2001, June has also been working as an educational consultant, specialising in the areas of management, quality assurance and curriculum for a wide range of educational providers and government-funded organisations.

Kathryn Cearns

Kathryn is the Consultant Accountant at Herbert Smith LLP, an international law firm. She trained at one of the big accountancy firms and has in the past been a project director at the UK Accounting Standards Board, where she dealt with charity accounting issues.

Kathryn is chairman of the ICAEW Financial Reporting Committee and a member of the ASB's Urgent Issues Task Force. She chairs the NCYPE Audit Committee.

Matthew Pudney

Before co-founding The Hannover Consultancy in 2007, Matthew was head of corporate communications for the National Museum of Science & Industry (which is the group responsible for the Science Museum, National Media Museum and National Railway Museum).

Matthew has a long-time personal interest in conservation, global warming, and science based sustainable development. From 2002 he took a prominent senior role in supporting Creative Planet – planned as the first, full scale, international centre for sustainable development.

In a career spanning more that 30 years, he has created, guided and implemented corporate and marketing communications strategies disciplines for many leading organisations across the UK private, public and not for profit sectors.

Matthew has set up and directed public relations consultancies, marketing communications and advertising agencies, with the sale of two of his agencies in the 1990s.

He brings to clients a clinical grasp of sustainability issues across the communications spectrum - from public affairs and lobbying to media relations, national campaigns to corporate positioning and branding, consumer PR to internal communications, boardroom briefings to shareholder relations.

Matthew is a well-known contributor and writer on communications, ethics and the environment. He has a monthly column in HR magazine.

Mike Plant

Mike spent most of his career in the foreign exchange markets, both in New York and London. He left his last post in the City as Chief Executive of Spot Foreign Exchange for ICAP plc. He was also a member of the Bank of England Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee.

More recently, he set up Broadham Care Ltd to develop and operate Learning Disability homes in the South East, bringing new quality standards to the learning disability sector.

Tony Chalkley

Tony qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 1984 and is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and holds a degree in Estate Management, His career started at one of the first London Docklands developments for Taylor Woodrow at St. Katharine’s Dock next to Tower Bridge.

The development comprised mixed use office, hotel, residential and commercial development and won many awards for innovative and sympathetic refurbishment and new build. Tony then moved to consultancy to advise on development and commercial lettings throughout the South East. In 1995 Tony was part of a management buyout of commercial surveying practice Grant and Partners which recently merged to form Grant Mills Wood of which Tony is Managing Director.

Tony is married with three children.

Michael Sydney

Michael has spent an eventful life, at the Rank Organisation, Reed Paper Group, a spell as a management consultant, Merrydown Wine Company and then running companies owned by the Rothschild family. He then spent 25 years as a hatter, running Herbert Johnson, moving on to James Lock before setting up his own hatter, Harrison Hillhouse. He also found time to take up livestock farming. This became very useful when he became, first a District Councillor at Tandridge, representing Dormansland and Felcourt, and latterly as Surrey County Councillor representing the Lingfield Division, an area which is over 90% Green Belt. He is Chairman of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and a strong supporter of wood fuel as a contributor to the aim to develop more sustainable energy use.

Michael is the Surrey County Council representative on the NCYPE Trust Board.