Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (chair)
Wilf Stevenson is Chair of StepChange Debt Charity.
He joined the House of Lords in July 2010, and has recently been appointed Opposition spokesman on Culture; and on Higher Education and Trade. He is also a whip for the Home Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Recent work has included membership of the Communications Select Committee (2010-2011).
Prior to being appointed to the House of Lords, Wilf Stevenson spent two years as a special adviser to the Prime Minister, working in the Policy Unit, 10 Downing Street; and before that nearly 11 years as the Director of the Smith Institute, an independent Think Tank. Before establishing the Smith Institute, Wilf Stevenson was Director of the British Film Institute (1987-97), joining the BFI from what is now Edinburgh Napier University.
Jeremy Burton
Jeremy is a trustee of several charities based in the Leeds area. He is Honorary French Consul in Leeds and is also a founding trustee.
Alex Dalgleish
Alex is chancellor and treasurer of the Priory of St Margaret of Scotland, Order of St John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller – an Order of Chivalry dating back to the Crusades. He served 38 years in retailing, initially in store accounting and subsequently specialising in consumer credit serving on the Board of House of Fraser (Stores Management) Ltd as director of credit services. He is a past chairman of the Consumer Credit Trade Association and past vice-chairman of Cifas.
Alex was a member of the working party for the setting up of StepChange Debt Charity (Scotland) and is a founding Trustee.
Sir Geoff Mulcahy
Sir Geoff has a long and distinguished career in retailing that began in 1982 when, after working in the sugar, engineering and oil industries, he joined Kingfisher. He became group managing director of Kingfisher in 1984 and retired as chief executive in 2002 after building it into the largest non-food retailer in the UK, operating in 13 countries worldwide and overseeing the group's demerger into three quoted companies.
He is currently chairman of Javelin Group, a retail consultancy, and a non executive director of Instore plc and The Home World. He has degrees from Manchester University and Harvard Business School. Sir Geoff was knighted in 1993 and became chairman of the British Retail Consortium in July 2006.
Daniel Phelan
Daniel Phelan is editor-in-chief of Civil Society Media which publishes the magazines Charity Finance, Professional Fundraising and Governance. He founded the Charity Awards, an annual UK wide programme recognising excellence in charity management.
Kareen Ryden
Kareen is a registered trainee practitioner with the Institute of Transactional Analysis (ITA) and a member of the International Transactional Analysis Association and adheres to the ethical codes of the ITA and the UK Council for Psychotherapy. She has a background in law and business having a law degree and Diploma in Legal Practice from Edinburgh University. She was a partner in a large law firm and director of a Scottish property consulting company. During her 20 years in law and business, Kareen was also involved in many charitable organisations. She has a particular interest in debt and depression and joined the trustees in 2012.
Marlene Shiels
Chief Executive of Capital Credit Union and one of its founder members. Marlene also holds Board positions on the World Council of Credit Unions' (WOCCU) Board of Directors, representing the British credit union movement, and also the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland. She is passionate about providing affordable, accessible financial solutions for people of all walks of life, regardless of social or economic circumstances, but particularly finding resolution for people who find themselves in financial difficulties. Marlene became a trustee in 2012.
Gillian Thompson OBE
Gillian became a trustee in 2012. She was Accountant in Bankruptcy and Agency Chief Executive from 2002 until 2009 and was awarded an OBE in 2010 for services to the Scottish Executive. Other areas of public service include:
leading on the early development of modernising laws governing divorce, civil partnerships and the rights of grandparents and absent fathers, as Head of Civil Law Policy branch; the introduction and subsequent abolition of tuition fees and the introduction of the graduate endowment; playing a key role in introducing equal opportunity employment for prison officers; introducing NHS health care for prisoners; and improved education services in Scottish prisons; and, the transition from the community charge (poll tax) to council tax in the early nineties.
Gillian is currently a non executive member of the Board of Registry Trust Ltd and a member of the management committee of Edinburgh based charity, firsthand lothians.
