Our Advisors

Professor Helen Pote

Helen is a Clinical Psychologist with over 25 years experience working with children and families across a variety of health and education services. She is Professor and Clinical Programme Director at Royal Holloway (University of London), training Clinical Psychologists for practice in the NHS for the last 20 years. She has been focussed on digital delivery of psychological support and developed MindAid – for teachers and young people dealing with youth mental health problems. She chairs the Digital Healthcare Committee for the British Psychological Society and is a clinical collaborator for several virtual and augmented reality projects with Storyfutures.

Helen’s research focusses on child mental health and family functioning. She has completed research on the impact of traumatic births on the experience of early parenting. Much of this research is conducting with schools and she established and chairs the South East Research Network for Schools (SERNS). Helen is on the editorial board of the Journal of Family Therapy and wrote a manual for family therapy which is used internationally for research and psychotherapy education (MRC funded).

Dr Alison Spiro

In recent years, Alison has worked as a specialist health visitor and infant feeding lead in two NHS trusts, taking them both to be Baby Friendly accredited by Unicef. She is interested in how breastfeeding peer supporters can not only support individual mothers, but can bring cultural change to a community.  She was recognized as a Queen's Nurse in 2014 and received the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother's Award for Outstanding Service in 2016.  

After retiring from the NHS, she now works as a professional advisor for Best Beginnings and the Institute of Health Visiting, volunteers in breastfeeding support groups and trains peer supporters.  She has become an Honorary Lecturer at Brunel University, London.   She is a member of the World Breastfeeding Trends (WBTi) steering group that wrote the first UK report in 2016.  She was a committee member for the NICE guideline on Faltering Growth 2017 and is recently a member of the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly project.

Mary Hartshorne

Specialist in children and young people's language and communication - a qualified speech and language therapist with particular interest in making school a positive, successful experience for pupils with SEND.
Skilled and creative writer, trainer and facilitator.

Experienced charity leader - driving impact measurement and influencing educational policy for children's speech, language and communication.

Registered Intermediary - supporting vulnerable witnesses to give best evidence in policy interviews and at trial. 

Dr Anne Murphy

Dr Anne has been a GP for over 20 years. Currently at a surgery in the London Borough of Brent she is passionate about supporting and guiding new parents.

Mike McConigley

Mike is a subject matter expert and has held multiple leadership roles, over his 40 year career in IT.  Mike was a Managing Director (Partner) at Morgan Stanley, a global investment bank, where he was responsible for delivering the Fixed Income Technology platform across their international offices until 2003.

More recently, he was an Assistant Principal in a sixth form college leading on data analysis and planning, having migrated the college to a fully outsourced, cloud-based IT operation during his tenure.

Mike graduated as an Engineer from University College Dublin in 1981.

Peter Boonman

Currently working at Rahms Ltd, Peter advises the Board on Philanthropy. He has worked in various management positions in the banking industry and the not-for-profit sector, both internationally and in the UK. At Rahms, Peter is responsible for overseeing and supporting grant-making foundations with connections to the group and coaching charities that need more than financial support, particularly in sustainability, strategic advice, business planning and capacity building. 

Peter has particular interests in philanthropy, organisational development, organisational effectiveness, budgeting, impact investing, monitoring and evaluation, impact measurement, knowledge management and facilitating training. 

Sujit Peris

Sujit has over 19 years’ experience in the international development sector, raising funds from high value donors and leading fundraising teams. He has extensive experience asking for and securing big gifts. His current role at Amnesty International is to support Amnesty offices (particularly in Asia) with their fundraising strategies from trust and foundations, institutions and high net worth individuals. Through this role Sujit has supported a number of Asian offices with their high value fundraising. Prior to joining Amnesty, Sujit was Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships at ActionAid UK, where he lead a team to achieve significant growth over the five years he was there. He has held senior fundraising roles at Save the Children UK, Christian Aid and Global Witness. He’s passionate about challenging injustice and poverty, and working with others who share that passion.  

As a qualified personal development coach, Sujit committed to supporting others to achieve their professional goals and objectives. 

Dave Castell

Digital innovator with track record in progressive transmedia global firsts. Award-winning creative, entrepreneurial and innovation flair mixed with hard-hitting commercial and biz dev acumen. Senior leadership experience client side, major global media owner and agency side through marketing / content, advertising, digital & mobile strategic partnerships and innovation. Experienced with scaling media platforms, IP, ventures and start-ups, significantly raising revenues, building global digital subscription services and leading teams.