Meet the Canal & River Trust trustees

Read the trustees' progress report from March 2012

Read the trustees' progress report from December 2011

Read the trustees' progress report from October 2011.

Tony Hales CBE (Chair)

Tony is Chairman of British Waterways. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Capital and Regional plc and Chairman of NAAFI Pension Fund Trustees. He was previously Chairman of Workspace Group plc., Chief Executive of Allied Domecq, a Non-Executive Director of HSBC Bank plc, Welsh Water plc and Aston Villa plc, and Chairman of NAAFI. He is a Trustee of Welsh National Opera and a Trustee of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation.

Lynne Berry OBE

Lynne Berry is an associate of Civil Exchange and a visiting Senior Fellow at CASS Business School, City of London University, She has held five Chief Executive posts: WRVS, the General Social Care Council, the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Charity Commission and the Family Welfare Association. She has served on many Government bodies including the Office of Civil Society Advisory Board and several Better Regulation Task forces, most recently to reduce burdens on charities and social enterprise. She is also a trustee of the Anne Frank Trust, Cumberland Lodge, the International Women's Forum UK and Pro Bono Economics. Previous non-Executive roles included NCVO, the National Centre for Social Research, the European Division of the DTI and she was chair of CPAG. She has received a number of honours including an OBE, an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University and two Honorary Doctorates. She lives near the Kings Cross development in London and on the banks of the River Trent where she is restoring a 1950s wooden boat.

Jane Cotton

Jane Cotton has been human resources director and a deputy chief executive of Oxfam for the past 11 years. Prior to this, she worked in Departments of Transport and Environment in both policy and human resources roles. In the 1990s, she was resources director of the Charity Commission and human resources director of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions. She
brings particular expertise in organisational development and change management; also in volunteering, fundraising and charity governance.

John Dodwell

John Dodwell is a chartered accountant who moved into corporate finance and corporate law. He is a former finance director or chair of several property companies (including arranging joint ventures), a former charity trustee (including dealing with investments) and has been a member since 1961 of The Inland Waterways Association (of which he was general secretary 1970-73). John is the former chair of the Commercial Boat Operators Association. Having sailed dinghies, fished and canoed on the River Thames and elsewhere in his youth, he went on to hire cruisers over most of the network, enjoying the waterways’ built and natural environment. He now owns an historic narrow boat.

Tom Franklin

Tom Franklin is Chief Executive Think Global, a membership charity that works to educate and engage people about global issues such as climate change and sustainability. He was previously Chief Executive of the Ramblers, Britain’s walking charity. He is currently a member of the Independent Panel on the future direction of forestry and woodland policy in England. He was previously a local authority councillor for twelve years, including a period as council leader, and was an expert adviser on ‘Better Public Spaces’ to the Beacon Council Awards Scheme, and was Chief Executive of Living Streets, a charity promoting better streets and public spaces for pedestrians.

Simon Thurley

Simon was educated at London University where he took an MA and a PHD. After working for English Heritage in the 1980s, he
went to be curator of the Historic Royal Palaces for eight years. In 1998, he moved to be director of the Museum of London and, in 2003, chief executive of English Heritage. Simon is an historian specialising in English architectural history and has written many books and presented television programmes on the subject.

John Bridgeman CBE TD DL

John Bridgeman is a British Waterways board member and vice-chairman of the board. He is also a pension trustee, chairman of the Wales Advisory Group, chairman of the Fair Trading Committee and a member of the Audit Committee and the Ombudsman Committee. Formerly he was CEO of British Alcan Aluminium plc, director general of Fair Trading and a member of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. John is also currently regulatory director and a pension trustee of the British Horseracing Authority, chairman of the Audit and Standards Committee of Warwickshire County Council, independent complaints commissioner for the Direct Marketing Authority, an independent consultant in Corporate Strategy, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs and a longstanding trustee of a number of Oxfordshire Charities.

Marisa Cassoni

Marisa has been the Finance Director of the John Lewis Partnership since June 2006. Prior to this, Marisa spent five years as Group Finance Director at The Royal Mail where she played an instrumental role in guiding the company through its renewal programme. Marisa has decided to retire from full-time executive responsibilities and plans to step down from her role as the Partnership's Finance Director after completing the 2011/12 reporting cycle. 

Marisa was Group Finance Director at Britannic Assurance plc from 1998 to 2001 and Group Finance Director of Prudential's UK division between 1994 and 1998. A qualified chartered accountant since 1975, she was appointed non-executive Director of GFI in 2005, a company listed on New York Stock Exchange where she chairs their audit committee.

Marisa is a Governor of the Peabody Trust and, until very recently, was a member of the Accounting Standards Board.

Manish Chande

Manish Chande is Senior Partner of Mountgrange, a private real estate group that specialises in UK commercial property investment and development. He has been in the real estate business for 28 years.

Before joining Mountgrange, Manish was on the main board of Land Securities plc. Prior to this, he was Chief Executive Officer of Trillium, a company he co-founded in 1997. He was responsible for leading Trillium to become the UK’s primary total property outsourcer, overseeing the strategy, direction and implementation of all aspects of the business.

Prior to Trillium, Manish worked at Imry Merchant Developers plc, and was first appointed as Finance Director, and then as Chief Executive in 1995. Manish originally trained as a chartered accountant and has been a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales since 1980. In 2003, he was appointed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as a Commissioner of English Heritage, and in 2007 was appointed a Trustee of The London Clinic, one of the UK’s premier private hospitals.
 
In June 2008, Manish was elected a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Steve Shine OBE

Since 2007, Steve has been Thames Water’s Chief Operating Officer and a member of the Main Board. He is leaving in March 2012 to take on new challenges.

Steve started his career with London Electricity Board in 1973 as an apprentice Electrician, whilst working he qualified as an Electrical Power Engineer and later took degrees in Management, Marketing and finally a Masters in Business in 1993.

Steve worked his way through various roles in the electricity business and became the MD of London Electricity Contracting and a member the Executive Board of London Electricity (Later EDF) in 1996. In 2000 he worked to form a Joint Venture between Eastern Electricity and London Electricity known as 24Seven and became the MD of this very successful company.

In 2003 Steve left the Electricity sector to become the CEO of SGB UK, part of Harsco Corporation (an industrial services company), where he transformed the performance of the business.
In 2010, Steve was awarded the OBE by the Queen for services to industry.

Last updated: 30/03/2012