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Who’s who at the infant trust?
Founder and Chief Executive
Lesley Rudd
Lesley trained as a nurse and held several Director posts in the NHS until she was appointed Joint Regional Director of Nursing for the South West of England, and subsequently held the national post of Director of Nursing for the Prison Health Service for a while.
Apart from all her work with the infant trust Lesley is an external supervisor for the Open University and has a passion for rugby; since March 2007 she is also Granny to three divine grandchildren.
Trustees
Mike Brunt
Mike trained as a teacher and taught in London Schools and Colleges for many years. Following this he worked for a major international airline and was a Councillor for the London Borough of Merton including a spell as Leader of the Council.
In 2009 Mike moved, for 8 months of the year, to South Africa to work with AIDS affected children. Mike’s knowledge of and work with vulnerable children in South African townships is invaluable to the infant trust as he is able to advise and guide on partners and projects. In the UK Mike is a Non-Executive Director of his local Primary Care Trust.
Jane Mackay
Jane became one of the first specialist nurses working in child protection service and was later invited to advise the Hong Kong department of health on these matters. She became involved in mental health work, chaired a number of high profile investigations, and subsequently joined the Prison Inspectorate – through all this work she began to understand the real impact of neglect and abuse.
Jane said “It is a privilege to become a Trustee of the infant trust as I bring a large dose of enthusiasm, expertise in all aspects of child neglect, a strong desire to change the world but also being a realist”.
Lindsay Mann
Lindsay grew up in and has a great affinity for South Africa, where much of her family and many of her friends live. She has a commercial background gained in the financial, telecoms and healthcare sectors where she has held director and board level positions, working in both the UK and South Africa. She is currently involved in the development of large outsourcing deals.
Lindsay heads up the new fund raising committee for the infant trust using her acquired business skills and a determination to grow the charity!
Linda McQuaid
Linda is a nurse who trained at Great Ormond Street and has held a wide range of senior positions, including many years’ experience as Director in acute, community, mental health and primary care services. Linda recently retired and now undertakes consultancy work utilising her years of experience in children’s and mental health services Using her business and management skills Linda’s role in the infant trust is to ensure compliance with all the governance issues related to running a business and a charity.
Les Skipper
Les joined the infant trust in 2009 following years of working in the communications and media world. He recently retired from being a producer with the BBC and now provides immensely valuable and useful advice on spreading the word about our work, and improving how we communicate with our supporters.
Elizabeth Williams
Elizabeth [Liz] trained as a nurse, midwife, and health visitor and has considerable community health knowledge. She developed a number of child protection services.
Liz has worked for several years as a trustee and Vice Chair of the Ann Craft Trust; she sings with the Cabot Choir - they raise money for charity - and paints in watercolour and oil; she is currently completing an art course in Bristol in ceramics. Her role at the infant trust is to undertake annual visits to South Africa with Lesley where she is self-funding.