Who we are

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Magic Breakfast wouldn’t exist without the incredible people who work here every day fighting child morning hunger.

The passion, commitment and drive of our people is what propels us forward and gets us closer to achieving our vision of a world in which no child is too hungry to learn, play and thrive. Meet just some of the magical people who power Magic Breakfast below.

Senior leadership team

The magic of Magic Breakfast is the people – our staff, volunteers, supporters, schools and most importantly, the children and young people. Being part of this team and knowing the difference that breakfast can make to a child’s school day, their education, and future is a privilege.

  • Alan Mustafa, Head of People and Culture
  • Anthony Eckersley, Head of Finance and Performance
  • Emily Wilkie, Director of Fundraising and Development
  • Jacquie Bance de Vasquez, Director of Policy and Engagement
  • Sam Boulton, Director of Service Delivery

New business and partnerships team

PR and celebrity team

Trustees

  • Alison Inglis-Jones

    Trustee, and member of the Governance, Nominations and Risk Committee and the Finance and Audit Committee.

    Alison is an experienced trustee with a record of overseeing and running successful public affairs campaigns for the private, public and voluntary sectors. She provides pro bono public affairs advice to a range of local, national and international charities.

  • Andrienne d’Arenberg

    Trustee, and member of the People and Culture Committee.

    Andrienne has extensive experience working with large family businesses, as former Head of the World Economic Forum Family Business Community, contributor to the Oxford Saïd Business School Programme on Responsible Ownership, private banker with Merrill Lynch and currently representing family interests in various family-controlled companies. She also sits on the boards of several organizations active in current world affairs or focusing on social and environmental issues.

  • Aniela Shuckburgh

    Chair of the Board of Trustees and member of the Fundraising and Audit Committee and the People and Culture Committee.

    Aniela has over 20 years’ experience working in the not-for-profit sector, primarily in education, having held roles at the Harvard Business School, University of Cambridge and City Year UK.

  • Emma West

    Trustee, and Chair of the People and Culture Committee.

    Emma is an experienced HR Director who has worked in senior roles for Cadbury, Sainsbury’s and Unilever. She now runs her own business, providing coaching and talent management consulting. Emma is also a trustee at Guide Dogs UK and has been involved in the voluntary sector for many years; she has previously held a number of board roles in education, charities and public sector. 

  • Julie Harkness

    Trustee.

    Julie Harkness is the Vice Principal at CarrManor Community School, Leeds and has worked in leadership roles at inner-city primary schools for 20 years. She is a trustee, schools forum representative and chairs a network of partners who provide early help, early intervention and prevention services for children, young people, and families across Leeds. 

  • Julie-Anne Jamieson

    Trustee.

    Julie-Anne is an experienced trustee and Chief Executive having held leadership roles across the public sector and independent public inquiries in Scotland. She is currently Chief Executive of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry as well as a trustee of Volunteering Matters. A strong advocate of diversity and inclusion, she is Immediate Past President and one of the founding trustees of Changing the Chemistry, a charity promoting diversity of thought on boards.

    Drawing on her professional background in career development, Julie-Anne is a volunteer mentor for young people supported by Project Scotland. 

  • Michael Honan

    Trustee, and member of the Governance, Nominations and Risk Committee. 

    Michael is a corporate partner at Linklaters LLP, where he has spent the last 20 years advising some of the world’s largest companies on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and governance. He has a particular specialism in advising companies in the food and beverage sector and also the infrastructure sector. Michael lives in Hertfordshire and has three sons – he loves coaching his sons’ football teams at the weekend and ran the 2022 London Marathon for Magic Breakfast.

  • Phil Davies

    Trustee and Chair of the Governance Nominations and Risk Committee

    Trustee, and Chair of the Governance Nominations and Risk Committee.

    Phil was appointed as a Trustee of Magic Breakfast in September 2018. In his professional life, Phil is Global Head of Operations for Morgan Stanley, responsible for all Operations activities supporting the Institutional Securities, Wealth Management and Investment Management businesses, having joined Morgan Stanley in 2009.

  • Richard Lackmann

    Trustee, and Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee. 

    Richard has more than 30 years of experience in financial and general management leadership. He has worked as a COO, CFO and Director/ Trustee in number of organisations in the UK, USA and Africa. Richard is the Chair of the campaigning organisation 38 Degrees. Previously he served on FARM Africa and Doteveryone boards as their Treasurer.

  • Varsha Venugopal

    Trustee, and member of the People and Culture Committee.

    Varsha Venugopal is an advisor to international and national charities on strategy and effectiveness. Varsha has more than 15 years’ experience of setting up and running development projects and programmes in global institutions including the World Bank and the Open Society Foundation. She is currently setting up a charity in India to improve vaccination uptake.

Development advisors

Our development advisers are a group of Magic Breakfast supporters who bring their individual expertise and connections. Acting as advocates, they play a key role in supporting us to achieve our aims by raising awareness about our work, expanding our network, and helping to execute our fundraising strategy.

  • Lily Silverton

    Lily Silverton is a journalist, podcaster and mindset coach. She has been in journalism for more than 15 years and contributes to global publications including Vogue and Refinery29/Vice.

    As a coach she works with individuals, businesses and charities and runs panel talks and events for companies such as Soho House, Facebook, the Refugee Council and Crisis. She also has a podcast, Priorities, on which she interviews prominent guests about what really matters to them.

  • Nick Lawson

    Nick is the Founding Chair of the ALMT, a £6m regranting children’s charity with over 140 projects that he set up in 2006. Nick was a member of the Conservative Renaissance Forum from 2014-18. In 2013 Nick worked with David Cameron’s Cabinet Office as Chair of Community Lending Steering Group working on solutions for helping the financially excluded from pay day lenders. More recently Nick has worked with the Home Office around county lines & knife crime. He has also been a trustee of Afghan Connection and Unlocking Potential as well as an serving as an ambassador for Afrikids.

  • Priyan Shah

    Priyan, together with his two brothers, Julan and Prag, operate DVS Property, a commercial property business founded in 1985 by their father, Dhiru V Shah. DVS specialise in UK institutional real estate investment across a variety of sectors, including logistics, automotive, out of town retail, supermarkets, and occupational assets to include student accommodation and hotels.

    In 2012, the family set up DVS Foundation to formalise their charitable giving. The family’s philanthropy is currently focused in the areas of education, healthcare, mobility, genetic science and food provision, both in the UK and East Africa. Priyan is actively involved in the running of the Foundation.

  • Saloni Thakrar

    Saloni Thakrar is the Co-founder of LMK (Let Me Know), a charity that educates young people about healthy and unhealthy behaviours so that they can avoid abuse and thrive in their relationships.

    Saloni served as Chair for Healthwatch Camden, a statutory health and social care charity from 2017 to 2020. She has also been Chair for the Camden Patient Public Engagement Group, as well as Lay Member for NHS England, for UK National Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Group and for the London Antenatal Screening Group. She has also served as a Trustee for the charity, Little Village. She is a passionate advocate of helping diverse communities have their say in health and social services that impact their lives.

  • Shahrzad Atai

    Shahrzad is Partner and Head of International Clients at solicitors, Child & Child.

    Besides being a lawyer, she is also a lecturer for Master of International Economics at University of Orleans and University of Tours (France).

    Shahrzad is a UK qualified solicitor. She holds a Masters of Law (LLM) from the College of Law London, studied Law (LLB),at University of Hertfordshire and Applied Maths at Azad University of Tehran.

  • Simon Woods

    Simon is an entrepreneur, innovator and angel investor. He has spent the last 25 years building and scaling technology companies in Europe, the US and Asia. He was instrumental in growing global markets for some of the most innovative Fintech and Supply Chain tech enterprise software companies.

    He is currently Executive Chairman at Real Ice, an environmental initiative that is looking to prove that an end to end renewable process and viable economic model can be developed to restore Arctic Sea ice and help mitigate climate change. Simon is also President of Texas based startup Senseye, a Neurotechnology company building an ocular brain-computer Interface for mental health visibility. 

    Whilst living in Malaysia, Simon founded Reading4Life, a program for children living in orphanages that provided books and reading support to help residents’ economic prospects through improved English literacy.

This page was last updated on

3 January 2024


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