Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II became Norwood’s Patron in 1952

Norwood is the only Jewish charity to have the Monarch as Patron, something which has been bestowed on Norwood since 1901.

Lord Mendelsohn and Lady Mendelsohn CBE

Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn was created a Life Peer as Baron Mendelsohn of Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet in 2013.

Lady Nicola Mendelsohn CBE is the Vice President for the Global Business Group for Meta.

Ronnie qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1974. In 1976, he merged his own practice with his father’s firm, Alfred Harris & Trotter, which later became known as Harris & Trotter and is currently enjoying its 75th year. The firm is internationally known in the entertainment business, represents a large number of high net worth individuals and specialises in property companies and owner-managed businesses.

Ronnie has been involved in Norwood for many years. He is currently Norwood’s Vice President and Chair of Patronage. He has served twice as a Norwood Trustee, the first time from 1996-2006, acting as Fundraising Chair for most of that time. Ronnie is also a Trustee of Teenage Cancer Trust and is involved in a number of other specific philanthropic projects in both South Africa and Israel. He is a regular participant in the Norwood bike rides, having completed over twenty annual challenges, and has run seven marathons, with his eighth marathon taking place later this year in Berlin.

Neville is a Partner in Blandford Capital LLP a private investment vehicle having retired from Deloitte LLP where he was Managing Partner of NW Europe Financial Advisory.

Neville has been involved with Norwood as a supporter for a number of years and has appeared as a guest speaker at Norwood fundraising events. In 2005, he co-founded the Norwood Distressed Investors Dinner Committee.

Neville is also active in several other community organisations and is both a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London.

(appointed 2023)

Mark is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Royal Free Hospital and the Clinical Service Lead of the CAMHS service. He was also instrumental in setting up the wellbeing project to support pupils, parents and teachers in Jewish schools, in which Norwood played an overarching role. As well as his professional role as Consultant within the neurodevelopmental team at the Royal Free Hospital, Mark also occupies several lay roles, including as a Clinical Adviser to a specialist Jewish charity which provides education and support to children with special needs in the Charedi community.

Rachael qualified and practised as a finance and restructuring lawyer in the City. She is a professional skills coach, devising bespoke performance enhancement programmes to lawyers and c-suite professionals. Rachael is also a Visiting Lecturer in business leadership and management and is an Associate Fellow of the HEA.

She sits on the Board of Trustees of the Radlett Centre Trust, oversees the investment portfolio of an estates charitable trust, and is a former Careers Academy mentor.
Rachael has been involved with Norwood since 2005, during which time she has held a number of lay positions, including Chair of the YN Lawyers committee and co-Chair of the Board of YN. She has been Chair of the annual Norwood Volunteer Recognition Awards since 2013.

Tamara Finkelstein is Permanent Secretary at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs having previously led the department’s work on EU Exit Delivery. Before that she led the Building Safety Programme in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Much of her career has been at HM Treasury where she started as an economist, and her roles included private secretary and speechwriter to the Chancellor, and leading on public services expenditure. She has worked in a number of other government departments on policy and delivery in health and children’s services including as Deputy Head of Sure Start, and as Director General for Community Care at the Department of Health and Social Care, with responsibility for social care and community services. She is a previous co-chair of New North London Synagogue, a trustee at JCOSS and senior sponsor of the Civil Service Jewish Network.

Ben Freeman works as the Chief Financial Officer in a private equity investment company in central London. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1996 and has worked as a finance director in financial services investment companies for the last 20 years.

He has previously been a non-exec director on the board of a supported living company that operated approximately 50 supported living homes in Kent, Sussex and Surrey and currently sits on the Finance Committee and Audit and Risk Committee for Nightingale Hammerson.

Justine is a partner in Brunswick Group’s Business & Society practice. She works with the leadership teams of global corporations to advise on their response to business-critical issues helping to ensure they deliver societal value alongside financial value.
Prior to this, Justine led the global sustainability function at Vodafone Group Plc, where she was responsible for Vodafone’s strategy to drive positive social impact at scale.

Justine was Director of Marketing and Communications for Jewish Care for over ten years and was responsible for all communications channels, internal and external stakeholder engagement, brand development and crisis and reputation management.

She started her career in advertising spending almost ten years at Saatchi & Saatchi, working on international campaigns for global clients, including Procter & Gamble.

Angela is a barrister and mediator specialising in the Court of Protection. Her background is of an established family practitioner with experience in all aspects of family law. In addition to her practice at the Bar she is Assistant Coroner for London Inner West and is a co- author of “Dementia and the Law”. Angela has been involved with Norwood for many years, initially with the Management Committee for Fostering and Adoption and currently with Norwood Operational Services Committee.

Tim is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants with a BSc in Economics from the LSE. Married with three grown up children he combines turnaround, investment and operational experience to support and lead multi country private equity back companies going through periods of change for distress, M&A and performance improvement purposes both overseas and in the UK. Tim has been a supporter of Norwood for a number of years and has tandem cycled a Norwood service user on overseas rides on several occasions.

Glynnis has over 30 years’ experience, working in local authority social services departments. She held senior social services leadership and management roles for over 15 years. She has been responsible for all aspects of adult social services including operations, commissioning, safeguarding, service improvement and the workforce. Glynnis has a strong commitment to those who use services and their families, and working in partnership with health services and the voluntary sector.

Cassy has over a decade of fundraising experience, having worked both in-house and as a consultant across the arts, higher education, medical and environmental sectors, for organisations including the Royal Academy of Arts and the Terrence Higgins Trust. More recently, Cassy co-founded AzuraMinds, which pioneers good mental health in business through regular mental health check-ins for employees.
In addition to her Norwood role, Cassy serves as an Ambassador and Trustee of ORT UK, an impact through education charity, working with young people to transform lives through training and education. Cassy is passionate about mentoring and empowering young people, including marginalised children and families, to maximise their life choices.

Gary is the Managing Director of City and Docklands Property Group. He has been involved with Norwood for many years and held the title of Fundraising Chair from 2006 to 2014. Gary has also overseen many major fundraising events for Norwood, helping to raise the £12m of voluntary income needed to run our services. Fundraising activities he has been involved in include the Annual Dinner, Business Breakfast, Property Lunch, YN, Challenge events and a host of community fundraising activities.

(appointed 2023)

An experienced corporate affairs director, Miles has held senior roles at a number of major corporations, recently as the senior partner at Baytree Advisors, having spent five years previously as Group Corporate Affairs Director on the executive committee of FTSE100 real estate business, Landsec. Prior to Landsec, Miles held senior roles at General Electric and Merrill Lynch.

Miles has extensive communal leadership experience, both in a professional and lay capacity, having begun his career as Executive Director of Labour Friends of Israel. As a lay leader he has held roles as Chair of Lead (JLC), Chair of Tzedek and a Trustee of the New Israel Fund. He is a serving Trustee of UJIA and the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, as well as the London Bubble Theatre.

Steve joined us at the beginning of August 2023, pending a permanent appointee. He lives in Cheam, Surrey and has extensive experience as a people director in The Church of England Children’s Society, Wandle Housing, Speech and Language UK and, most recently, Versus Arthritis. He brings experience of strategic HR, organisational design and development, HR transformation, workforce planning, employee relations, leadership development and internal engagement.

His hobbies are writing, gardening, walking, social events and he has been a lifelong fan of Eurovision, including seeing the event live on a few occasions, including Liverpool this year!

Liz joined Norwood in October 2022 having been in the charity sector since 2008, spending six years at World Jewish Relief before moving to Jami as Head of Development.  Liz has developed significant experience across Fundraising, Marketing and Social Enterprise functions, spearheading marketing and awareness efforts and increasing fundraising income for the organisations she has worked within.

Liz spent her early career in financial services at brands including Alliance & Leicester, NatWest and Coutts working in proposition and product development and marketing communications.

Liz lives with her husband and family in NW London and is mum to two boys and a dog.

Philippa joined Norwood in June 2021 with a remit covering Quality, Safeguarding, Health and Safety and GDPR . Philippa qualified in Leeds as Registered Nurse in 1990 and retains her Nurse registration. She undertook her first role in Social Care in 1997 as an Area Manager and has held a variety of operational and strategic roles at Senior Management level within commercial and not for profit national Health and Social Care providers as well as 4 years heading up the social care content team in a SaaS company. Philippa is passionate about supporting people to live the best lives and ensuring staff have the right systems and processes in place to provide truly person centred care and support.

She lives in South West London with her husband , two children and a lively dog.

Caroline Taylor is a Registered Mental Nurse, and joined Norwood as Director of Services and Development in August 2021. Caroline has worked in health and social care for over 30 years in the NHS, private healthcare and not-for-profit sectors. She has held various General Manager and Director positions with responsibility for operations nationally, emergency planning, designing & commissioning new services as well as hospital and service re-development. Caroline is passionate about transforming services to become truly person-centred so that people can enjoy meaningful, fulfilling lives, supported by a staff team who feel valued.

Hannah joined Norwood in May 2022 as Assistant Director of Growth & Development, leading referrals and housing project streams as part of Norwood’s work to grow the charity’s adult services provision to meet the needs of the community. Her remit further developed as Deputy Director of Services & Development before she was appointed to Director of Services & Development in April 2023.

Prior to joining Norwood, Hannah spent 28 years at the National Autistic Society, where she began her career as a support worker, before honing her commitment to quality service delivery and operations as area manager, eventually becoming director of more than 200 adult services across the UK.

Hannah is passionate about enabling people to live the lives of their choosing, through providing good quality care and support in a inclusive and empowering community environment.