Page 32 – Business in the Community

Stephen Hogg

Stephen Hogg

Stephen Hogg

Lead Director,
JLL

North West Leadership Board

Stephen Hogg was born in the north east of England but has lived in Manchester for the past 25 years and is a proud Northerner.

Married with three children under the age of 15, he enjoys skiing and snowboarding in the winter, occasional golf and triathlons in the summer but now mainly watches his children’s sporting activities rather than undertaking his own.

Stephen is head of JLL’s North West Commercial office alongside being the Head of JLL’s Residential business outside of London. The 150-strong office is JLL’s second largest in the UK and one of the region’s largest property consultancy’s covering all aspects of property.

Primarily, Stephen is a Chartered Surveyor with over 20 years of experience in the property industry, with a key focus on Manchester and the North West. Over the past five years Stephen has invested a significant amount of time travelling to China, Hong Kong and South East Asia promoting Manchester residential investment opportunities. 

Stephen has extensive experience of providing development and strategic residential advice and services to a number of large housebuilders and residential developers including Taylor Wimpey, Muse Developments, Bellway Homes, Lend Lease, Peel Holdings, Grosvenor and MSREF.

Stephen has been involved in the majority of Manchester and Liverpool city centre residential developments in some form or another. Large developments include Century Buildings, The Edge, Great Northern Tower, One Park West, Mann Island and more recently MediaCityUK, St John’s and Deansgate Square.

Simon Peacock

Simon Peacock

Lead Director – Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter,
JLL

South West Leadership Board

Simon Peacock is Lead Director for the South and Wales region at JLL, responsible for 12 specialist teams with 160 staff across Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter offices. 

He sits on the JLL UK Operations Board and also leads the UK Project Management group in the regions.

He qualified as a building surveyor in London before specialising in construction project management and now leads the wider regional business including commercial agency, investment, valuation, planning, development and residential consultancy. 

He has considerable experience in new build capital projects, workplace design and consulting, covering feasibility, appraisal, strategy, planning, procurement, design and construction. He has been the Chairman of the British Council for Offices (BCO) South and Wales Chapter and an active member with BusinessWest and Bristol & West of England Initiative, and is well connected within the region’s property and development market.

JLL and Simon are active in the community and sustainability sector with a particular focus on improving energy performance and sustainability in buildings, encouraging green commuting, supporting greater diversity in business and using his industry to deliver projects and campaigning to eliminate homelessness. Simon sees Business in the Community as an excellent way to foster this responsible business approach for the benefit of all those in communities. 

Simon enjoys keeping fit, cycling, skiing, trying to surf, as well as spending time with his family on the windswept beaches of the Gower.

Keith Weed CBE

Keith Weed sits at a table with his hands clasped in front of him

Keith Weed CBE

President, Royal Horticultural Society
Non-Executive Director, WPP plc and Sainsbury’s plc

Business in the Community Board of Trustee Directors

Keith Weed CBE currently serves as a Non-Executive Director on the Boards of Sainsbury’s plc and WPP plc. He is also the President of the Royal Horticultural Society, the world’s leading gardening charity. In addition, Keith is a Trustee of Grange Park Opera, an advisor with AlixPartners and serves on the Leverhulme Trust Board. He is a Fellow of both The Marketing Society and Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 

Over the course of his career, Keith has championed new ways of integrating sustainability into business and building brands with purpose. He spent over 30 years at Unilever plc, where he served as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer from 2010 to 2019. In this role, he was a member of the Unilever Executive Board responsible for marketing, communications and sustainability.

During this time, Keith led the creation of the Unilever sustainable living plan and pioneered ways of integrating sustainability into the business as a key driver of growth. His responsibilities aligned with Unilever’s vision to grow the business while reducing its environmental footprint and increasing its positive social impact. Keith directed significant advances in digital and influencer marketing and technologies within Unilever and championed the 3Vs (viewability, verification and value) across the industry. He committed to tackling stereotypes (in gender and beyond) in advertising and is the architect behind the #Unstereotype Alliance, co-created with UN Women, bringing together over 1000 companies to remove the portrayal of unhelpful stereotypes from their advertising.

He was awarded a CBE for services to the advertising and marketing industry in the New Years Honours 2021.

Keith joined the Business in the Community (BITC) Board as a Trustee in November 2014.

Philip Powell

Philip Powell in a graduation gown

Philip Powell

Dean, Faculty of Business, Law and Politics,
University of Hull

Yorkshire and Humber Leadership Board

Philip Powell is Dean, Faculty of Business, Law and Politics, at the University of Hull. 

He was Executive Dean, Pro Vice-Master (Enterprise and Innovation), and Professor of Management at Birkbeck, University of London for ten years. His extensive research into information systems, management, operations and higher education management has led to more than 350 published outputs.

Before becoming a Dean in 2009, Philip was Deputy Dean of the School of Management at the University of Bath and previously worked at Warwick, Adelaide, Southampton and Nova de Lisboa Universities. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, of the Academy of Social Sciences, of the Centre for Distance Education, and of the Higher Education Academy.  He is also a Senior Scholar of the Association of Information Systems and a former president of the UK Academy for Information Systems. 

Prior to becoming an academic, Philip worked in insurance in London, accounting in Namibia and systems analysis in the US. He has long-standing interests in skills development and opportunities for reskilling, which led to his appointment to the Business and Administration Panel of the Institute for Apprenticeships. 

Philip is delighted to to offer his experiences to Business in the Community’s Yorkshire and Humber Leadership Board.

Philip has one daughter, who is an undergraduate in London.

Jonathan Gawthrop

Jonathan Gawthrop smiles

Jonathan Gawthrop

Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing,
EMCOR UK

East of England Leadership Board

An experienced board-level operator, Jonathan Gawthrop is Director for Health Safety and Wellbeing Director for EMCOR UK.

Jonathan has been with the national facilities management business since 2011, moving to his current position from a regional operational role.

Previously a Managing Director for a catering organisation, Jonathan is responsible for the development and practical application of his EMCOR UK’s strategy for health, safety and wellbeing and is the chair of its national health and safety forum.

NEBOSH-qualified and a specialist member of IIRSM, he has a masters degree in behaviour change and is a PhD student studying organisational health and wellbeing.

A member of the BSI national committee for Occupational Health and Safety ISO 45001, Jonathan acts as an advisory board member for a number of cross-industry panels working together to evolve safety and wellbeing throughout the UK.

Based near Norwich, Jonathan is married with children and two grandchildren. His passions outside work include music, literature, exercise and walking his dog.

Laura Smethurst

Laura Smethurst smiles

Laura Smethurst

BFA Transformation Director,
Barclays

North West Leadership Board

Laura Smethurst is originally from Edinburgh, where she studied chemistry at university and, despite enjoying this immensely, she took the decision to embark on a career in management consulting with Accenture. 

Laura worked for Accenture for 18 years in financial services and for the duration she was lucky enough to work on many significant transformation programmes across insurance (for Axa and Zurich Financial Services) as well as in banking (Lloyds and Barclays). 

In 2019 Laura left Accenture to join Barclays and is now the CIO for the financial assistance business area where she is responsible for running and maintaining the technology that supports the operations. She is responsible for the definition and delivery of the change programmes within this business area. 

Laura has chosen to join the North West Leadership Board having joined Barclays to help direct some of the support of Barclays back into the North West, as well as to expand her breadth of experience. 

Laura is passionate about encouraging women in technology and girls in Stem and so is hoping that the leadership board role will provide opportunities to develop these initiatives within the community. 

Laura lives in Manchester with her husband and young children, aged seven and five.

Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown on stage

Andrew Brown

Head of Sustainability,
Anglian Water Group

Place Taskforce

Andrew Brown is Head of Sustainability at Anglian Water Group and works with the board to oversee the delivery of their purpose, to bring environmental and social prosperity to the region served through its commitment to ‘Love Every Drop’.

In addition to embedding sustainability throughout the business he has direct responsibility for the teams delivering six capital and UN Global Goals thinking, community education, employee engagement and volunteering programmes and the Anglian Centre for Water Studies, a partnership with the University of East Anglia. 

Having worked in sustainability for the past 20 years he has led in the areas of natural environment, climate change adaptation and now sustainability.

Business in the Communty’s place programme

Business in the Community’s (BITC) Place Programme is about bringing everyone together in a place to act collaboratively. To act on long-term goals, based on a common agreement of the challenges, opportunities and solutions and drawing on the strengths of everyone in that community, whether they are a business, a community organisation or from the public sector.

Our mission

To facilitate meaningful connections between businesses, communities, and local councils to reset economic ambitions and collaborate on new, innovative solutions that will deliver long-term, transformative impact.

Michael Lavelle

Michael Lavelle

Michael Lavelle

Safety, Licencing & Assurance Director – NNB GenCo (SZC),
EDF Energy

East of England Leadership Board

Michael Lavelle is Director of Safety, Licencing and Assurance for Sizewell C, and is charged with being the internal regulator to ensure Sizewell C is built and operated safely.

Prior to this role, Michael has worked on nuclear safety across the EDF fleet, working within the Inspector General Sûreté Nucléaire team for EDF group. He has worked on the early stages of the Hinkley Point C project, on licencing and safety. Internationally he has represented EDF Energy on the European Utilities Reactor group and has worked in the World Association of Nuclear Operators, looking at improving nuclear safety and reliability within the peer review group as a team leader. Michael worked on the Sizewell B design and construction project, following this with working in commissioning, engineering, maintenance, and operations.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, has a BSC in Mechanical Engineering from Manchester and an MBA from Warwick university.

Mike lives in Suffolk, is a member of Suffolk Wildlife Trust, and has an interest in vehicle restoration and flying light aircraft.

Lucinda Charles-Jones

Lucinda Charles-Jones smiles

Lucinda Charles-Jones

Non-Executive Director,

Rank Group plc and Virgin Money plc
BITC Board of Trustee Directors

Lucinda Charles-Jones currently serves as a Non-Executive Director on the Boards of Rank Group plc and Virgin Money plc. At Virgin Money, Lucinda is Remuneration Committee Chair, in addition to serving on the Audit, Risk, and the Governance and Nomination Committees. At Rank Group, Lucinda is Chair of the Remuneration Committee and the Designated Non-Executive Director for Workforce Engagement, in addition to serving on the ESG, Nomination and Audit Committees.

Lucinda has more than 25 years of executive-level experience in human resources. Most recently, she was Chief People and Corporate Responsibility Officer UK & Ireland at AXA SA, where her role included responsibility for developing the environmental and social aspects of the corporate responsibility strategy.

Her previous roles have also included Group HR Director at Hays Plc; Group HR Director at Towergate Partnership Co Limited; and HR Director of RAC Plc’s Consumer Division.

Lucinda joined the Business in the Community (BITC) Board as a Trustee in April 2020 and chairs BITC’s Remuneration Committee.

Tim Freeman

Tim Freeman smiles

Tim Freeman

Deputy Managing Director,
Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK)

East Midlands Leadership Board

Tim Freeman is the Deputy Managing Director at Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd, responsible for the Engine Plant at Deeside, Flintshire, and Corporate and Production Control at both Toyota UK Plants. 

Tim joined Toyota as a Production Manager in 2003, and progressed to General Manager of the Press & Weld Division in 2008. From 2011, he worked in human resources as General Manager within Corporate Operations.

Tim returned to manufacturing in January 2013 as Director of Production Operations responsible for vehicle manufacturing areas, and took a dual assignment in 2014 with additional responsibility for quality assurance, facilities and environment, and vehicle projects.

In January 2017, he started his first international assignment as Production Vice President at Toyota, Peugeot, Citroen Automobile in the Czech Republic, and completed two-and-a-half years in that position. He returned to Toyota Manufacturing UK in July 2019 to take up the role of Production Support Director, in Burnaston.

Throughout his career, Tim has worked predominantly within the automotive industry, having experience in the supply, transmissions and vehicle manufacturing areas. Tim started his career as a Technician Apprentice at Mirrlees Blackstones, part of the Hawker Sidley Group. After graduating from Nottingham Trent University with a double honours degree in engineering and business studies, he worked as a Manufacturing Engineer and Cell Manager for Lucas Industries. Before joining Toyota, Tim worked as a Production Manager for Land Rover at the Solihull Plant.

Tim is married with two sons.