Jenny Willott, OBE
CEO
Jenny became our CEO on 8 Jan 2024. Prior to joining Re-engage she held positions across the education, voluntary and political sectors. She also served as a Member of Parliament from 2005 to 2015.
Jenny will be leading our ambitious growth plans outlined in our strategy, particularly in the areas of income generation, impact, innovation and external engagement.
Jess Doyle
Head of research and consultancy
Jess is an experienced leader in the charity sector, Jess is passionate about advocating and amplifying the voices of those who are often let down or isolated by the societal infrastructures that surround them. Jess specialises in strategic planning, impact and horizon scanning, monitoring and evaluation, co-production methods and policy and inclusion.
Laura Joplin
Head of impact
Laura leads our impact strategy, using research, data insights and monitoring, evaluation and learning to inform service development, increase impact and deliver our mission. An experienced leader in the education and charity sectors, Laura specialises in inclusion, loneliness and aging.
Gemma MacNulty
Head of organisational effectiveness
Gemma oversees the whole charity’s processes for continuous improvement and ensures that Re-engage becomes more efficient, whilst enhancing the quality of experience that is offered to older people, volunteers, and staff. With 15 years in the charity sector, she has a deep understanding of the issues facing older people and the services offered by Re-engage.
Emily Mangroves
Head of service delivery and volunteering
Emily leads our frontline team to deliver engaging programmes for older people and volunteers, enabling them to forge meaningful social connections.
Emily has worked in the charity sector for almost a decade, holding several leadership positions at older people’s charities. She’s experienced in creating dynamic and sustainable face-to-face, telephone and online services for older people living in social isolation. She’s passionate about intergenerational connection, neighbourliness and celebrating volunteers.
Colette Mullings
Head of marketing and communications
Colette oversees all marketing and communications activities at Re-engage, ensuring the charity speaks with consistency and expertise on a range of topics from inspiring donors, to educating audiences on the impact of loneliness in later life.
With over 30 years of experience in domestic and international markets, Colette has led marketing and communications initiatives across a range of industries, including accountancy, law and logistics. In 2020, Colette moved to the charity sector, and here at Re-engage, she brings her expertise and passion for making a difference to our mission of ending loneliness in later life.
Tom Oakes
Head of growth
Tom focuses on the recruitment of older people via referral partnerships across the UK. He is responsible for scaling existing services by bringing thousands of older people and volunteers into the charity every year.
Tom has more than 12 years' team, sales and account management experience, honed across a diverse range of industries including live events and private healthcare. He has a proven track record of consistently supporting growth efforts and surpassing targets. Beyond his professional life, Tom, a qualified therapeutic counsellor, is passionate about volunteering and actively contributes to charity initiatives, ensuring accessible counselling for those in need of support with their mental health.
Our Trustees
Jonathan Upton
Chair
Jonathan joined the board of Trustees in May 2019 and was appointed chair of the board of trustees in February 2022. He began his career with Arthur Andersen as an auditor, followed by a two year stint in the city as a Financial Controller for Pradera AM-PLC living in London and Milan. Having left Pradera in 2005, he joined a university friend who had recently setup a business specialising in residential property data, which they sold together in 2014. More recently, he has setup and invested in other data businesses in property information and legal technology.
His Grandmother to whom he was very close, had Parkinson’s disease and Parkinsonian dementia and he hopes that through Re-engage, he can try to help more people enjoy the frequent social contact that she had.
Stewart Gilfillan OBE
Vice chair
After working in the both the Home Office and the Scottish Office for 20 years, Stewart Gilfillan joined the new Scottish Parliament at its inception in 1999, first as a Director then as Assistant Chief Executive. As well as knowledge of the political and administrative landscape in Scotland, Stewart has extensive experience of public sector finance, human resources, strategic planning, risk management, organisational performance and change management.
Now retired, Stewart is a volunteer driver for Re-engage in Edinburgh. He was motivated to join following the death of his mother who, despite being fiercely independent and having a good deal of support from nearby relatives, found weekends difficult and looked forward to the companionship of being taken out for a drive or lunch on a Sunday. Stewart was appointed vice chair in February 2022.
Stewart hopes to be able to bring his experience of government and parliament to help Re-engage develop and expand its unique role in alleviating isolation among older people.
Sue Scholes
Treasurer
Sue became the Treasurer and a trustee of Re-engage in May 2019. She has been a call companion since 2020.
She is an Examiner and past Chair of the UK’s Investor Relations Society (a not-for-profit professional body representing the voice of its 800+ members and promoting best practice in investor relations) and was until recently a trustee of MAC Birmingham (the Midlands’ most visited arts centre).
Sue spent seven years as Director of Communications and member of the Executive Team at AMEC plc, during a period of significant and successful transformation. AMEC was then a FTSE 100 engineering, project management and consultancy company, with some 26,000 employees working in 40 countries.
A CIMA-qualified accountant, she started her working life at Cadbury Schweppes plc. She has held a number of senior finance roles and began working in investor relations at GKN plc. Prior to joining AMEC, she was Head of Investor Relations at Brambles Industries plc, an Anglo-Australian dual-listed company.
Amy Cashman
Amy is UK & Ireland CEO of Kantar, the world’s leading data, insights and consulting company. A graduate of the London School of Economics, her interest in numbers and human behaviour led her into an insight career where she enjoys helping organisations interpret people’s actions and leveraging that for growth. Amy is a champion of Kantar’s research to help businesses better understand women as customers which has included appearances on BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour.
In January 2023 Amy started to volunteer with Be The Business, where she provided advice and guidance to fast-growing UK SMEs. She was keen to take those advisory skills into the charity sector and was delighted to be appointed a Trustee of Re-Engage in early 2024.
Beyond work, Amy enjoys spending time with her family & friends, travelling, practicing yoga, playing tennis, skiing and watching Strictly Come Dancing.
Penny East
Penny is the External Relations Director at a mental health organisation, Think Ahead. The charity recruits, trains and develops the mental health workforce; Penny holds responsibility for digital innovation and campaigns to encourage people to become mental health practitioners, and leading policy, research and fundraising to broaden the organisation's impact. Before that, Penny worked as Head of Communications for a domestic abuse charity, and continues to sit on the Board for a national domestic abuse initiative working in partnership with Police and Crime Commissioners across the country.
Penny is passionate about the potential of communications and engagement to drive social change and awareness. Penny has an BA from the London School of Economics and went on to train as a journalist, and remains a keen writer.
Dr Sally Fowler Davis
Sally began baking for and hosting tea-parties in 2015, with support from her family she was part of a new group who came together in Sheffield. She became a trustee in 2020 and is looking forward to this further involvement with Re-engage.
Sally has a clinical background in the NHS and remains very involved in health and care services through her work as Professor of Allied Health – Anglia Ruskin University. She has held senior programme lead roles at the Department of Health and enjoys contributing to Public Health Leadership education programmes across Europe.
She remains committed to the wellbeing of older adults and mainly undertakes research in care homes and investigations about new services and new ways of working in health and care systems. With current interests and research activity associated with the recovery from Covid19 she is looking at health and rehabilitation outcomes for older people.
Christian Grobel
Christian Grobel first volunteered for Re-engage as a driver in Westminster in 2001. He joined the Board of Trustees in 2004 as Hon. Treasurer, becoming Deputy Chair in 2014.
Christian began his career at KPMG, after which he worked at EMI Music and subsequently FremantleMedia, the global TV production company, in various positions in the UK and US. He is currently the owner and CEO of Media Chain, the former media division of the social media company Social Chain.
Christian was chair of the board of trustees from July 2015 to February 2022 and is co-founder of The London Choral Sinfonia.
Sean Hickey
Sean, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of homecare specialists, HealthNet, is an experienced transformational IT leader.
A member of the Institute for Digital Transformation for over eight years, Sean has overseen and delivered transformational IT change across multiple industry sectors including consumer goods, oil and gas and construction.
Sean joined our board of Trustees in March 2024.
Chris Hicks
Chris brings 18 years of multi–industry experience in the digital and technology landscape and currently holds the position of Chief Technology Officer for the Watches of Switzerland Group. Previously Chris has held executive roles with McLaren, GfK, and AJW Group, and will be supporting our technology strategy moving forward.
Shamsah Lalji
Shamsah is the Owner and Director of Comfort Care At Home. She launched this home care business to provide high-quality care to those in need, helping them live safer, happier and more fulfilling lives in their own home. Shamsah has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and an MBA in Marketing.
She has worked for a number of years in the pharmaceutical industry, specialising in conditions and diseases many older people are living with, such as diabetes, nutrition disorders, cancer, and many more. Shamsah has always enjoyed being involved in the community, volunteering with multiple organisations and raising money for charities. She understands the importance of community support, which makes her a successful business owner.
Chris Stylianou OBE
Chris graduated at Bristol University, where he studied Physics. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant at KPMG, working across several industries including banking, retail, manufacturing and latterly, media and entertainment. Chris spent most of his career at Sky Plc in Finance and Operations, becoming both the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and latterly the Chief Operating Officer in the UK & RoI.
Chris served on the Women’s Business Council (a government backed committee) to improve gender equality in UK businesses. In recognition of his services to Diversity and The Economy, he was awarded an OBE in 2020.
Chris is now semi-retired and is active in the charity sector. He initially became involved in Re-engage as a tea party host, and has also launched a corporate befriending service that was targeted at reducing loneliness for older people.
He is a Governor at Alleyns School, and a Trustee at Bafta Media Technology.
Jonathan Waite KC
After Cambridge University, Jonathan was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1978, joining Chambers at One Paper Buildings (later Crown Office Chambers) in 1979. Throughout his legal career he has specialised in most aspects of medico-legal work and associated insurance disputes. In the last 25 years, he has concentrated mainly on cases in which he was instructed on behalf of the manufacturers of pharmaceutical products (usually multi-Claimant cases concerning the side-effects of vaccines and drugs) and on behalf of the manufacturers of medical devices. He was appointed a QC in 2002 and since then, whilst concentrating on pharmaceutical and medical device cases, he has also acted in cases involving major property damage, usually arising from fires or floods. After 40 years practice at the Bar he retired in March 2019.
Since 2014 he has been a Trustee of the Marshall Hall Trust which provides financial assistance to needy members of the Inner Temple, and in particular students. He has been Chair of the Board of Trustees of that charity since 2016.