Hull & East Yorkshire Children's University is pleased to announce the appointment of two new Trustees: Ashley Smith and Kate van der Sluis.
Kate is a Managing Partner at Humber HR People and brings a wealth of knowledge about HR to the charity. Kate has a BA English & Psychology, 1997, FRIP – Fellow of the Institute of Recruitment Practitioners. She has 20 years’ experience as a Recruitment Manager and Director across Yorkshire: her particular passions are employer branding and marketing; leadership and management development and connecting businesses and organisations to work together: she is passionate about the strength of collaboration and partnerships. Kate had this to say about the work of HEY CU and joining the board "I feel passionately about the work you do at Hull & East Yorkshire Children’s University. As a Mum, a kid from a council estate in Bradford, an ex-nearly teacher and now in my career working with employers and their staff, I see first-hand the impact of interventions for children at a young age and the difference it makes to their aspirations and achievements later in life. I can think of no other charity we would rather support." With Kate joining she also brings over 120 years of HR experience with the wider team at Humber HR People also providing support to the charity.
Kate will be taking the place of Dickie Donovan, Group People Director at William Jackson Food Group, the charities current Trustee with a background in HR. Dickie has decided to find work closer to home so that he can spend more time with his family. Dickie will be greatly missed and we wish him the best of luck.
As a charity we want to ensure that we are as diverse as possible and represent our beneficiaries heritage in our volunteers, team and Board of Trustees. We wanted to ensure that we have some younger board members hence the addition of Ashley Smith, Product Manager at Ideal Standard and 2020 winner of the Hull & Humber Top 30 Under 30.
In 2017 Ashley was selected as part of the Ideal Standard ‘Emerging Talent’ programme with eleven colleagues. In 2019 this gave him the opportunity to travel to Malawi for 10 days, in partnership with one of Ideal Standard’s new house build customers, Miller Homes, and their chosen charity, Habitat for Humanity. While in Malawi he built homes for three families giving him a new found passion for charitable work leading him to express an interest in becoming a Trustee for HEY CU. Ashley said "I feel it’s important to develop the city’s future adults and give them opportunities they may not otherwise have. I have always learnt best by doing. Some of my best childhood memories are school trips, where learning was made enjoyable and sociable. HEY Children’s University have been delivering some fantastic projects for some years and it would be a privilege to play a part in the development of this fantastic charity." Ashley brings youth and enthusiasm as well as six years of marketing experience to the charity and we are
excited that he is part of the team.
We continue to evolve the mix of Trustees on our Board. We do a yearly skills audit of our trustees to ensure that have the right mix of expertise. Although we are currently not recruiting Trustees we welcome expressions of interest from people of all backgrounds. These can be emailed to Natasha Barley Charity Director n.banke@hull.ac.uk