Peter Hansford

Chair

peter.hansford [at] ewb-uk.org

Peter became Chairman of EWB-UK in January 2012 having joined our Trustee Board in October 2010.

He is an executive director of the Nichols Group, and was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 2010-11. He first encountered EWB-UK when he was part of Professor Paul Jowitt’s Engineers without Frontiers commission.

During his ICE Presidential year, Peter promoted a national schools competition, the Create Sport Challenge, to create awareness of engineering with school children, teachers and parents, at an age before curriculum choices have to be made. Over 1000 12-13 year old girls and boys took part from all regions of the UK. He remains a champion for promoting engineering in schools. He encouraged ICE’s Graduates and Students to send Brunel the Bear on his Big Journey around the UK using sustainable travel means, raising funds for engineering charities (including EWB-UK) and creating public awareness of civil engineering wherever he went. Brunel is now resting at Peter’s house waiting for his next outing (any offers?).

Peter’s main theme during his ICE Presidency was Delivering Value, including delivering ‘”value for carbon”. He sponsored the ICE’s Low Carbon Infrastructure Trajectory to 2050.

In his day job Peter is a specialist in project and programme management, advising and supporting major infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and Thames Tunnel. He has wide experience in corporate and programme governance. Peter is passionate about EWB-UK and is keen to help guide the organisation through its next stage of development.

Sacha Grodzinski

Sacha spent the summer of 2005 volunteering with EWB-UK on an Improved Cooking Stove (ICS) project in Nepal. On his return he co-found EWB-Nottingham driven by the idea that EWB-UK can facilitate International Development while increasing the capacity of young engineers. At the 2006 AGM he was elected on to the Board of Trustees and has been involved with various focus groups including; developing the Training and Education Strategy, overseeing the Training and bursaries programmes, the recruitment of the charities first 2 employees and Communities of Practice. Along with his formal role he has continued to project manage and mentor various ICS work undertaken by EWB-UK and lead a number of talks and workshops. Sacha is committed to raising the quality of EWB-UK’s work through building stronger: internal pools of knowledge, links within the development sector and routes to disseminate our work. This will add weight to EWB-UK’s position as an impact focused facilitator to the International Development sector.

Richa Bhuttar

Richa was first introduced to EWB-UK at the University of Sheffield where she completed 2 years in Electronic and Communication Engineering. She’s currently working as a placement student with Cummins Diesel Engines based in Darlington, Durham. Early this year she took up the position of the Regional Outreach Coordinator for North East and Scotland and she’s looking to foster better communication between Outreach branches.

Dr. Priti Parikh

Professional Network trustee

Priti is a teaching fellow at UCL where she leads a module on ‘Systems, Society and Sustainability’. She also is a researcher at the Imperial College Business School in London where she works on developing innovative business models for rural electrification in East Africa. She also runs a consultancy, Development Vision 2020. Priti has worked as an engineer and urban planner for over 10 years in India and has extensive experience in infrastructure planning for cities and slums. She is a fellow of Royal Society of Arts and the recipient of ACE/NCE Outstanding Contribution Award in the UK, and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers International Development Panel. Priti was the Professional Network Co-ordinator for EWB-UK when it was first launched.

Stephen Jones

Stephen was previously co-CEO of EWB-UK from 2005-2007 and a trustee from 2008-2010. He is currently completing a PhD in collaboration with WaterAid, examining the role of NGOs in improving rural water services.

Adam Harvey-Cook

Branch Support trustee

Adam has been involved with Engineers Without Borders since he started at Imperial College three years ago. He’s got committee experience as the branch secretary and social secretary, and he has been running training workshops for students. He was the treasurer of a branch project working on rainwater harvesting systems in Tanzania. Beyond the walls of the Imperial, he worked to improve communication with other branches and with the National Executive.

Martin McCann

Martin McCann is the Chief Executive of RedR UK since January 2007. Martin was the Program Director (1988-95) of a £350 million a year NGO, Plan International, overseeing all aspects of technical work, monitoring and evaluation and grant management. Martin has spent over 30 years working for international NGOs with 4 years out working for the University of Toronto. He has worked and lived in both Nigeria and Indonesia and has for work purposes visited over 60 countries. His last academic qualification is a Masters of Rural Development (Administration) (1987-88) from the University of East Anglia where his dissertation was the Professionalisation and Bureaucratisation of Northern NGOs. Martin has extensive experience on committees ranging from the student rep on the council of the University of Toronto’s Department of Philosophy to presently serving on three committees ranging from a private foundation to WarChild UK to PM4NGOs (a transatlantic NGO to promote Program Management skills). He has served on numerous other co-ordination bodies.

Prof. Nick Tyler CBE

Rachel Haynes

Rachel has been working in the development and voluntary sector for more than twenty years. She started by supporting refugees in the UK and then joined an organisation called Skillshare International. While at Skillshare, Rachel implemented an income generation strategy and studied for her MSc in Development Management. She has since set up her own development consultancy, studied for a Masters in Gender and International Development and volunteered as the Co-Chair for the BOND ‘Funding Working Group’.

Roger Morton

Roger took a year out of his 4 year Mechanical Engineering degree course at Exeter University, to work on a 6 month placement with EWB-UK and Selco in India. While on his placement, he designed and built several innovative prototypes for the rural and urban poor.

Roger has been Co-President and President of the Exeter branch of EWB-UK and after his experiences as President, interned at EWB-UK in Cambridge to write the ‘Presidents’ Survival Guide’, which was published and distributed at the same AGM he was elected as a trustee. With 2 years left of study at appointment, and a wealth of experience of what EWB-UK can offer young people, Roger hopes he is well suited to represent the student population of the charity on the board of trustees.

Matthew Rees

Treasurer

Matthew was appointed as the Finance Trustee for EWB in January 2012. He has worked with international development NGOs over the past eight years and completed an internship at the Department for International Development (DfID).

In addition to his role at EWB, he is also the Co-Chair of Bristol Volunteers for Development Abroad (BVDA), a student volunteering charity who run projects in partnership with NGOs in Africa and Asia. Matthew is also the micro-finance programme lead for Development Nepal (DN), a grass roots charity based in Nepal who run programmes on rural development across Health, Rights, Finance, Education and Infrastructure.

Matt also has direct experience in the field. This includes project management of a WASH and toilet construction project in partnership with the University of Rwanda, an education and construction project in rural Nepal and establishing a grass roots micro finance institution, also in rural Nepal.

Alongside his voluntary experience, he is currently a consultant and Chartered Accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), with extensive experience in delivering a range of financial, governance and commercial projects across both the private and public sectors.  In the private sector this includes experience in turnarounds for commercial businesses, developing and implementing robust financial and strategic plans to improve performance, profitability and long term prospects. In the public sector this includes delivery of governance, risk management and system reviews across central government, local government and the charity sector.

Dr. Elizabeth Miles

Liz is a Senior Lecturer in Project Management at Coventry University.

Liz studied at Leeds University from 1986 – 1994 when she gained her Ph.D. entitled ‘Hydrogen in Steel Welds’. After an 18 month post doctoral position at Cambridge University she was awarded a Royal Society Fellowship to go and study for 2 years in the National Research Institute for Metals in Tsukuba Science City, Japan. Upon her return from Japan she took a position in her family’s heavy engineering company, becoming the third generation to join the business.

In 2000 Liz began her teaching career as an academic at Coventry University teaching engineering management, entrepreneurship and business start up in an effort to ensure that newly qualified engineers had the skills and confidence to set up their own businesses. This resulted in Liz joining the Royal Academy of Engineering initially as an Education Innovator but later as the Project Director for the HEI strand of the London Engineering Project, a government funded initiative designed to increase the number of people studying engineering at university. At the end of the project Liz returned to Coventry University as a Senior Lecturer in Project Management and was awarded a Vodafone World of Difference award to work with Engineers Without Borders-UK on their education strand.

Liz now works in close association with the Dean of Engineering at Coventry University on the embedding of humanitarian engineering across the Faculty and has recently been appointed a trustee of EWB-UK.