Charity bolsters board expertise with seven new appointments

25th May 2017

South Yorkshire's Community Foundation (SYCF) is further bolstering the expertise of its board with the appointment of seven new trustees.

Bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge, the appointments will help to drive the strategy and vision of the charity, which provides grants to community organisations and charities in Sheffield who support local people. The new trustees, who hail from professional services and PR sectors, bring the total number of board members to 20. They are Alex Pettifer MBE, current chairman of St Luke's Hospice; John Pickering, former chief executive of Irwin Mitchell; Martin Ross, managing director of the PR company, HR Media; Nick Kitchen, former human resources director of Unilever and current trustee for Citizens Advice Rotherham; Yiannis Koursis, deputy principal of Barnsley College; Shahida Siddique, founding partner and director of Faithstar LLP and Michele Todd, partner and head of the private client department of hlw Keeble Hawson Solicitors. James Newman, chairman of SYCF and former chairman of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said: -As chairman, I warmly welcome our new trustees to the team. I know that they will only strengthen our already talented and skilled board. We are excited to look to the future of our charity, the future of Sheffield and the rest of South Yorkshire, with our new trustees on side. SYCF has awarded more than £26m for 8,250 community grants over the last 30 years. Across 2015-16, its awards supported 1 in 10 people across South Yorkshire. For more information, visit www.sycf.org.uk Caption: Wealth of experience and knowledge: James Newman (right) with left to right Shahida Siddique, Michele Todd, John Pickering, Martin Ross and Yiannis Koursis.