VODG Annual Conference 2025

Stuart McKay

Partner, MHA

: https://www.macintyrehudson.co.uk/about-us/who-we-are

Jana Zacheva,

Director, Governance & Legal

Jana Zacheva is a qualified solicitor with over 17 years’ experience of working in the not-for-profit sector. In her career she has lead a number of functions, including governance, legal, data protection, risk, internl audit and policy for one of the largest social housing and care providers in the West Midlands and also for several other organisations in different parts of the country. This has provided her with a well-rounded understanding of the range of services required to be in place and working effectively to enable businesses to meet the needs of their customers. 

Jana is also a senior consultant for the affordable hosuinng team in Savills.  

She worked as an Associate in the Governance and Commercial team in Anthony Collins Solicitors. Her legal experience covers a wide variety of legal work, ranging from housing advice and litigation to a range of commercial contracts work. In more recent years, Jana has advised clients on the delivery of major projects such as joint ventures, collaboration arrangements and business growth. Jana continues to be registered as a solicitor of England and Wales and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority 

Currently, Jana serves as a non-executive director on the Board and Remunerations and Nominations Committee of Nehemiah Housing Association and as a trustee on the board of Birmingham and Solihull Women's Aid. 

As a governance practitioner and a non-excutive director of two organisations, Jana has the ability to see the issues from both perspectives - the executive and the non-executive and to find the most effective and workable balance for each of our clients. 

: https://www.governanceandlegal.com/
: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jana-zacheva-helping-n

Chris Rising

Internal Audit Director, ACCA, MHA

Chris joined MHA from a large mid-tier firm where he spent the previous 20 years since graduation from university managing a range of internal audit clients across the Not for Profit and Charity sectors.

Chris has over fifteen years of experience operating at a senior management level in supporting his client to ensure they have in place an effective governance, risk management and compliance framework and supporting a number of them through a period of uncertainty and change. Chris is a strong advocate for the innovative use of Internal Audit to provide assurance over the effectiveness of their control environment.

Chris is an ACCA Fellow and has dedicated his career to Internal Audit since graduating in Economics from the University of York.

: https://www.mha.co.uk/about-us/meet-the-team/chris-rising

Philip Middlewood

Project Director

Phil has been a freelance consultant since October 2022 and has worked with several large and small learning disability and autism charities. His role prior to this was 6.5 years as Chief Executive of Autism West Midlands.

Prior to Autism West Midlands Phil was Development Director at Affinity Trust for 8 years, where the charity grew considerably, taking on many new supported living services, in particular supporting many people to move from NHS campus reprovision into their own homes.  

Prior experience involves senior development and fundraising positions at the charities YMCA Training and Groundwork, and an early part of his career was 9 years working on contracts and strategy in local government.

Phil has been supporting United Response as an associate director since April 2022 to resolve challenging fee negotiations and reviewing service sustainability, and has over 3 decades of negotiations of all kinds under his belt.

Satya Samal

Trustee at United Response, and Client Partner (Financial Services) at IBM

Satya is a senior executive with several years’ experience in technology and management consulting.

He has worked with SAP, McKinsey, Infosys and L&T in various roles. Over the years, he has built businesses from the ground up, turned around underperforming businesses, delivered complex technology initiatives and helped both large and small companies, not-for-profit organisations and government bodies transform their operations using digital technologies.

Satya was born and educated in India and during his professional career has worked and lived in many countries in Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa and America.

In his spare time, Satya loves to cook and catch up on reading. He lives with his family in south west London. He says:

It is impossible not to be inspired by what United Response does and especially the extraordinary people who work in this organisation supporting people with learning disabilities and mental health issues. I consider it a privilege to be part of this amazing organisation and contribute in my own small way. Digital technology is now all around us. It is changing the way we interact and engage with each other. Many things that we saw in futuristic movie scenes a few years ago, are now real and present. I passionately believe that United Response and the people we support can benefit immensely from this new technology. I am excited by the possibilities and look forward to bringing my experience and expertise to realise the opportunities that digital offers.

Satya was co-opted to the United Response Board in 2020.

: https://www.unitedresponse.org.uk/person/satya-samal/

Christoph Marr

Managing Director, Marr Procurement

Christoph started his procurement career with Marks & Spencer after they sponsored him at University and went onto spend six years as Buyer then Buying Manager at the M&S Head Office in London. In 2001 IBM recruited Christoph as Senior Consultant and he was seconded as Head of Procurement for IBM Europe Middle East and Africa to help build the IBM UK Procurement Consulting practice involving procurement projects across the private and public sector in the UK, Europe and the US.

In March 2008 Care UK Plc recruited Christoph to create a procurement function and two years later was invited to join a ten strong team involved in a ￡300m venture capitalist backed management buyout.

In 2013 he was appointed as a judge for the annual Management Consulting Association awards and in 2014 Christoph founded the UK Procurement Leader Care Network, a group consisting of 51 Health & Social Care Procurement Directors with aggregated spend of ￡1bn.

Christoph has a 1st Class BA Honours degree from the Aberdeen Business School where he specialised in supply chain quality and his career ambition has been to create a procurement business which operates with real integrity, which always puts clients first and which only employs extraordinary people who have a passion for procurement – this is what differentiates Marr Procurement.

: https://www.marrprocurement.com/
: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christoph-marr-2360a31
: @https://twitter.com/christoph_marr

Dame Sharon White

Dame Sharon White was Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership (2020-25) and the first woman ever to be appointed to this position. Dame Sharon is an acknowledged business leader and an authoritative speaker on leadership at scale, managing complex organisations and change transformation in both the public and private sectors.

During her five-year term at the John Lewis Partnership, Dame Sharon led the Partnership through the pandemic and the worst of the cost of living crisis. Although this saw some challenging financial results for the Partnership during the time, Dame Sharon’s strategy to return the business to profitability succeeded, with the Partnership reporting a return to profit for the full year 2023/24. Furthermore, profits are expected to continue to grow as the Partnership looks ahead, with Dame Sharon’s leadership and expertise in delivering large scale, complex change transformation projects having paved the way.

Before joining the John Lewis Partnership, Dame Sharon served as Chief Executive for Ofcom (2015-19), the UK’s communications regulator. In this role, she managed the organisation through a significant period of change, in which the telecoms and broadcasting industries introduced greater focus on the promotion of fair competition, consumer protection, and innovation.

Prior to this, Dame Sharon was Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, responsible for overseeing the public finances. She also served as Director General at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for International Development, as well as in an advisory role at the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit. During her time living in the US, Dame Share worked first for the Foreign Office and then in Washington DC as a senior economist at the World Bank.

Through her tenure in a number of senior roles within government, regulation and business, Dame Sharon has developed a unique perspective on the UK, with a strong understanding of the wider global context. She has a keen interest in the UK economy and speaks confidently about the opportunities and risks it presents to businesses, helping them to navigate the ever-changing macroenvironment.

Dame Sharon was awarded a Damehood in the New Year’s Honours 2020 for her work at Ofcom. Most recently, in 2023, she was named as Britain’s most influential black person in the 2023 Powerlist.

She is a trained economist and studied at Cambridge University and University College London.