Leasing Foundation appoints seven new board members

The Leasing Foundation today announced that it has expanded its board and appointed seven new members to widen its focus and drive new channels:

• Mel Chell, partner at Shoosmiths director of client experience at Equivo and Lee Rhodes, commercial director – asset finance at Aldermore Bank have become board directors to lead the newly created ‘Giving’ channel.
• Julie Henehan, director – corporate development at Shire Leasing represents the board for the newly created ‘sustainability’ channel.  She will be joined by existing board director Jo Davis who moves over from the D&I channel.
• Helena Thernstrom, head of legal – asset and invoice finance at Natwest and Helen Lumb, chief financial officer at Shire Leasing have been appointed to the board to lead the diversity and inclusion channel, along with existing board director Carol Roberts.
• Karima Haji, transformation director at Scania UK and Ylva Oertengren, COO at Simply now represent the board for the Innovation Initiative, taking over from Mike Randall who moves to a non-executive director role.

Nathan Mollett, chair of the Leasing Foundation, commented: “The expansion of the board is a clear indication of our commitment to extend our influence in new channels and continue to lead the conversation on D&I and the next generation in the sector.  We’ve added “Giving” and “Sustainability” to our agenda for 2023 and therefore we recognised we needed make additions to the board to deliver the same high quality of work in these areas.  The new board members will enable us to this without diluting our efforts in the existing channels.

“A big welcome to Mel, Lee, Julie, Helena, Helen, Karima and Ylva.  They are experts in their chosen fields, passionate about the areas we have chosen to focus on, and senior leaders in the industry who can make a real difference.  They also bring more diversity to the existing board which will give us a new perspective and fresh thinking; it’s important we practice what we preach here.”

The new appointments to the board will join the following existing board members:

• Nathan Mollett, chair
• Jo Davis, sustainability (moving from D&I)
• Carol Roberts, D&I
• Graeme Chisholm, non-exec director
• Mike Randall, non-exec director
• Ian Isaac, non-exec director
• Andy Denton, non-exec director