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  • meet-the-team
  1. Who we are
  2. Our team

Meet the team

Trustees

Meet our board

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Sue Rimmer OBE (chair)


Sue Rimmer is Chair of The Girls’ Network and Vice Chair of Council at St George’s University of London. She is also a fellow of the RSA. Until July 2017, Sue was Principal and CEO of South Thames College for over 16 years and has over 30 years experience in the further education and skills sector. Sue has advised on and shaped a wide range of educational and skills strategies and policy developments at local, regional and national levels. Throughout her career, Sue has demonstrated a passion for and strong commitment to pursuing equality, diversity and inclusion.


In addition to being CEO & Principal, Sue held a number of external positions including: Chair of the Association of Colleges (London Region), a Board member on the London Development Agency, Chair of London Capital Colleges; Chair of the Principal’s Professional Council; a trustee of the Helena Kennedy Foundation and a Commissioner for the All Parliamentary Group for Skills. Sue has a BA (Hons) in Sociology and Psychology and a postgraduate Certificate in Education. She was awarded the OBE in the 2011 New Year’s Honours list for services to Further Education.


Hannah Essex

Hannah Essex is Vice-Chair and Founding Trustee of The Girls' Network. She met Co-Founders Becca Dean and Charly Young while she was Director of Communications at Teach First. They told her about their idea for what became The Girls' Network - she was immediately hooked and has been involved ever since. A life-long feminist, Hannah is passionate about improving the life chances of the least advantaged young people and creating a more equal and inclusive society. 

Hannah's day job is Co-Executive Director at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), a role she shares with Claire Walker. BCC sits at the heart of a business network that spans the length and breadth of the UK, with links to markets across the world. 

Claire and Hannah joined the British Chambers of Commerce in September 2019 having formed their partnership in 2016 while at Teach First and they co-lead the BCC's policy, advocacy, communications and membership work. 


Michelle Rodrigues

Michelle joined the Board of Trustees of The Girls’ Network in 2018. Having studied law at Cambridge University, she spent 11 years as a Corporate lawyer at City practice Taylor Wessing before moving to financial services firm Instinet Europe Limited, a Nomura company, where she currently serves as General Counsel. Her area of specialism is Corporate Governance and in 2020 she received an award for Excellence in Governance at the European Women in Finance Awards.

Michelle is passionate about The Girls’ Network’s mission to connect girls from the least advantaged communities to professional female mentors, having had personal experience of the positive impact of mentoring during her teenage years.





Sarah Vawda


Sarah has over 30 years corporate development, M&A and business transformation experience gained through senior roles with global businesses across multiple industries within both public and PE owned companies. She has held executive roles with Christian Salvesen plc and Provimi SA and is Corporate Development Director for Johnson Matthey plc.

She is currently a Board Director for Hamlet Protein in Denmark and Noveltech in India, both private equity owned businesses.

Published: 30th March, 2019

Updated: 10th June, 2021

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CEO and co-founder

Charly Young MBE

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Photo of CEO and co-founder of The Girls Network Charly Young

Charly founded The Girls’ Network with Becca in 2013, whilst they were teaching in secondary schools in North West London. Her background is in education that supports the whole child, and the use of networks to facilitate this. Prior to teaching, she worked at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) as an education researcher, and with Whole Education supporting school leadership teams.

She is passionate about the use of networks to empower, support and mobilise people, and believes that good mentoring can be transformational, for both mentor and mentee.

[email protected] @young_charlotte 

Published: 31st March, 2019

Updated: 7th February, 2022

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Senior leadership team

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Head of Programmes: Katie Thiselton

Head of Fundraising and Communications: Katya Borowski

Head of Finance and Operations: Fiona Stancombe / 07706 332043

Published: 1st April, 2019

Updated: 16th May, 2022

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Showing 10 of 3

Latest

  • Ambassadors on... breaking the bias as a young, multiracial author

    Ambassadors on... breaking the bias as a young, multiracial author

    In our latest blog by an ambassador, Jess talks about why she chose to self-publish her book.

  • Mentee to ambassador - meet Rea

    Mentee to ambassador - meet Rea

    Mentoring impacts everyone differently. For ambassador, Rea, it was about exploring the options available to her and finding her feminism.

  • Mentee to ambassador - meet Yentel

    Mentee to ambassador - meet Yentel

    Yentel is an ambassador at The Girls' Network, a Young Advisor to Liverpool City Council and the Vice President of her Student Union. Here, she talks more about how mentoring has supported her to explore these different opportunities.

  • Mentee to ambassador - meet Olivia

    Mentee to ambassador - meet Olivia

    After their mentoring journey has come to an end, our mentees are invited to join our Ambassador Community. Here, Eastbourne ambassador, Olivia, reflects on her time as a member of The Girls' Network.

Most read

  • Become a mentor

    Become a mentor

    Mentoring is an amazing way to share your experience and skills with a girl who may not otherwise benefit from this support

  • Join the team

    Join the team

    We're hiring! Take a look at what's available.

  • What we do

    What we do

    The Girls' Network mission is to inspire and empower girls from the least advantaged communities by connecting them with a mentor and a network of professional female role models

  • Our story

    Our story

    The Girls' Network was founded by two secondary school teachers in 2013. Find out more about the aims of the charity and the impact of the mentoring programme so far.

  • Just because I'm a girl, doesn't mean I'm any less capable

    Just because I'm a girl, doesn't mean I'm any less capable

    Our ambassador Dilara reflects on her mentoring journey 5 years on, to mark National Mentoring Day 2020

  • Senior leadership team

  • Where we work

    Where we work

  • Contact us

    The Girls' Network would love to hear from you!

  • CEO and co-founder

    Charly Young MBE

  • Trustees

    Meet our board

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