Charitable Trust - About Us

Anne Holden
Chairman

​​​​​​​Anne Holden is a Commercial Director and Company Secretary for Donovan Bros Ltd; her family business which specialises in packaging for the catering trade. She is an active member of her local Church, a Past Master of the Guild of Freemen, member of the Farringdon Ward Club and the City Livery Club. Anne has recently served as the second Lady Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers in its 450 year history. She was appointed as a Trustee to the Charitable Trust in July 2022..

Graham Aslet

​​​​​​​Graham is an actuary who has worked for over 50 years in the life assurance business. For much of this time he was an executive director and Company Actuary of Friends Provident Life Office. When he ceased full-time employment he was a non-executive director and also a paid member of with-profit committees, also in the life assurance business. He has been a member of the Council of the Institute of Actuaries, serving as one of its Hon Secretaries and also as its Hon Treasurer. He became a Trustee of the Charitable Trust in September 2015 and its Chairman in October 2015.

Dorothy Newlands
of Lauriston

​​​​​​​Dorothy was voted Britain’s Technology Journalist of the Year and has written - as Dorothy Walker - for most of the national newspapers. She runs a bid-writing practice working with infrastructure companies. Her early career was in financial systems in the City, in business development and marketing. Dorothy became a Trustee of the Charitable Trust in 2020. She has served as Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights, heading the Glasgow-based charity, and as a Trustee of the Trades House of Glasgow. Dorothy holds a degree in archaeology from London’s Institute of Archaeology, and she and her husband have restored their medieval Lauriston Castle in Aberdeenshire, once a royal fortress. 

Hedley French

​​​​​​​Hedley’s career has been with the military, as an underwriter and then as a broker in the Lloyd’s insurance market and more recently with the oil industry providing financial, logistics and project management support to frontier oilfield development projects in the Falkland Islands and across Africa. Hedley is a Chartered Certified Accountant and a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute. He is a Trustee of the Charitable Trust with responsibility for Donations and is the Honorary Secretary.

Philip Miles

Philip has worked in the City of London’s financial world since 1990 and is a fund manager, currently at Canaccord but previously at Collins Stewart and before that at NatWest Stockbrokers.  He  has held a number of charitable and philanthropic positions including as Trustee of charities and as a committee member and then Chairman of Livery Schools Link, which co-ordinates support from all Livery Companies for schools with a focus on deprived areas of London.  He has been Chair of Governors and Chair of Schools Forum in an east London borough. Philip’s investment background means he takes responsibility for liaising with the Charitable Trust’s investment managers and for monitoring their performance.​​​​​​​ Philip has been a Trustee since 2015.

Stephen Bowsher

​​​​​​​Steve trained as a primary school teacher after completing a degree in Economics and has worked in education for over 25 years. He has held a number of positions in schools in the London Borough of Redbridge and Essex and is currently serving as a Headteacher. He is passionate about London and the City of London. Steve is currently the Basketmakers' representative for Livery Schools Link. He became a Trustee in 2022

Jing Li
​​​​​​​Grants Administrator

Jing has worked in the City of London’s financial world since 2007, when she arrived in the UK. Specialising in market risk and quantitative modelling, she is currently a risk manager in Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank. She is enthusiastic about London and the City of London and became a Freeman of the City in 2016. Passionate about charity work, Jing was a member of the Charity Committee of Credit Agricole CIB from 2014 to 2017, and in charge of employee sponsorship and relationship with local charity St Hilda’s East Community Centre.  She became the Charitable Trust’s grant administrator in 2022 and a Trustee in 2023.

Richard Burn
Honorary Secretary

Richard is a retired Solicitor; he trained in his home county of Northumberland, qualified in 1978 and then spent his entire professional life in private practice, firstly in north London and then in Hertfordshire, covering a broad spectrum of legal work before eventually specialising in residential property development work for small, high-quality developers.  He has previously served as the vice-chair of a charity making accessible coach travel possible for adults and children with serious or complex health conditions. A passionate photographer, he is a member of the Royal Photographic Society (from which he holds the Licentiate distinction) and judges camera club competitions within the East Anglian region.

Jon Pyzer

​​​​​​Jon is a former Chair of Finance of the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers and is a Court Member, currently responsible for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in the Company. He was previously responsible for links between the Company and the basketmaking trade.  He has worked in the City for over 40 years and is a Senior Adviser at the Bank of England. He is also a Trustee of the Friends of St Margaret Pattens, the Company’s Church built by Sir Christopher Wren. His other interests are focussed on sport: he is a member of the MCC, a member at Royal Windsor Racecourse and a West Ham season ticket holder. He has three grown-up children.

Annaliese Marshall

Following a career in the family printing company, Annaliese retrained to be a primary teacher. Her husband is in the Royal Navy and they have two children as well as dogs. A full-time job keeps her busy, balanced between a Learning Support Department Assistant to a SENCO at a prep school in Hampshire and an Occupational Therapy Assistant and some garden design in between.
She and her husband used to sail together regularly but, between children, deployments and various other activities, they now just sail when they can.  Annaliese has been an active part of her Yacht Club and has helped to run the Junior Regatta for the last two years.  She has recently finished her second stint on the committee for the local Military Wives Choir that she belongs to.
She has taken an active interest in basketmaking when time has permitted and has enjoyed making baskets with willow and rush-work.