Meet the Trustees
Anji Hunter
Anji Hunter is currently a Senior Adviser for Edelman, providing senior counsel to clients across the business advising on corporate reputation building, crisis management and public affairs. She is also working with the agency to help promote senior women in the communications industry. Prior to joining Edelman, she worked for the Royal Academy of Engineering as the Director of The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and before that was Group Head of Government and Social Affairs at Anglo American plc, and for seven years she was Group Director of Communications at BP. She worked for Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1987 to 2002, in opposition and government, becoming Head of Government Relations in Downing St (1997), where she was a key liaison with the Cabinet, Civil Service, the Labour Party, Opposition Leaders, other Governments, and key media, business, and NGO figures.
Michael Lynas
Michael Lynas is currently leading a new initiative, INTO CareerFirst, to support students at US and UK universities to be more employable and secure their dream job. He founded and led National Citizen Service Trust (NCS), the UK's largest personal and social development programme for 16-17 year olds. NCS is a government-backed Royal Charter organisation that has supported more than 600,000 students to build the skills they need for the future. Prior to NCS, Michael worked as a senior advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron at No10 Downing Street from 2010-2013 and before that as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company. Michael is passionate about helping young people realise their potential and continues to serve as a Patron for National Citizen Service. He has an MA in Politics from Trinity College, Cambridge where he was President of the Union, and a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Antonia Romeo
Antonia Romeo became the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice on 18 January 2021. Antonia has previously served as Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Trade (DIT), and Her Majesty’s Consul General in New York and Director General Economic and Commercial Affairs USA, and Special Envoy to the US technology companies, based in New York. She joined the Civil Service in 2000 as a professional economist following an early career in the private sector at strategic consultancy firm Oliver Wyman. Antonia sits on the Civil Service Board and Senior Leadership Committee of the Civil Service and is the Civil Service Gender Champion. She is President of the Whitehall Choir and sits on the Board of Trustees of the Donmar Warehouse. She holds an MA (PPE) from Oxford University, an MSc (Economics) from the London School of Economics, and an Advanced Management Programme diploma from Columbia Business School.
Chris Farmer
Chris Farmer helps run his family office, whose primary focus is on investing and supporting early and mid-stage technology companies based in Europe and North America. As part of this role, he acts as an advisor to many of the companies which are supported by the family. Chris spent the first seven years of his career as a consultant at Bain & Company, and subsequently held a number of senior roles in technology companies. He holds an MA (PPE) from the University of Oxford, where he was President of the Union. He is also an ambassador for the Sainsbury Centre of Visual Arts and has a passion for vintage cars and British design.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem
Hayaatun is CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation. She co-chairs with the Science Minister the government’s Business Innovation Forum and co-chaired with Sir Lewis Hamilton his Commission on improving Black representation in motorsport. She is a trustee of various charities, member of the government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council and Digital Skills Council and NXD at construction company Laing O’Rourke. She has been named as one of the ‘Inspiring 50’ women in tech in Europe and one of the most influential women in both UK engineering and UK tech. She has a Masters in Biochemistry (MBiochem) from Oxford and a PhD from Cancer Research UK/UCL. She is a Fellow of the IET, Honorary Professor at UCL and Honorary Fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford. She was made a CBE for services to International Engineering in 2019.
Sarah von Schmidt
Sarah von Schmidt is the lead director of Farrer & Co Trust Corporation in its role as trustee of JBCT. Sarah is a solicitor and partner at Farrer & Co LLP where she leads the firm’s private client group. She specialises in advising a wide range of private clients from entrepreneurs to international families to UK-based owners of landed estates and their collections on succession, trusts and other areas including philanthropy. Sarah has a wide range of interests in the arts and in education. Sarah studied Modern History at Oxford University before commencing her legal training. She is also a member of the UK Board of Trustees of Freelands Foundation, a charity focused on the arts.