Our People
CEO
Andrew Grocock
CEO, TOGETHER UK FOUNDATION
Andrew has campaigned for pro Union political candidates across each of the UK’s constituent parts, he is a vociferous advocate for the monarchy and champion of the United Kingdom.
Whilst the mainstream media often portrays Northern Ireland as problematic and unfashionable, Andrew has for years been acknowledged as an interlocutor regarding the positive contribution many of its citizens bring to the United Kingdom and has been immersed in Northern Ireland culture for over 30 years at both community and party-political level, dividing his time between London and Belfast.
After the December 2019 General Election, Andrew took a detailed analysis of the election results in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. The research revealed a trend where amongst the younger demographic of hundreds of thousands of historically traditional union supporters across both countries, who were not voting in the General Election; a sizable percentage who were not registered on the Electoral Register.
It was after uncovering these findings that Andrew wrote the initial proposal to establish a not for profit, non-party political organisation; its purpose to proactively inform and engage debate on the benefits for all constituent parts of the United Kingdom to remain as a Union.
Our Board of Trustees
Baroness Arlene Foster PC
FORMER FIRST MINISTER OF NORTHERN IRELAND
Arlene has been involved in Northern Ireland politics since being a student at Queen’s University, Belfast. A lawyer by profession, she was born in 1970 at the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles and grew up in County Fermanagh where she still lives with her husband and three children.
Arlene was instrumental in establishing power sharing in Northern Ireland and served as Minister for the Environment when devolution returned to Northern Ireland in 2007. In 2008 she was appointed as Minister for the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment, a position she held until May 2015. During this period, she was instrumental in promoting Northern Ireland’s tourism industry, and was the primary ministerial contact for overseas interest in Northern Ireland both as a place to invest in and do business with. Arlene is proud of the record of inward investment and growth during her time as Minister responsible in areas such as legal and professional services, Financial Technology, Cyber security and the creative industries. Arlene was appointed as Minister for Finance and Personnel in May 2015. She has worked as acting First Minister on two occasions, firstly for a period of three weeks in 2010 and then during the Autumn of 2015.
After the General Election of June 2017, Arlene led her Party into a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Conservative Party in order to secure stable government for the UK. The period between the election and the formation of a new Government has been described as one of the most significant constitutional periods in generations.
Arlene was initially appointed as First Minister of Northern Ireland on 11 January 2016 becoming Northern Ireland’s first female First Minister.
Devolution collapsed in January 2017 and what followed was a series of political negotiations to revive the power sharing institutions. Finally in January 2020 the Assembly and Executive were re-established and Arlene was reappointed as First Minister on 11th January 2020 and served until her resignation on 14th June 2021.
Arlene has been to the forefront of advocating for more women in public life and has led by example in many ways, not least becoming the first female First Minister. Empowering more young women, and women from disadvantaged backgrounds to take part in public life is something she feels very strongly about, both at home in the UK and across the Globe.
She has highlighted the abuse many women in public life, the young and the vulnerable face from social media platforms and will continue to advocate on this matter outside of elected office.
Since leaving elected office Arlene has been involved in broadcasting, speaking and writing. She also advises companies on how to interact with government in a consultancy capacity.
She remains a strong advocate for the United Kingdom and the Union which binds it together and as a result is very excited about being part of the Together UK Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation to advocate for the positive benefits of the United Kingdom.
Mary Madden CBE
A graduate of Queen’s University, Mary has worked in the public sector since 1979 when she qualified as a Solicitor in Northern Ireland. She began her working life in the Crown Solicitor’s office where for thirteen years she acted for the government and public sector organisations in civil proceedings.
In 1992 Mary moved from legal services to policy when she took a post in the Northern Ireland Office. Her first post was leading a team tasked with a major review of the Criminal law and Criminal Justice system. From there she moved into finance at a time when the government took the decision to change from a cash accounting system to accruals accounts. She headed up the team tasked with delivery this major financial management change to the department.
From Finance Mary moved to head up the Security Policy and operations division where she had regular contact with the Military and the Police Service in handling deeply sensitive issues around normalisation programme set in train by the then prime minister, Tony Blair.
Mary moved to the political directorate of the department where she worked closely with the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, his Secretary of States and Ministers to achieve a political settlement between the local parties. She was awarded the CBE in The Queen’s New Years Honour List in 2010 for her work on decommissioning.
Mary joined the Department of Justice in 2013 when all the remaining powers has been devolved to the Executive Assembly and politics appeared to have stabilised. She has held three posts in the department before leaving to join The Executive Office in January 2017 specifically to take up the role as joint Secretary in the NSMC. She retired in April 2018.
Since retirement Mary has taken up several voluntary roles. She is on the Boards of The Princes Trust, The Golaith Trust, Glencree Peace and Reconciliation Centre which are focussed in improving the lives of our young people and promoting peace and reconciliation not just in this jurisdiction but across these islands. Mary is also on the board of The Ulster New Zealand Trust which promotes and fosters relationships between Northern Ireland and New Zealand.
Melanie Hampton
Melanie runs her own successful Insurance Broking business and during her career has held varied and interesting external roles. She was a trustee for a medical responder charity in Berkshire, becoming the lead governor of the South-Central Ambulance service for Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire. By working with several different groups and using her collaborative approach she was able to work with the Trusts to successfully reduce hospital handover times at the Royal Berkshire.
She was a London Borough councillor for eight years only stepping down this year to explore other options. During this time, she was the chairman of the finance committee and the cabinet member for adult care and health. Tasked with budget savings she achieved better service outcomes with reduced spend for two years.
Melanie is most proud of her work on diversity, driving the department to be the most diverse in the whole of the council. Taking the potential of staff to overcome barriers to ensure everyone is given the opportunity to be their best.
She embraces the city livery movement and the positive work they do in our communities and is set to be Master of the Worship Company of Paviors in 2024. She was instrumental in taking forward a program to get the long term unemployed and other hard to reach groups into the workplace. This has been one of the most rewarding things that she has achieved as she has witnessed changed lives through training and regaining personal confidence.
Melanie was born in London and is hugely proud of her Northern Irish heritage. Both her parents were born in County Londonderry and as a child she spent most holidays on the island of Ireland. She feels passionate about preserving this unique land and its people and their place within the United Kingdom. She is looking forward to playing her part in the coming years for the UK Together Foundation, using her skills and talents for the common good.
Prof. Cedric Bell
Professor Cedric Bell (LLB, LLM, Barrister & PhD) is a well-known and successful, international academic entrepreneur with extensive experience of several international jurisdictions including Malaysia, West Africa, Southern Africa, the Sub-Continent, Ireland and France.
He was for ten years Chief Executive of Holborn College in London, a leading private sector law and business College in the UK, which he built up and then sold on to the US Washington Post Kaplan Group. He was also the Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) and Regional Vice-Chancellor (Africa) of a large Malaysian University and is a ‘triple law graduate’ of the University of Birmingham.
He has myriad business and professional interests in the UK and internationally including Chair of the Board of Directors of ATHE the Ofqual regulated awarding Board, Chair of the Governing Council of the Accra Business School of Ghana.
Other Directorships include Planet Education Networks Ltd which is the overarching holding company for a group of constituent companies including the fast-growing Elizabeth School of London.
Born and brought up in Belfast he was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and is an ardent supporter of both the Ireland international rugby team and the Northern Ireland football team.
Davina Stansfield
Davina Stansfield has worked in both independent and state education for 15 years; she currently holds a management role at a leading independent school in Surrey.
Davina attended school in Northern Ireland, and completed her first degree at Queen’s University Belfast, before moving to England to complete her teaching degree. Initially, her plan was to return to her beloved Northern Ireland, but the opportunities to work in world class institutions, such as Wellington College and Wycombe Abbey, encouraged her to develop her teaching career in England. In addition to her work in education, Davina is involved in the APPG for Independent education, she provides consultancy work for schools in relation to IT and she has completed qualifications on mental health which she firmly believes is needed more than ever for young people.
Having just completed a Master’s in Education, with a focus on Gender Equality and EDI, Davina is very aware of the importance for young people, and females in particular, in having strong role models; indeed, the Together UK Foundation’s Chair, Baroness Foster, was exactly that for Davina, for over 20 years, when she was MLA in her constituency.
One of the fundamental reasons for joining the Together UK Foundation was to be able facilitate a platform for young people to be able to discuss and raise issues that are of concern to them, and advocate on their behalf, ensuring their voice is heard at the highest levels. Davina considers a Times Education Short listing for a pupil voice initiative as one of her most significant achievements and wants to utilise a similar strategy so young people can contribute to decision making about their future.
A strong advocate for the United Kingdom, Davina believes that the education system, diverse culture, and accessibility to the vast university and apprenticeship options available in the United Kingdom are all crucial to help prepare young people for a global workplace.
Patrons
Jeff Edwards MBE
Jeffrey Edwards (MBE, OStJ, JP, DL) was born in Merthyr Tydfil and was the last pupil to be pulled alive from the debris of the Aberfan disaster in October 1966 Educated at the University of London and Cardiff Business School, he qualified in Finance and Business administration and has worked at Board level in the public, private and voluntary sectors.
In 1991, he established the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth Charity. A pioneering and innovative project that became an exemplar to others in promoting social inclusion and received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award in 2002.
He was elected a Councillor to Mid Glamorgan County Council and later Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and utilising his financial skills and business acumen made a significant leadership contribution to a program of inward investment in regenerating the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil. In 2006, he was Centenary Mayor and in 2008 he became the Leader of the Council. In 2012, he hosted Her Majesty the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee visit to the County and the Prince of Wales on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster in 2016.
Outside Local Government, Jeff is committed to public service being appointed a Magistrate and Chair of the Mid Wales Local Justice Area. Chaired the Audit Committees of both the Merthyr Tydfil Local Health Board, South Wales Police and St Johns Council. He has also served on the Boards of HMP Cardiff, Probation Service, Mid Glamorgan Fire Authority, and the Scrutiny Panel of Dyfed Powys Police.
Jeff is a benefactor and supporter of many charities both in the UK and abroad. His charity during the Year will be the Duke of Edinburgh Award in supporting young people with mental health issues.
In 1998, he was awarded the Order of St John followed by the Order of the British Empire in 2003 in recognition of his service to the Community. Jeff has published moving accounts of his experiences as survivor and what life was like growing up in a community that was devastated by the Aberfan disaster of the 21st October 1966. His life is a story of personal strength and emotional resilience in overcoming major trauma and committing his life to the economic and physical regeneration of his community.
Neil Lal
Neil Lal is the Chairman and President of ‘The Indian Council of Scotland and United Kingdom’ which is the leading Indian organisation representing the Indian community in the UK.
Neil is passionate in promoting economic and cultural ties between the UK and India and worldwide. His areas of expertise are economy & trade, and he has built an extremely successful business empire with interests in real estate and venture capital.
Through this commerce, Neil has focused heavily on supporting charities, in particular his family’s ‘Lal Sharma Foundation’ which supports many causes in helping those in need for a better tomorrow in the United Kingdom & India, including the building of a hospital in India.
With the onset of the Ukraine crisis, Neil mobilised his extensive contacts in businesses and the wider Scottish UK Indian community and raised over one million pounds, providing much needed sleeping bags, accommodation and vital cooking apparatus which was transported directly out to Ukraine.
Neil was praised for his intervention in Leicester & Birmingham during the religious and ethnic tensions back in the late summer of 2022. His diplomatic influence in bringing cross community harmony to an extremely volatile situation was widely praised & acknowledged in being instrumental to bringing the tensions to a lasting and peaceful conclusion.
Neil stated that ‘I am honoured and proud to work with everyone from “The Together UK Foundation” and look forward in promoting the United Kingdom in my Ambassadorial role’.
Advisory Board
Oni Oviri
Chair of the Advisory Board, Oni is an expert in Public, Private and Third Sector Procurement, Supply Chain and Logistics Management. She is a Director of Sasare Associates, a consultancy advising on best practice Supply Chain and Logistics Management to Public, Private and Third sector organisations. She is a Director of Sasare Consulting, a specialised consultancy advising on global political campaigns.
She is a Fellow of the Initiative of Free Trade – a research organisation that aims to educate and to change public policy about the economics of trade liberalisation towards revitalising the global economy; the Treasurer of the British Napoleonic Trust – with the aim of promoting and fundraising for the British Overseas Territory of St Helena; and a Board Member of Africa First Network – a network connecting founders, entrepreneurs and project initiators with financiers in Europe.
A politician, Oni was a London Borough Councillor and a Parliamentary Candidate in 2019.
Howard Quayle CBE
The former chief minister for the Isle of Man, between 4 October 2016 and 12 October 2021. He previously served as the minister for Health and Social Care until the elections in September 2016.
Mark Seddon
Mark is the Director of The Centre for United Nations Studies at the University of Buckingham, UK, which was officially opened in September 2019 and offers an MA Degree in UN & Diplomatic Studies. He was Media Adviser to Maria Fernanda Espinosa, the President of the United Nations General Assembly.
He’s worked as editor of Tribune, United Nations & Diplomatic Correspondent for Al Jazeera English, speechwriter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and Director of Communications for the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, which was chaired by UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former UK Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown.
Mark has also been an activist and parliamentary candidate with the Labour Party, and served on the National Executive Committee, the National Policy Forum and the Economic Policy Commission, chaired by Gordon Brown.
Graham Gudgin
Chief Economic Advisor to Policy Exchange, a member of Briefings for Brexit, an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research (CBR) and a former Special Adviser to the Northern Ireland First Minister.
Brian Monteith
A British politician, public relations consultant and commentator. As a member of the Scottish Conservatives, he was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Mid Scotland and Fife region from 1999 to 2007. Later a member of the Brexit Party, he was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North East England from 2019 to 2020.
Dr Geoff Sloan
Geoffrey Sloan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading. Formerly, Head of the Strategic Studies and International Affairs Department at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Defence Fellow at St Antony’s College Oxford.
Geoffrey served as a Seaman Officer in the Royal Naval Reserve for nine years. To date he has published three books on Geopolitics. His latest titled: Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History was published in both the United States and the United Kingdom in March 2017. It won the Stratfor Prize for Geopolitical analysis in October 2017. The translation rights were sold to China in 2019. In 2021 the book was published in India in both hardback and paperback editions.
Currently, he is researching a book on the British Army’s campaigns in Ireland in the twentieth century.
Andrew McQuillan
Andrew is the Account Director for MHP Group and an astute social media commentator on Northern Ireland affairs.
Ian Acheson
Counter Extremism Project Senior Advisor, former prison governor and senior official in the U.K. Home Office with more than 25 years of experience, Ian is an expert in the U.K.’s criminal justice system, specifically the prevention of Islamist and right-wing radicalisation in its prison system and the post-release threat of terrorist offenders.
Dr Fredrick Lauritzen
Fredrick lives between Mount Stuart and Venice. Read classics at New College, Oxford (1996-2000, BA, MA) and obtained a doctorate in classics from Columbia University in New York (2000-2005 MA, MPhil, PhD) with a thesis on the Chronographia of Michael Psellos (published in 2013). From 2008 to 2014 he was a postdoctoral researcher in Bologna. Since 2017 he has been historian at the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford
A leading defence analyst, author, writer and broadcaster, with a media profile which includes CNN, Channel 5 News, GB News, BBC, Five Live, LBC, and BBC Radio 4.
Stuart consults with major corporations and governmental advisers where there is conflict. Clients ranged across all three sectors, including the MoD, BAE Systems, V Ships (biggest ship management company in the world), Cap Gemini, British Waterways, Motorola, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and many more.
During his twenty-year military career, he served with the 4th Royal Tank Regiment around the world, including operational tours with the UN in Cyprus and as a staff officer in the Headquarters British Forces Middle East during the 1990-91 Gulf War.
Prof. John Wilson Foster
John Wilson Foster (FRSC) is an Irish literary critic, author and cultural historian. He was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland and graduated in English, philosophy, and social anthropology from Queen’s University.
John earned his doctorate in English in the United States at the University of Oregon, Eugene. He spent his teaching and research career at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and is now a freelance writer and honorary research professor at Queen’s University, Belfast.
Shanker Shingham
One of the world’s leading international trade experts, Shanker is a recognised author and adviser to governments and companies and an Academic Fellow of the institute of Economic Affairs.
Shanker is CEO of Competere Ltd, a company which provides trade and competition law and policy advice to governments and companies and is focused on promoting international trade and competition policy throughout the world.
He was a cleared advisor to USTR and to the UK Trade Secretary. He has advised parliamentarians and government ministers on the overall approach to UK trade policy including the Brexit negotiations. He is also the Policy Lead of the Trader Support Service Consortium, which is delivering on behalf of HMG the implementation of the NI Protocol.
Robert Elliot
Robert was brought up in Scotland and continues to live there. He has travelled to fifty-seven countries and lived overseas for a while. This has allowed him to learn about different cultures and customs.
Having moved to Manchester in 1992, Robert set up and ran both Care Asset Management and CareAware. CareAware was a non-profit making helpline set up to advise older people and their Power of Attorney who were entering a long-term care establishment, this was especially important if the person was self-funding their own care costs. Both CareAware and Care Asset Management were appointed as an adviser to the National Care Association and scores of local care associations throughout the United Kingdom. Robert’s interest in Long Term Care is long, and he still stays in touch with the leading figures in the industry today.
Robert is officially retired but currently, Chairman of the Unionist Clubs Scotland (UCS), overseeing the twenty-eight clubs.
Patrick Roche
Patrick is a former Unionist politician in Northern Ireland who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley from 1998 to 2003. After working in banking, Roche studied economics and politics at Trinity College, Dublin. This was followed by political philosophy at the University of Durham, where he earned an MA in Social Sciences in 1972 as a member of the Graduate Society. He then became a lecturer in economics at the University of Ulster, and in 1978 also took up a post at the Irish Baptist College. Patrick has authored a number of books on politics and economics in Northern Ireland.
John Le Fondre
John is a Jersey politician who served as the fourth Chief Minister of Jersey. He entered the States Assembly in 2005 as deputy for the Parish of St Lawrence, and was re-elected to this position in 2011 and 2014. During his time as deputy he served in various roles in scrutiny and as an Assistant Minister.
Youth Council
Young women and men are at times underrepresented in formal discussions about the United Kingdom, and at the Foundation, as our work gets underway, we are keen to actively involve young people to ensure their participation. Coming soon.