WISE Board Members

Helen Wollaston

Chief Executive

Since her appointment in June 2012, Helen has transformed WISE into a thriving, independent social enterprise, enabling business and education providers to increase the participation, contribution and success of women in the UK’s scientific, technology and engineering workforce. Helen is an energetic, inspirational advocate for social change, with a track record of transformational leadership across public, business and not-for-profit sectors. She founded her own consultancy company, Equal to the Occasion, after seven years as Director of Campaigns for the Equal Opportunities Commission and previously ran the Yorkshire region for the National Lottery Charities Board. An alumni of the Goldman Sachs 10k small business programme, she now supports enterprise as a member of the Advisory Board for the Management Division of Leeds University Business School. In December 2017, Helen joined the Board of Zero Waste Scotland, an agency supporting businesses in Scotland to increase recycling, reduce waste and create a market for the circular economy. Former Non-Executive roles include Senior Independent Director and Deputy Chair of South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Chair of YWCA England and Wales (now the Young Women's Trust).

Chair of WISE Board - Trudy Norris-Grey

‎MD, Global Business Development, Industry, Microsoft

“STEM skills help our country, our companies, our communities, our families, including the women, to prosper. Women are a huge untapped talent pool and my ambition is to ensure that girls and young women have the information and support to play a full and equal part in contributing to their and our country’s prosperity and success”.

Trudy Norris-Grey, Chair of WISE, is currently Managing Director of Microsoft’s Public Sector business in Central and Eastern Europe. Previously Trudy held senior executive positions in BT, Sun Microsystems, Oracle and Eastman Kodak. She has also chaired the CBI Innovation, Science & Technology Committee and was Chair of UKRC before merging with WISE.

Jo Hannaford

Head of Technology, Goldman Sachs

“The commitment WISE pledge to women in STEM is inspiring and through enabling more women with opportunities, WISE is levelling the playing field more so than ever before.”

Jo is a partner within the Engineering Division at Goldman Sachs, joining the firm in 1997, she was named managing director in 2008 and partner in 2014. During her time at the firm, Jo has held a number of roles across Technology both in New York and London, predominantly focusing on the buildout of all functions related to data architecture, software engineering, workflow, runtime management software change and development practices. Jo has spent the past two years managing the development of software platforms to enable significant, longer-term efficiencies for the various businesses within the firm. Jo has extensive experience of corporate governance, she serves on the Technology Executive Leadership Group and the Firmwide Technology Risk Committee and is global co-sponsor of the Women in Technology Network.

In addition to her role at Goldman Sachs, in February 2016 Jo was named as an advisor to the newly formed UK Government Digital Service advisory board. In 2014 Jo was made a fellow of the British Computer Society.

Prior to joining the firm, Jo undertook research in computation semiotics in addition to a 1^st Class degree in Computer Science.

Stephen Fox CBE CEng FICE

Chief Executive, BAM Nuttall Ltd

“I have spent my working life in the male dominated construction industry. Throughout this time women have been put off the industry that provides the infrastructure that fuels all of our lives and improves all of society. Yet we have all seen diverse teams outperform all others, and we know that we face skills shortages and very changing needs for future skills. I want to work with WISE to achieve gender parity in science, technology and engineering from the classroom to the boardroom as soon as possible”.

Steve Fox is Chief Executive of BAM Nuttall Ltd, a leading civil engineering contractor. Steve is a chartered engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was awarded a CBE in 2015 for services to the construction industry.

Deputy Chair - Dr Keith Purves

Senior Associate at Channel Enablers

"I joined WISE having developed a strong respect for the broad contribution and achievement of women I worked with in executive roles; at the same time I developed some insight into the unique challenges they face in the work environment. My goal with WISE is to help build sustainability into female STEM representation so we allow highly trained women to prosper and contribute fully in their careers for as long as they choose."

Keith Purves has spent his working life in technology industries; he has a PhD in Chemistry and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Deputy Chair - Dr Nina Skorupska CBE

Chief Executive, Renewable Energy Association

“Having worked for over 30 years in Energy, I am convinced that improving the representation of women at all levels can enable more talent for improved performance and growth, and make a difference in the leadership decisions for how Energy is delivered into the future and how the UK as a whole will rise to the challenge of Climate Change.”

Nina Skorupska is the Chief Executive of the Renewable Energy Association where she works with her team and members of the association to “Grow the Renewable Energy economy”. She has worked for over 30 years in the energy industry, as a fuel expert, power station manager, head of energy trading and as member of the Executive Board - Chief Technology Officer for the largest energy company in the Netherlands, Essent (part of the RWE Group). In 2016, Nina was named as one of the Women's Engineering Society Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering.

Lucy Collins

Naval Architect, Ministry of Defence

“I am very passionate about the subject of WISE and want to make a difference! I entered a very male-dominated profession and each step I have taken has been into a more male dominated environment. As such, I have first-hand experience of helping to pave the way for women in engineering.”

Lucy specialises in submarine design and is on secondment at University College London completing a part time PhD. She helps run the MSc in Naval Architecture and the Submarine Design Course, has a First Class MEng degree in Civil and Structural Engineering and an MSc in Naval Architecture.

Rikke Rosenlund

Founder and CEO of BorrowMyDoggy

WISE works on an area that is dear to my heart, which is to get more women involved in STEM, from classroom to boardroom. Nichelle Nichols wrote ‘Science is not a boy's game, it's not a girl's game. Its everyone’s game’. I could not agree more, and believe it relates not just to Science but all areas of STEM".

Rikke Rosenlund is the Founder and CEO of BorrowMyDoggy, which is a technology start up company. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she worked in marketing and business development, in the automobile industry in Central America and financial services in London. She started out her career as a statistician at the OECD. Rikke is born in Denmark and holds an MBA from INSEAD