Roma Bhowmick 

Roma is a Certified INED (2020), Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and Associate member of Institute of Consulting. She has supported, advised, coached and mentored individuals at Main Board level in both SMEs and larger Enterprises, specialising in the fast growth SME sector (£1m – £45m t/o) as well as “Blue Chip”/Corporate Organisations. Her key role and area of impact has been in advising and guiding Senior Leaders/Founders in Organisations through strategic development, acting as both catalyst and sounding board to challenge and evoke change.

In Having spent much of her career in the City of London, Roma is passionate about the focus on developing skills and opportunities for young people. To this end she became a Trustee for a City of London Educational Trust. She is also past Chairman of a City membership organisation and Senior Visiting Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire Business School, lecturing on the MBA programme. In 2006 Roma was awarded Freedom of the City of London in recognition of her ‘services to Management Consultancy’.

Mark Hoult-Allen

Mark began his career in stage and theatre management, working in the commercial and subsidised theatre. He held a number of roles in the arts funding sector including Head of National Touring and then Director of Business Process for Arts Council England. Following the Arts Council, Mark spent nearly seven years at Comic Relief, firstly as Head of Grants Operations, then Head of Business Planning and Process and for a short period as Director of Operations.

He now has his own consultancy company specialising in charity governance, compliance and business system analysis and improvement. His clients include Wellcome Trust, ChoiceCare, Barnardo’s, Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, Be The Business and Marie Curie.

Mark has been a school governor and has held directorships and trusteeships in a number of not-for profit arts organisations and is currently the Chair of trustees of We Are Family, a peer-to-peer adoption support charity. He is also Vice Chair of Trustees for the Mercury Theatre, Colchester and director of Colchester Mercury Trading Ltd and Colchester Mercury Productions Ltd.

Mark has more than 20 years strategic leadership and management experience in the charity sector. He has extensive experience and practical knowledge of charity regulation, leading strategic business planning and transformation projects, team leadership, policy and process development and implementation, grant-making, fundraising, finance, business efficiency, HR, IT, data protection, governance and stakeholder relationship development.

Chris Luff (MBE)

Chris was a Co-Founder Director, of Freedom Communications a start-up company born in Watford and grown to over £20m before being acquired by GCI in 2017. He spent over 28 years working with public and private sector customers, understanding their business operations and working with them to develop sustainable productivity improvements increase sales and improve customer experience .He specialises in finding positive business outcomes using technology as an enabler; allowing our customers to do more with less and ultimately improve productivity sales, service and operations.

Through this time Chris has continuously developed sales and marketing strategies to meet the demands of the extremely fast-moving and competitive Information Technology market sector. To have sales recognised as a professional career is an ongoing crusade and passion, DEVO is a sales methodology devised by Chris to ensure an ethical approach to delivering value and positive outcomes for customers.

Chris was the initial driving force behind Freedoms award winning apprenticeship program, showing that engaging with the Local Community and public-sector agencies can deliver real value and create win -win- win outcomes for education, apprentices and business. Since then, his energy in Local community collaboration has contributed to Skillmakers a service to direct and connect people of all ages and abilities to employment opportunities best suited to them. Skillmakers will also help Enterprises of all sizes address skills development, create apprenticeship programs, understand the government levy and ultimately attract and develop a pipeline of talent into their business. In his role as CEO of the Watford Chamber of Commerce he has been campaigning for companies to have CSR and ESG on board agendas, linking volunteering to better more effective skills development, he is also a Founder of The Chamber of Conscience A movement of major organisations networking for a social cause, promoting equality , inclusion and diversity whilst finding good reasons to do business .

Chris has worked for many private and public-sector organisations managing teams and contracts via European and UK procurement frameworks. His experience in Business Transformation and Skills development enables contribution to the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership Skills and Education Board, and the Hertfordshire LEP Business Envoy, program. Chris is a Trustee at the Watford Community Sports and Education Trust @Watford FC helping with Community Centres, business engagement and fundraising and volunteers for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation by mentoring local charities.

A family tradition is to be active in the local community “Everyone regardless of age or ability has a personal social responsibility to give a little back, and so does local business” , Freedom was a great example of this and had a great deal of success as a result.

Chris started his career as a plumber’s mate at a very young age (so does not mind rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty) and suggests this experience accelerated his learning and gave him a great grounding, he insists that he got into sales by mistake.