About Us
Governance and Trustees
The Charity has a Board of Trustees who are responsible for the strategic direction and policy of The Warrior Programme. The Board is comprised of five trustees from a variety of professional backgrounds relevant to the work of the charity.
The Board of Trustees meets regularly to assess the progress of the charity, determine and review The Warrior Programme’s strategies and policies.
Jackie Newstead - Chair
Based in the Hogan Lovells London office, Jackie Newstead is a Partner and the firm’s former Global Head of Real Estate. For more than 30 years, she has been helping investors, developers, and occupiers with acquisitions and disposals of investments, some held directly, and some held through investment vehicles. She has worked with most asset classes, from office, retail, and logistics to hotels, residential, student housing, car auction sites, and bingo halls. She has also aided clients with the development of land sites across the asset classes—from land acquisition, to finance, letting, and ultimate sale.
Jackie has also built up particular knowledge in the hotel and leisure sector, guiding owners and operators through acquisitions and disposals, financings, and management arrangements.
Jackie is a member of the British Property Federation, the Investment Property Forum, the Association of Real Property and Infrastructure and the Urban Land Institute. She also chairs the City of London Law Society Land Law Committee and is a member of the Policy and Campaigns Committee of Real Estate Balance. She is recommended by The Legal 500, Chambers UK, and Who’s Who Legal for real estate. UK Super Lawyers puts her in their top 100 lawyers in the UK (and in the top 50 women.)
Dave Rutter - Trustee
Dave retired from the Civil Service in 2017. He led the Armed Forces, Families and Veterans Health Team at the Department of Health from 2007 through to early 2018. During that time Dave and his team, working with the NHS, MoD, service charities and others put in place policies and a programme of services aimed at improving health outcomes for those in the Armed Forces community. In particular, he led the work in introducing a range of mental health services for veterans.
Chris Smith - Trustee
Chris is a solicitor and entrepreneur. He has founded and developed a number of diverse businesses operating in the UK and internationally, including Maratex Ltd (a CIS retailer sold in 2007), Inspecs PLC which he divested in 2012 and G-volution Ltd which he runs now.
Chris has experience in growing organisations with new and innovative products & services and has been a trustee of Warrior since its inception, assisting in guiding the commercial strategy of the organisation.
Professor Andy Bacon - Trustee
After a successful military career Andy Bacon has been a senior health director (executive and non-executive), leader and manager in England and overseas. He has worked in and with the public, private and voluntary sectors. He has also worked with primary care, community, and hospital-based services. He has been involved in both the providing of clinical services and in the commissioning, planning and procurement of them. His areas of interest are in armed forces healthcare, developing integrated care systems, mental health and improving health in low- and middle-income countries.
He was also the CEO of a charitable children’s hospital in East Africa and holds and has held a number of Trusteeships of charities. He was, until recently, responsible for the developing of strategy and policy for the interface between the UK armed forces and the NHS. He recently gained a postgraduate qualification in global mental health and was appointed a visiting professor at the University of Chester and since April 2022 has been undertaking (paid and unpaid) consultancy work.
Professor Paul Farrand - Trustee
Paul Farrand (PF) is Professor of Evidence Based Psychological Practice and Research, and Director of the Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (LICBT) portfolio within Clinical Education, Development and Research (CEDAR), Psychology University of Exeter. He holds several Expert Advisor positions, including for the NHS Talking Therapies: Anxiety and Depression programme, Psychological Practice in Physical Health Care and National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Medical Technology Advisory Group. At an international level he acts as a Scientific Advisor regarding worldwide developments in Low-Intensity CBT in countries such as the USA, Saudi Arabia and Sweden. He is an internationally renowned expert in LICBT (i.e., CBT self-help) with over 120 publications, investigator in many research grants, including two exceeding £2 million and is a regular keynote presenter at conferences and professional groups across the world. Paul has substantial expertise in the development, test, evaluation, and implementation of CBT self-help interventions, especially in a written and mobile phone app format and adapting the interventions to enhance acceptability for specific groups. Particular work focusses upon Armed Forces Veterans where Paul has developed several specific interventions, informed development of a LICBT mental health service and is currently working on an OVA funded research project adapting a mobile phone app (Iona) to ensure acceptability and effectiveness for ex-servicewomen.
Our Team
Charlotte Cole - CEO
Charlotte has a professional services background with over 15 years working for Deloitte in audit, corporate finance and consultancy.
Charlotte’s passion for working with those most in need in our society started on a two year secondment to Business in the Community, Prince Charles’ business to business charity, from Deloitte in 1994. In 2004 she started working with BiTC to explore how we can enable long term homeless individuals to deal with the causes of their situation, rather than simply addressing the symptoms. The driving goal was to enable lasting positive outcomes rather than short term fixes.
It was this work that led Charlotte to co-found The Warrior Programme in 2007, and it is this founding principle to enable individuals to take back control of their lives and realise their potential, that drives the service and support that we provide. Charlotte has been instrumental in the design, development and success of the Charity since its inception, and as a Founder Trustee has focussed on strategy, fundraising, finance, corporate governance and the development of the research led, evidence based delivery model of the programme. In June 2021 Charlotte was delighted to accept the Board’s request to become CEO to drive forward further innovation and development.
John Cummings - Director Operations
As a ‘civvy’ he worked in the Gap Year industry then as a crisis management consultant in the nuclear, oil and gas sector.
In 2011 he joined The Warrior Programme as the Director of Operations. He is married and has two grown up daughters and lives in Devon. He is an avid Exeter Chief’s Rugby supporter and sails a Devon Drascombe Coaster.
Zoe Teale - Regional Co-ordinator
Zoe has worked in adult education, broadcasting with the BBC and BFBS, for The Prince’s Trust and the Army Families Federation before joining The Warrior Programme as the Co-ordinator for Serving Families in the North in November 2017.
Zoe’s great loves in life are food, music, family and friends though not necessarily in that order!
Rebecca Gallimore - Regional Co-ordinator
Rebecca’s career in headhunting was not quite what her degree in anthropology led her to believe it would be, and after a decade of recruitment in the City she hung up her hat, married a Welsh Guard and retrained to make hats of her own.
Her most recent move has been to the South West to begin the next adventure as a civvy family and a return to working life and all the juggling that this entails, but with the huge reward that working with Warrior brings.
Colin Davidson - Regional Co-Ordinator
Colin served in the Army for 32 years as a Queen’s Royal Hussar, deploying across seven different operational theatres, some more than once. He retired from the Light Dragoons in 2021.
He held several key Regimental positions while serving including Regimental Sergeant Major and Unit Welfare Officer, gaining valuable experience as an injury Recovery Manager and Trauma Management Co-Ordinator. He supported Homestart Richmondshire charity as a serving military trustee.
Married to a long-suffering superwoman for 26 years with two teenage children, Colin’s other passions include, loud motorcycles, music and walking up hills in North Yorkshire quietly!
Colin joins The Warrior Programme as a Regional Coordinator in 2022.
Rebecca Cole - Office Manager
While working for a marketing company in London Rebecca started volunteering with Warrior in 2008 and joined the team in 2009.
Over the years she has worn many hats during the development of Warrior from organising fundraising galas to ensuring everyone has what they need during a course and much in between. She is based in our London office and visits the refresher and courses regularly.
Sara Waymont - Monitoring & Evaluation Co-ordinator
Sara served with the RAF Reserves and deployed to Afghanistan as an ISAF Accredited War Artist.
She has worked in the military charity sector for a number of years with BLESMA and the Royal Marines Association (RMA). She is a trained Trauma Risk Incident Manager (TRiM) practitioner and veteran support officer and has led trauma-focused yoga and art programmes.
Sara joined The Warrior Programme in 2020 as their Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator and is responsible for post-course support for the Warrior community.