Meet the trustees

From left to right: Martyn Lewis, CBE; Peter Cowley; Tricia Drakes; Rupert Grey; Roger Martin; Dr Will Venters; Aesha Zafar.

This talented team work with our senior management defining overall policy, setting targets and monitoring performance.

Martyn Lewis, CBE

Martyn is the Founder and Chairman of YouthNet. Over 32 years as a television journalist he presented every mainstream national news programme on BBC and ITV before moving into business in 1999 when he co-founded - and is now European Chairman of - Teliris Inc., the global technology pioneer in a new "realtime" communications business space known as telepresence. He is also Chairman of NICE TV, which works with ITN to deliver high quality news videos for industry-wide conferences, exhibitions and events.

Other charity work includes: Chairman of the Awards Committee of the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service (the equivalent of an MBE for groups); Trustee of the Windsor Leadership Trust, helping to develop the leaders of tomorrow; President of United Response, helping people with learning disabilities; Deputy Chair of the Lord Mayor of London's Dragon Awards, honouring companies for the work they and their employees do to help disadvantaged areas of our community; and Vice-President of all three main national Hospice charities.

Martyn holds an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster and is a Freeman of the City of London, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Member of the Garrick Club and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He was awarded a CBE for "services to young people and the Hospice movement" in 1997.

Peter Cowley

Peter Cowley is a well known digital media executive.  Until recently he was the MD of Digital Media for Endemol UK and Chief Executive of Victoria Real, a leading digital agency.

Previous to Endemol, Peter worked in the media, marketing and advertising industries at Freeserve, Cable & Wireless, Videotron and Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

Tricia Drakes

Tricia Drakes has played an active role in the promotion of the internet in London and the global financial services community for many years and is currently on the Board of Directors of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). She is the current Chair of ISOC England and a Past Master of The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.

From 1972 until 1986 she served as Controller and Company Secretary for Italian International Bank plc; and in 1981, she founded International Banking Information Systems Limited. She served as its Chief Executive and Managing Director until 1996. She is a Director of the University of Surrey Seed Fund Limited and a past Chair of the Foreign Bankers Association's Operation Committee.

Rupert Grey

Rupert has balanced life in the law courts with long periods in the wild places of the earth and creating, with his wife Jan and three daughters, a thriving and happy family life in their remote cottage in the South Downs. 

As a lawyer he has represented, and fought libel actions for and against national papers and policitians, leading photographers and publishers, businessmen and explorers. 

As an outdoorsman he has travelled on foot, by boat, dog sledge and camel in many different countries, including Papa New Guinea, Alaska and the Orient.  He is frequently accompanied by his children, who grew up believing it is perfectly normal to go on expeditions in a dugout canoe in the heart of Borneo by way of a summer holiday.

Rupert serves on the board of a number of front line charities in the fields of performing arts, education, photography and conservation.  After a legal career which commenced at 35 and culminated as partner at Farrers, a leading city firm, he now combines a consultancy with Swan Turton, a specialist intellectual property and entertainment practice in Covent Garden, with lecturing, photographic exhibitions and time in the wilderness.

Roger Martin

Roger Martin retired from PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2000. He was a senior practice partner in London looking after major clients. He also had responsibility for worldwide business development and business links between North America and the UK.

He now sits on several Boards as a non executive, and is the honorary Treasurer of the Wimbledon Club. He has been a Trustee in the charitable sector for over 15 years.

Gary Pugh   

Gary is Vice President of Marketing for Oracle Corporation in EMEA. He has worked in the IT industry for over 25 years starting out as a systems programmer on ICL mainframes and has witnessed the many changes that have occurred in the IT industry first hand. During his career at Oracle he has had a variety of roles covering consulting to business development and has run the marketing operation in Eastern Europe.Gary is also a self professed 'sporting nut', who has tried his hand at most activities including hang-gliding and American football but now prefers to spend his time on the golf course or walking the dog!

Dr Will Venters

Will Venters is a lecturer in Information Systems within the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. His research interests lie in using social science techniques to study how ICT shapes, and is shaped by, emerging work practices and new types of organisation. He has written on a range of topics including the development of knowledge management within global multinationals, and the use of ICT by the construction industry.

Before joining YouthNet Will was chair of Student Volunteering England and a member of the Russell Commission panel on youth volunteering.

Aesha Zafar

Aesha Zafar has been involved in leading volunteer programmes and working with or for young people in a number of her previous positions and has worked primarily across the media, arts and charity sectors. She currently works at the BBC on attracting and recruiting people to the vacancies in the departments moving to Salford Quays in 2011.

Some of her previous roles include working at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, with the responsibility for co-ordinating the talent initiatives, schemes and events and managing the youth marketing strategy and delivery at CSV for the national campaign Make a Difference Day.  Aesha has also ventured into the working worlds of film festivals, universities and journalism.