Interim Chair: William Powlett Smith

William Powlett Smith is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, retiring in 2008 from Ernst & Young LLP after 25 years as a partner where he led the Anglo-German business development practice and subsequently the health sciences team. He then held two non-executive appointments with private companies and taught on the undergraduate programme at St Clare’s, Oxford and Oxford Brookes University. For fifteen years (including five years as Chairman) he served as a trustee of Cecily’s Fund, which helps educate orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia. He was a founding trustee of Charity Mentors, Oxfordshire which provides strategy mentoring for non-profit making organisations. In September 2016 he was appointed Chair of Northern House School Academy Trust, and until 2023 he was Deputy Chair of Prior’s Court Foundation, a residential provision for young people with complex autism.