Governance

Lucy McLynn is our Chair.  Lucy McLynn is Head of Employment and partner of the law firm Bates Wells – a leading firm advising the charity sector. Lucy has experience of advising employers and bringing claims for whistleblowers. A former chair of the Industrial Law Society, Lucy is well known in the legal sector and ranked Band 1 in Employment, Employer and Third Sector by Chambers and Partners.

Julia Graham is the CEO of Airmic, the UK association of insurance and risk managers, and has a background in international insurance, enterprise risk management and compliance with four decades of experience in a global insurance company and a global law firm. She is the UK Government Crown Representative for Risk and Insurance. She is a former chair of FERMA, the European association for risk management professionals. Julia is currently Vice President of IFRIMA, the International Federation of Risk and Insurance Management Associations.

Karen Jordan is a Board-level advisor with significant regulatory expertise and department and budgetary management experience both in the UK and internationally. Karen brings strategic and hands-on experience of managing and improving regulatory relationships and culture, changing business models for banks and asset managers in response to regulatory change, solving issues and improving governance. She is a whistleblower protection champion with extensive investigations, enforcement and remediation experience and a consulting/audit background.

Ravinder Passi is a UK qualified solicitor with over 21 years’ experience, and has first-hand experience of what it means to be a whistle-blower. Whilst working in Japan for over eight years, where he was Global General Counsel of a major car company, Rav was witness to a major corporate scandal that resulted in him having to blow the whistle and alert board members to wrongdoing. He said, “Whistleblowing is hugely important. It is obviously a subject I care deeply about and I am delighted to be joining Protect, to support the vital work the charity does.”

David Widdowson is an experienced employment lawyer who has built highly regarded teams in two large commercial law firms in the City of London in both of which he has played key leadership roles. He has advised employees and employers across a broad spectrum of industry and in the public sector. David is a longstanding member of the Employment Lawyers Association and regularly engages with government on legislative changes. In addition David is an accredited mediator and business coach.

Simon Gaysford is a Director and Co-Founder at Frontier Economics. His work is used by clients in devising commercial strategies, dealing with competition or regulatory authorities and interactions with government. His work focuses mainly on consumer goods markets, particularly in retail and financial services, and his recent clients include Tesco, Lloyds Banking Group, Channel 4 and HMRC. Simon has also worked across a wide range of other sectors including media, pharmaceuticals and telecoms.

Rebecca Lloyd is an experienced leader in the voluntary sector, having worked in a variety of fundraising and grant-making roles. This includes managing fundraising teams at The National Autistic Society, Voluntary Service Overseas, Wateraid, and most recently, leading the grant-making programme of The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund. She said, “It is an extremely challenging time for the sector – but the demand for Protect’s services has never been greater, and by developing Protect’s fundraising operation we will be able to reach more people who desperately need our support.”

Frances Morris-Jones is our Vice-Chair. She is an experienced Board director and business leader with extensive knowledge of the international energy sector, including as former Chair and Senior Independent Director of the Oil and Gas Authority (now the North Sea Transition Authority). She has worked in companies of different sizes and across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. She is a Governor at the University of Portsmouth and a member of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee for BSI Group.. She brings considerable expertise in governance, risk management and financial oversight.

Michael Woodford OBE, the former President and CEO of the Olympus Corporation, who was forced to blow the whistle on his own company, and in doing so exposed a $1.7 billion fraud. He was awarded ‘Business Person of the Year’ in The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Sun and was the Financial Times ‘Boldness in Business’ winner’ in 2012. In March 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Contrarian Prize. He now spends much of his time promoting governance and fairness in the workplace.

Michael Smyth CBE QC(Hon) has been a patron of Protect since 2014 and is a current member of Protect’s Advisory Council. Previously Chair of Trustees at Protect, Michael is an experienced director and senior advisor with board experience across private, public and voluntary sectors and was formerly a partner at Clifford Chance law firm.

The Council has an advisory role to the charity. Sarah Veale is Chair. Current members include Michael Smyth CBE, Michael Woodford MBE, David Bowles, Dr Yvonne Cripps, Dr Elaine Sternberg, Cathy James OBE, John Bowers KC, Jonathan Taylor, Mukhtiar Singh and Helen Evans.

Mission

Our aim is to protect the public interest by helping workers to speak up to stop harm and wrongdoing. We support whistleblowers by providing free and confidential legal advice. We support employers to implement effective whistleblowing arrangements. We campaign for legal and policy reform to better protect whistleblowing. 

Vision 

We want a world where no whistleblower goes unheard or unprotected.

Values 

We are SUPPORTIVE: we support whistleblowers to raise concerns, and we support employers to establish effective whistleblowing arrangements
We are INDEPENDENT: we are honest, trusted and impartial
We are EXPERT: based on our experience over nearly 30 years, we explain the value of whistleblowing and we produce compelling evidence for policy changes
We are COLLABORATIVE: we listen to and empower staff, we encourage diversity and working with others.