One World Media: Trustees

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Myles Wickstead CBE (Chair)

Myles Wickstead is an expert on international development and Africa. In the mid-2000s he was Head of Secretariat to the UK government's Commission for Africa. Previously, he was responsible for UK government development programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. He coordinated the 1997 Government White Paper 'Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century', served on the Board of the World Bank in Washington, and from 2000 to 2004 was British Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Myles is now Visiting Professor (International Relations) at the Open University and holds a number of board and advisory positions in the international development and foreign affairs sectors including the Baring Foundation, Comic Relief's International Grants Committee, the Advisory Council of Wilton Park and the II Foundation (International Inspiration is delivering the Olympic legacy to reach 12 million children in 20 partner countries).  He is also a Specialist Advisor to the Parliamentary International Development Select Committee.

Benjamin Chance

Ben Chance joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2011.

He was educated at Eton College and graduated from the University of Durham with an honours degree in Economics. Whilst at Durham, Ben helped found the History of Art Society and was Treasurer and President of the Ski & Snowboard Club. He has worked at Morgan Stanley since 2006, as an Investment Adviser for wealthy individuals, families, charities, trusts and companies. He maintains a strong interest in the media and has published articles in national and student newspapers.

Mick Csaky

Mick Csaky runs the film and television production company, Antelope. He began his media career in 1971, graduating from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Film & Television Production. He has produced and directed more than 100 television programmes and executive produced a further 600, many of them international co-productions. The majority of his output has been documentary singles and series. A substantial number of his television programmes have been about social, economic and political issues in Africa and the Middle East.

In 1998, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Television Society, "In recognition of an outstanding contribution to the furtherance of television".

Brendan Gormley MBE

Brendan Gormley is the Chief Executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee. After working as an ‘unattached social worker' with a motorcycle gang in Birmingham in his youth, he joined the White Fathers Monastic Order and worked and studied in Ireland and France. He continued his interest in social issues working with travellers and immigrants in both countries, and with teenage drug abusers in London.

Having left the Order and studying at Cambridge he worked in the late 70s and early 80s on environmental and pastoral issues while living in Africa, and on urban problems in the Middle East based in Cairo. He established the Arid Lands Information Network now based in Nairobi. For most of the 1990s he was Oxfam's Africa Director, was responsible for both Asia and Latin America, and instrumental in setting up Oxfam UK's global network of regional offices.

As CEO of DEC, Brendan co-ordinates 14 leading UK international aid organisations at times of major crisis to launch national fundraising appeals with the support of the major broadcasters and is active in promoting high standards and accountability in humanitarian work.

Phil Harding

Phil Harding is a journalist, broadcaster and media consultant. Previously, Phil had a long career at the BBC where he held a wide variety of senior editorial jobs. He was Director of English Networks and News for the World Service, Controller of Editorial Policy (responsible for the editorial standards of all BBC output), Chief Political Advisor, editor of news programmes at Five Live, editor of the Today programme and deputy editor of Panorama. He has led teams that have won numerous Sony Gold awards - the most prestigious radio awards in the UK. On Panorama, he won an Emmy for his documentary work. He has helped devise and is facilitating the BBC's College of Journalism's course for new editorial leaders dealing with issues such as impartiality and defining the ‘public interest'.

As a consultant, Phil has written a major report for Oxfam on international coverage and the future of UK public broadcasting - the 'Great Global Switch Off'. He has also worked with the launch team of the new morning public radio programme on WNYC in New York, and lectured and conducted workshops in Argentina on public broadcasting and political independence.

He is a Fellow of the Radio Academy and of the Society of Editors and a Trustee of the Press Association.

Seetha Kumar

Seetha Kumar was born and educated in India, she started her career in New Delhi for a broadsheet financial daily, where she was the first woman to join the newspaper's bureau. In the UK, she initially worked on Channel 4 productions before moving to the BBC, specialising in investigative social and legal documentaries.

Seetha Kumar's various roles at the BBC have included Executive Editor of the BBC's award winning Africa Lives on the BBC season which was the BBC's largest cross-channel, cross-genre and cross-media season to date. She has commissioned programmes including Body Hits, Make Me Honest, the Time of Your Life season, Diet Trials, the Taking Care season, the critically acclaimed and award winning Your Life in Their Hands and the Pan-BBC Domestic Violence season Hitting Home. She was also involved in the Government's review of the BBC's digital services in 2004.

In 2005, Seetha Kumar was appointed Head of HD Television for the BBC and controller of bbc.co.uk. Seetha left the BBC in 2010 and is now an independent consultant.

Roger Macdonald

Roger Macdonald has had a wide-ranging career in the media. He works as a writer, broadcaster and consultant, specialising in business, travel, health, law and media.

Roger has extensive experience as a Fleet Street journalist and television producer, working for two national newspapers, the London Daily Mail and The Times, two national news agencies, PA and Extel, and for both BBC Television and BBC Radio. The highlights of his varied BBC career included editing the Today programme, producing the Barry Norman film programme and inventing The Travel Show, Breakaway and Going Places.

Later in his career Roger became Head of Marketing and Development for the Press Association (PA). During his tenure, he won the right for PA to provide news for the ITV Teletext franchise for an entire decade, the biggest single contract in its history.

Roger has an M.A. from Hertford College Oxford and in 2009 was appointed to the Advisory Board for the Humanities at Oxford.

A member of the Society of Authors and the British Guild of Travel Writers, Roger has written 14 books on history, football, motoring and travel. His ^ history of the real Man in the Iron Mask has been made into a television documentary for the Discovery Channel.  In its recent prequel, The Queen’s Diamonds, Roger reveals how the central theme of The Three Musketeers was not invented by Alexandre Dumas but based on fact.

 

Camilla Otto

Camilla Otto joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2011.

She has spent over two decades in the field of international development, working for the last ten years at the UK Department for International Development (DfID). Born in Sweden, educated both there and in France and an economist by training, Camilla has specialised in EU international relations, aid and trade policies. She started her international career at the UN, spending seven years working with UNDP, UNIFEM and UNESCO. At the EU in Brussels she was responsible for EU aid to countries like Tanzania, Djibouti and Equatorial Guinea. As Policy Head and Head of DfID's EU Department, Camilla managed the UK Government's relations with EU institutions and counterparts across Europe. At DFID, Camilla launched a new £65m Aid for Trade programme to help poor traders.

Sunil Sheth

Sunil Sheth joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2011.

He is a partner at London solicitors Fladgate LLP. He leads the firm's India team which has established a market reputation as the leading adviser to Indian companies, both here and in the Subcontinent. In 2011, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Asian Lawyers, an organisation of which he was Founder and Chair. Sunil is a trustee of Sense International, a charity supporting children who have the double disability of being deaf and blind. He was a trustee, Vice-chair and Chair of Audit Committee of Victim Support for six years, a UK national charity assisting people who are victims or witnesses of crime. He has also been a member of an Advisory Panel to the Bank of England.

Magda Walter

Magda Walter is an international communications and media consultant and journalism trainer. She is a veteran journalist who covered business, political and international news. She has also worked as a media relations executive for the World Bank and Plan, a leading international children's NGO.

In her 20 years in American television journalism, Magda has worked as a producer and assignment editor for public TV and for CNN in the US. She was also NBC News bureau chief in Moscow and a member of the launch team of business network CNBC Asia in Hong Kong, where she created the daily business advice programme "The Winners" and supervised coverage of special events, including the handover of Hong Kong to China and the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF.

Since 2003, when she established her own consulting firm, Magda has, among other projects, prepared an extensive review of broadcast strategy for UNICEF global headquarters in New York. She conducted training for journalists in former Soviet republics on professional ethics, coverage of politics, elections and business for the International Centre for Journalists in Washington and Internews. Some of her other clients include the International Women's Media Foundation, the UNDP, the African Development Bank and Amnesty International, where she was acting Media Director in early 2007.

Peggy Walters

Peggy Walters joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2011.

She is a communications and public affairs consultant with over 17 years experience in communications, PR and marketing in organisations straddling both the private and voluntary sectors. She has successfully delivered groundbreaking communications projects at three major charities - The Prince's Trust, Leonard Cheshire Disability and Marie Stopes International - helping to fulfil the ambitions of these organisations and introducing the use of digital technologies in campaigns. Peggy holds a degree in Communication Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London and a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Theory and History from the University of East London. She is an active member of Charity Comms, the professional membership body for charity communicators.

“After September 11th, 2001, is there anyone out there who failed to see the importance of understanding the world beyond these islands?”

George Alagiah, BBC News