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TRUSTEES

Shoba Ram

Co-Chair

Lakhraj Minhas

Trustee

Katherine Hobbs

Trustee

Bonny Chung

Vice Chair

Liz Potter

Trustee

Sophie Peart

Trustee

Rosanna Vu

Treasurer

Elahe Karimnia

Trustee

Sophia James

Trustee

Shruthi Venkatachalam

Trustee

Emily Johnstone

Trustee

Alice Hulme

Trustee

STAFF

Katy Taylor

Director

Dahlia Von Carolath

Community organiser

Faith Barorot

Community Development Worker

Claire Charras

Communications Coordinator

Willow Vidal-Hall

Young Women's Worker

Madie Lewis

Communities & Connections Coordinator

Debra Newrick

Over 55s Health Project Coordinator

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    94 Grosvenor Rd
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Shoba RAM

Trustee

Shoba joined the BWV board in January 2024. Shoba Ram is an experienced leader in drug policy, with over two decades of experience working within drug treatment services and the criminal justice system to improve services for those most affected by drug policy.

Shoba brings a strong commitment to reducing the harm and discrimination associated with outdated drug policies. She brings a particular commitment to improving services for women, especially in the context of problematic substance use.

As a trustee of Bristol Women’s Voice and Director of the Women’s Work Lab, she has advocated for and shaped gender-specific services to support women to receive necessary care and support.

Lakhraj Minhas

Trustee

Lakhraj joined the board in September 2024. Lakhraj Minhas is an experienced sustainability professional and lawyer, with her last role being Group Director of Sustainability at a healthcare recruitment and services company.

Responsible, inclusive and sustainable practices are core to what drives Lakhraj to build and embed ethical decision making, environmental responsibility and create fairer, more inclusive organisations. With experience ranging across central and local government, charitable and corporate sectors, Lakhraj has delivered positive outcomes through building multi-stakeholder partnerships, programme management, governance and delivery and designing processes and frameworks to support change.

Her voluntary work includes encouraging learning and engagement with the natural world as a learning facilitator at the Natural History Museum, acting as a trustee and company secretary for a health and wellbeing charity supporting marginalised women and mentoring ex-care leavers to support their career progression.

Katherine Hobbs

Trustee

Katherine joined the Board in June 2024 and works for Frazer Nash Consulting as a Business Analyst

She’s worked in a variety of male dominated industries including government, energy, retail and finance. She founded and chaired a Women’s Network prior to the Frazer Nash Consultancy merger to raise awareness of women’s equality in the engineering and business consultancy sectors. She is an active member of a technology working group in collaboration with Tech UK looking at how innovation can tackle Violence Against Women and Girls and Rape and Serious Sexual Assaults.

She gave birth to a baby girl in March 2023 and this spurred her on more to make her daughter’s future different. Passionate advocate for diversity and equality in and out of work and proud to serve as a Trustee to improve the lives of women in Bristol and further.

Bonny Chung

Vice Chair

Bonny joined Bristol Women’s Voice in September 2021 and became vice-Chair in February 2022.

Prior to this, she was Secretary and Deputy Chair of the Driver Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) Women’s Network where her portfolio focused on period poverty, raising awareness of domestic abuse and launching the menopause charter.

Since taking up the Vice Chair role, she have published an article to raise awareness of Menstrual Hygiene Day, focused on developing BWV’s board culture, and produced a central repository of key diversity dates and board meetings to ensure the Board operates more efficiently.

Outside of BWV, Bonny is a Civil Service delivering much needed funds to North West towns for regeneration and local growth projects. She is involved in a number of Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion networks, which strives to improve outcomes for under-represented groups and promote development opportunities for all.

Liz Potter

Trustee

Liz joined the board of trustees for Bristol Women’s Voice in 2021.

Liz is a change management professional and works on large transformation programmes. She is committed to belonging and inclusion and being a voice for positive change in this space.

Sophie Peart

Trustee

Sophie joined the board in August 2023 and works for Southmead Hospital Charity as the individual giving officer.

She’s also worked in the civil service and for the Harbour Project, a small charity in Swindon which supports refugees and those seeking asylum. It was there that she gained an interest and experience in shaping an inclusive, safe and thriving space for women.

In addition, she studied German and Spanish at the University of Nottingham and completed her Master’s in Identity and Integration at the University of Amsterdam.

Elahe Karimnia

Trustee

Elahe joined Bristol Women’s Voice’s board in September 2023. She is a researcher and lecturer in Architecture and Planning at UWE Bristol, with special interest in designing publicness and inclusive places.

She is passionate about intersectional feminism and the use of creative methods in challenging different forms of exclusions and discriminations against marginalised bodies in the built environment.

Having a keen eye for design and a deep commitment to social justice, Elahe is interested in improving the quality of public spaces and infrastructure for women in cities.

Shruthi Venkatachalam

Trustee

Shruthi joined the board in August 2023. She recently completed her doctoral studies at the Centre for Gender and Violence Research, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol.

Her research primarily revolves around feminist disability studies, violence against women, human rights, and theories of power and justice.

She is a professional social worker with experience in various adult and child social care roles in India.

Additionally, she serves as a practitioner coach for value-based leadership training and conducts legal awareness sessions on disability rights and sexuality education for girls with disabilities.

She has also collaborated in creating a training module on disability and disaster risk reduction, with a specific focus on children and adults with disabilities.

Emily Johnstone

Trustee

Emily joined BWV in October 2022. She is a specialist medical negligence solicitor, with a particular focus on women’s health, birth injuries and gynaecological cancers.

She is passionate about improving diversity in the legal profession and has mentored for several university accessibility schemes.

Emily is interested in improving healthcare inequalities faced by women, especially those from marginalised groups.

Alice Hulme

Trustee

Alice has been an active volunteer with Bristol Women’s Voice for the past three years, contributing to our International Women’s Day Steering Group. She first connected with BWV while researching women’s equality groups in Bristol, and her commitment to championing gender equality has only grown since.

Professionally, Alice serves as the Client Engagement Director at Rise Technical Recruitment, a specialist engineering recruitment firm in Bristol. Working within a traditionally male-dominated field, Alice is dedicated to driving positive change both in her local community and in the industries, she supports through her career.

Katy Taylor

Director

Katy joined BWV in November 2020. She has worked in the violence against women & girls sector for 15+ years in practitioner, leadership and consultancy roles. She continues to provide independent consultancy in the specialist women’s sector. 

Dahlia Von Carolath

Community organiser, Women Together for Change

Dahlia joined BWV in January 2022. She has background in grassroot movement building and community organising, immigration law, refugee support and protection. She is a mother of two boys, is passionate about women’s rights, system change and earth protection.

Faith Barorot

Community Development Worker

Faith Joined Bristol Women’s Voice in February 2024. Originally from Kenya, Faith recently completed her Masters in Gender and International Relations from the University of Bristol.

Previously, she was working as a management consultant in gender-focused projects across Sub-Saharan Africa. Faith is excited to utilise a bottom-up approach to enhance women’s livelihoods, especially marginalised women.

Claire Charras

Communications Coordinator

Claire joined Bristol Women’s Voice in July 2023.  She has been working in communications for the charity sector since 2012 and has been living in Bristol since 2013. 

Madie Lewis

Communities and Connections Meeting

Madie joined Bristol Women’s Voice in October 2024. She is passionate about social justice, gendered equity, and inclusion. Madie is looking forward to creating an inclusive events that celebrate all women.

Debra Newrick

Trustee

Debra joined the board in September 2024. Debra has worked in community development roles for 25 years, supporting marginalised individuals and communities to reach their personal potential through consultation, research, delivery design project management. She has project-managed gender research and trained local diverse women, to capture women’s barriers and amplify women’s voices to support change.

Debra is a qualified executive leadership coach and member of the European Mentoring & Coaching Council, which enables her to ensure that she has continuous professional development to enhance the coaching journey.

Debra has a vast portfolio and her core values are change-making and inclusion, she is a Fellow of Royal Society of Commerce and Arts which enables her to connect with change-makers worldwide, to develop initiatives to design and sustain change.