Our trustees

Carolyn Sims - Chair

Carolyn has over 16 years working with charities, social enterprises and other organisations delivering social impact. In 2020 she was named in Pioneers Post’s list of ’Women of inspiration. Carolyn leads all Charity Bank’s lending activities and sits on the Executive Committee of the Bank.

She is also Technical Adviser to Eastern Community Homes – a network of organisations looking to deliver more affordable homes in the east of England. Carolyn is Director of Almshouse Consortium Limited the vehicle through which almshouses can access capital grants from Homes England to build new homes or improve existing homes.

Megan Virrels

Megan is an experienced trustee, non-executive director & CEO, with an extensive financial services background. During her 8-year tenure as CEO of NatWest Social & Community Capital, Megan transformed its social impact, growing it into an established UK-wide player and received the “Finance Team of the Year 2021” in the Third Sector Awards for its “Coronavirus Relief Grant Fund”, which safeguarded ca. 400 jobs across 33 organisations. Megan also serves as a trustee on the NatWest Group Pensioners Benevolent Fund and as a NED for Scotcash, which has delivered affordable short-term finance & financial advice to hundreds of people struggling to access mainstream lending.

Richard Dixon

Richard is a freelance writer and researcher on the environment, and writes a weekly column in the Scotsman newspaper. He has a strong background in policy and leadership roles in environmental non-government organisations in Scotland – having led both Friends of the Earth Scotland and WWF Scotland in the last thirty years.  Richard served as a board member of SEPA for eight years and is now Acting Chair of Environmental Standards Scotland.  He helped set up Transform Scotland and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, and previously chaired the Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative and four Postcode Lottery Trusts.

Joanna Heywood

Joanna Heywood is a social investment and philanthropy specialist with more than 20 years’ experience across the charity, foundation and impact investment sectors. She previously led impact investment at Oxfam and Better Society Capital’s work with philanthropic investors, where she advised foundations and other mission-led organisations on impact investment and helped develop new approaches to catalytic capital.

Jo now advises foundations and charities on social investment, innovative finance and impact. She is also co-founder of Info Latinos, a charity supporting Latin Americans in the UK, and has served on Postcode Innovation Trust’s Social Investment Panel since 2019.