Trustees
Fiona Edwards, Chair
Fiona is the Regional Director for the North East and Yorkshire at NHS England, a role she took up in April 2025.
She was previously Chief Executive for Frimley Health and Care Integrated Care Board, where she led the system for over five years. Before that, Fiona was Chief Executive of Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and has served as a Chief Executive in the NHS for over 23 years.
Over the course of her career, Fiona has also held senior leadership roles across the private, voluntary, and not-for-profit sectors. She was national Chair of Cruse Bereavement Care and chaired a national supported housing organisation delivering services and housing to some of the most vulnerable and excluded members of society.
Fiona has been a Trustee of the NHS Confederation since July 2023 and became Chair of Advicenow on 1st June 2024.
Jon Spain -Treasurer
Having qualified as an actuary in 1977, Jon spent 12 years at Clay & Partners (now part of Aon), followed by 28 years at GAD until May 2018, when he retired. In 1997, having promised himself 20 years earlier, never to take any further exams, he also qualified as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (which was no easier than becoming an actuary). He is now treasurer of 2 UK charities.
Vanessa Davies
Vanessa’s early career was as an academic linguist and then senior civil servant at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, before she re-trained as a barrister in 2005-7. She spent three years helping run a large legal aid charity working in refugee and immigration law, before becoming the Director General of the Bar Standards Board in 2011. She retired from the BSB in 2020 and since then has undertaken non-executive and legal and regulatory consultancy work for charities, not for profits and public bodies.
She is on the Board of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal and the Kings and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer in Edinburgh (where she lives). She serves on the General Medical Council and on the House of Lords Conduct Committee. Vanessa is a Bencher of Inner Temple, and has served as both a volunteer and Trustee of the PSU (now Support Through Court.) She has been a Trustee of Advicenow since 2017 and kindly took the role of Interim Chair between November 2023 - June 2024.
Raymond Sheehy
Raymond Sheehy has been the Chief Executive of Bridge Mental Health in Woolwich since 2009. Previously the CEO of a learning disability and mental health charity, he is currently Lead Governor of Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and a Panel Member on the Monitor Independent Advisory Panel.
Mr Sheehy is now working with his team on the development of new models of delivering services; social and commercial enterprises, and a range of innovative support and housing options for people who have experienced or continue to live with a mental health problem. He has established the first non NHS run Recovery College which now serves the people in Woolwich.
Abiodun Olatokun
Abiodun Olatokun is a researcher and project manager focused on exploring the connection between rights, citizenship and education. He is the Head of Public and Youth Engagement at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. This year he developed an online course called Citizenship and the Rule of Law, in collaboration with the University of London. He is also the Coordinator of 'The Rule of Law for Citizenship Education', a nationwide programme in which young people are taught about the rule of law and human rights. Abiodun is a member of the Solicitor General's PLE Committee and helped to draft the minister's vision statement in 2019.
Abiodun has also worked as a political organiser encouraging young people and disenfranchised groups to participate in public life. He has led voter registration projects that have successfully registered hundreds of thousands of first-time voters, working with the Cabinet Office and other partners to promote voter engagement in the run-up to the 2016 European Union Referendum. Abiodun helped to establish the charity ‘Product of a Postcode’ in East London and has been a trustee of three other organisations in addition to Advicenow.
Joe Broadway
Joe Broadway is currently training to be a barrister. Before that he was Director of Legal Affairs and Company Secretary at CFH Docmail Ltd. He created and ran Velopost, a fossil fuel free postal delivery service, as a separate business unit within CFH Docmail, for three years. He received the 2015 Business Insider Magazines 42 Under 42 award which "recognises some of the South West’s most dynamic and inspirational young entrepreneurs and celebrates their success in helping grow the regional economy”. He has also been a volunteer advocate at the Free Representation Unit, is a Trustee of the CFH Total Document Management Retirement Benefit Scheme, and was a fundraiser and volunteer at READ International.
Savita Narain
Savita has worked for the not-for-profit sector for over 25 years and has a wealth of experience in managing advice and rights-based organisations. She has a MA in Race and Ethnic Studies from Warwick University and Postgraduate Diploma in Voluntary Sector Management from Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School. Savita is an experienced trainer, a qualified NVQ assessor and completed a CAST Digital Fellowship in 2018.
Savita’s key achievements include setting up a Law Centre and leading Rethink’s Advice and Information Service through a period of consultation and change. From 2012-2018 Savita was Deputy Director of Against Violence and Abuse (AVA), where she developed HR, governance, IT, digital communications, training, and evaluation systems.
Savita is currently Directorof the Advice and Advocacy Service at Family Rights Group. Prior to that she was Senior Manager at Help on Your Doorstep, an Islington-based community organisation, where her responsibilities included managing the Good Neighbours team and leading the transition to Covid-safe services during the pandemic.
Savita volunteered as a Trustee of the Public Law Project from 2016 – 2020, during which time she became Vice-Chair of the Board.
Jennifer Dingley
Jennifer Dingley is a Senior Product Manager at Citizens Advice, where she leads teams of engineers to develop digital products that help people access the advice they need.
Jennifer started her career as asolicitor before completing a Masters in Business Administration and retraining as a digital product manager at Amazon. While at Amazon, Jennifer launched and scaled ecommerce business lines to support third party sellers selling products with supporting services in the UK and Germany.
Rohini Jana
Rohini is Head of Parliamentary Affairs with the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, has been part of the advice and community sector for the past eight years. Her background in finance law in the City has given her a unique perspective on the importance of access to justice and the role of public legal education in achieving this.
