D’Arcy spent eight years working in marketing and business development before going to the independent Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific with VSO. This led to work in 32 countries around the world from Africa, the Far East, Europe, the former Soviet Union, USA and the South Pacific.
With twelve years hands-on experience as a charity CEO, he has led a number of charities through change and development. For the past five years he has been a highly successful and experienced independent Third Sector consultant operating at a senior level with Boards and Chief Executives. D’Arcy was one of the founders of the Small Charities Coalition and Charity2020 and also set up the South East Charity Forum and The Corporate Social Partnership.
Passionate about professionalism within the 3rd sector, D’Arcy is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a trustee of a number of voluntary organisations including ACO. He was also a secondary school governor for eight years.
John is an experienced Public Relations Communications Consultant with strong consulting professional skills in Crisis Management, Public Affairs, Political Communication, Corporate Social Responsibility.
John is a past Chair, Vice-Chair and Trustee of Iprovision since 2004. Iprovision is the Benevolent Fund of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) which was set up in 1965 by a small group of members to help colleagues in need. Since then, they have supported hundreds of institute members and their families battling illness, disability, unemployment or bereavement.
John was Head of Public Relations and Marketing for Glasgow Council for nine years and a Council Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). John co-authored ‘PR and Communication in Local Government and Public Services’ ( Kogan Page, July 2013) with Pat Gaudin and Wendy Moran which at the time was the first text book on local government PR in fifteen years. It is published in the CIPR series ‘PR in Practice’.
Caroline has 25 years’ experience in the benevolent fund sector. She is former Manager of CIMA Benevolent Fund, the benevolent fund for management accountants linked to AICPA (the Association of Interntaional Certified Professional Accountants), the world’s leading and largest professional body of management accountants.
Previously, Caroline managed the Members Fund of the Incorporated Society of Musicians. Earlier in her working life, Caroline was a researcher at the Bank of England. Caroline has degrees in history and economics and is an enthusiastic amateur choral singer.
Kris joined the ICE Benevolent Fund in May 2001 as Chief Executive. The ICE Ben Fund supports members of ICE and their families throughout the world; the charity awards financial assistance in times of need and provides personal development and wellbeing advice.
Prior to this, Kris was Director of the Investment Property Forum which was a great starting point but not where she felt her interests lay. Investments are rarely interesting!
The ICE Ben Fund has been a member of ACO since its inception, is a keen contributor and supporter and Kris is really keen for ACO member funds to work collaboratively. She is delighted to be appointed an ACO Trustee from 2016.
Julie joined the RL Glasspool Charity Trust in April 2016.
She has worked in public and third sector grants development and management for over 20 years. She is an experienced bid writer, securing funding from trusts, charities and statutory organisations, including a major transport contract from the Olympic Delivery Agency.
She was previously the Grants Manager at the MS Society; Local Area Agreement Programme Manager at the Lambeth Strategic Partnership; Head of Business Development at HCT Group; Grants Manager at the Camelot Foundation and Community Support Manager for Greenwich Council.
She is also an active community volunteer, having held school governorships and trustee roles. She co-founded Queens Boundary Community in 2012, a grassroots initiative that seeks to improve community cohesion in a deprived ward in Waltham Forest. Since October 2016 Julie has also been a volunteer at Eat or Heat, Walthamstow’s local food bank.
Jodie is Chief Operating Officer at CABA, an occupational charity that supports ICAEW members and their families in everyday situations and exceptional life-changing circumstances.
Jodie is a charity executive bringing commerciality and creativity to the board of ACO, having built experience and capabilities in a unique combination of blue-chip companies, professional service firms and not for profit organisations.
Joining the third sector in 2006, Jodie has held a number of senior level marketing positions within membership and charity, before becoming COO. She has a keen interest in membership engagement and value, and raising greater awareness of the impact of the benevolent sector.
Juliet joined LionHeart as Head of Operations in 2019. Previously she headed up the commissioned services division of the parenting charity NCT and prior to that was a senior manager in the NHS. Juliet has overseen significant growth in LionHeart’s operations, partnerships and engagement and is keen to see ACO take a greater role in the sector and for more collaboration between members.
Juliet is an avid reader – averaging 50 books a year – and volunteers at a repair café which seeks to repair and repurpose items to save them from landfill. She is also a trustee for a CIO which runs a foodbank and a lunch club for isolated people. More controversially, she has never seen Star Wars.
Liam is a communications and campaigns professional. He was PR & External Affairs Manager at ACO member charity Turn2us before recently moving to the Action for Children media team.
Prior to joining the charity sector in 2017, Liam originally qualified as a journalist. He also has public affairs experience and provided the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Universal Credit from 2019 to 2021.
