Our Team

Trustees

Rennie Hoare - Chair

Partner and Head of Philanthropy, C Hoare & Co.
Rennie joined the bank in 2016, and was invited to join the partnership in 2018. He is Head of Philanthropy, and is also leading the bank’s working group on customer service standards.
 
Prior to this, he worked at T. Rowe Price and was responsible for relationships with institutional investment consultants in the UK and Europe. Before joining T. Rowe Price in 2011, he spent time at both Threadneedle and Guinness Asset Management.
 
He graduated from the University of York with a BA Hons in Politics, and holds the Investment Management Certificate.Rennie is involved with a number of charities and particularly enjoys his mentoring of the next generation of philanthropists.
 
 

Jo Bateson

Partner, KPMG in the UK
Jo has been a Partner since 2014. She specialises in providing tax advice to wealthy individuals and their businesses and has over 14 years’ experience. Jo’s clients range from former prime ministers to motor racing enthusiasts. Jo leads KPMG’s national Private Wealth Tax services, which offer private client tax advice to wealth managers including tax reporting, opinions on structured products and training. Jo’s clients include family offices, landed estates,entrepreneurs, ultra-high net worth individuals and non-doms. Jo was listed as one of the ‘Top 35 Under 35 Private Client Practitioners’ for 2009, 2010 and 2011, and one of the few to be listed every year since the award was established. She was also shortlisted in Management Today’s 35 Under 35 ‘Ones to Watch’, which was published in the Sunday Times in 2012. Jo was shortlisted in the prestigious Tax Journal‘Top 40 under 40’ in 2015, as well as being awarded Gold in the Citywealth Powerwoman Awards 2015.

Jamie Broderick

Director, Impact Investing Institute
Jamie Broderick is a Director of the newly-launched Impact Investing Institute, an independent, non-profit UK organisation that aims to accelerate the growth and improve the effectiveness of the impact investing market.  The Institute is supported by the Government Inclusive Economy Unit, the Department for International Development, the City of London Corporation, and a number of financial services organisations in the UK.
 
Jamie was head of UBS Wealth Management in the UK from 2013 to 2017. Jamie joined UBS after nineteen years at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, latterly as Chief Executive of its European operations. He joined J.P. Morgan in New York in 1993 and moved to London in 1996. He started his financial services career at Wellington Management Company, an independent asset management partnership in Boston. He studied Arabic Linguistics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard College and continued those studies in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago.
 

Richard Cassell

Of Counsel, Withers LLP
Richard is of counsel in the private client and tax team. He advises on US and international tax and trust and estate planning, with clients based in Europe and the US. He specialises in US tax strategies for individuals, international trusts and closely held business structures. Richard devotes a significant part of his practice to cross-border philanthropy and pioneered the use of dual qualified charitable structures.
 
Richard was educated at University College London and qualified as a solicitor before moving to the US and attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School and has practiced in Washington DC and London. He is admitted as a solicitor in England, as a member of The District of Columbia and US Tax Court Bars.

Cath Dovey

Co- Founder, The Beacon Collaborative

Cath is a co-founder of the Philanthropy Collaborative and is the lead coordinator for a number of the activities of the Beacon Collaborative. Formerly a co-founder of Scorpio Partnership, the global wealth management strategy and research firm, she led the firm’s high-net-worth and strategy research capabilities for two decades. In the field of philanthropy, Cath headed Scorpio Partnership’s global research work with major donors, family givers and family foundations. Cath chairs Philanthropy Impact and Rosa, the UK fund for women and girls. She is an advisory board member of the Family Office Association in the US and the Managing Partners Forum in the UK.

Sarah Farrow

Director, Frank Hirth PLC
Sarah has 19 years’ experience in private client tax and specialises in dealing with high net worth individuals and their onshore and offshore structures. She is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (TEP). Sarah is also a qualified Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA). Sarah trained with KPMG where she became involved in advising UK based wealthy families, providing income, capital gains and inheritance tax advice to individual family members and their UK Trusts. She later moved to the Channel Islands where she advised on UK tax issues for offshore trustees, UK residents, non-UK domiciliaries and non-UK resident individuals with assets or structures in the UK.
 
Prior to moving to Frank Hirth, Sarah worked at a leading accounting firm where she advised very wealthy multi-national families, entrepreneurs and highly sophisticated investors from private equity and hedge fund backgrounds on structuring their worldwide assets efficiently. She has also acted for offshore trustees providing tax and trust advice on structures managed and administered by them. Sarah joined Frank Hirth in 2016 to head up the UK tax team and her tax knowledge and experience enhances our existing offering to clients. She also sits on the Tax Technical Team within Frank Hirth whose primary role is to provide technical support to the wider firm.

Edward Finch BA ACA

Eddie qualified with a top 6 audit firm in 1993. Post qualification, he gained a broad range of experience across a range of business sectors, including audit and corporate finance transactions of listed property and hospitality groups. From the mid 1990’s he increasingly specialised in the charity and not for profit sector and took a lead in developing the firm’s audit and other services to a sector that was at that time rapidly professionalising. He was a core member of the newly formed charity team that supported clients adapting to what was then a new statutory audit obligation for charities. His clients during this period included a diverse range of organisations including membership bodies, learned societies and charities delivering public services under contract.He joined Buzzacott in 2003 and became a partner in 2005, his interests in overseas development, social enterprise and membership organisations complementing the specialist focus of the Charity and Not for Profit Team partners at that time.He now works with a diverse range of organisations including Livery Companies. Many of Edward’s clients have historic constitutions, including Royal Charters, which pre-date modern company and charity law, as well as relationships with wider communities including the City of London. Many of his clients have substantial investments in property and other assets, including assets made available for social impact purposes as well as or instead of financial return. He acts for several organisations that are stewards of historic properties and other “heritage” assets – including managing their use as a venue for training and professional meetings, hospitality and other purposes - as well as for charities engaged in welfare, education and training and housing.As well as audit, Edward undertakes projects for clients including additional assurance on financial controls and processes, governance reviews and training. He regularly presents at client seminars and external conferences and events as well as writing for Buzzacott’s own and external publications.Edward is a member of the firm’s Audit and Assurance Technical Committee as well as its Audit Committee and holds the responsibility for Buzzacott’s training of ICAEW Chartered Accountants.

Ceris Gardner

Partner, Maurice Turnor Gardner

Ceris advises UK and international philanthropists on planning their charitable giving strategy including the availability of tax reliefs and the requirements for cross border giving. Ceris advises charity trustees on constitutional and governance issues, on their powers and duties and on the increased risks and responsibilities facing them in the economic downturn and the challenges posed by the role of charities in the Big Society. Ceris is a trustee of Crimestoppers Trust and  secretary to the STEP Charity Special Interest Group.  Ceris contributes to press articles on philanthropy and gives talks on charity matters to private banks and other professional organisations.  She is also a member of STEP and the Charity Law Association.

 

Darshita Gillies

Founder and CEO, Blu Dot Advisory and Maanch
Listed among 100 Most Influential in UK - India Relationships, Darshita is Founder & CEO of Maanch - an multi award winning global impact platform connecting high impact organisations around the world with philanthropic capital providers and link global progress on SDGs. From humble beginnings in Mumbai, India, in a non-English-speaking conservative family, she is now a global citizen. Her aim is to leverage the power of emerging technologies to address the complex business and societal challenges we face in a more sustainable, conscious, and strategic way. Her experience builds on and blends 3 facets, 'Finance', 'Technology' and 'Planetary Sustainability’. With a professional background as a Chartered Accountant, Investment Banker, Executive Coach, Impact Investing and FinTech/ Blockchain Specialist, Darshita also serves on Boards of 'For Profit' and 'Non-Profit' organisations. 
 
 
 

George King IV

Partner, MASECO Private Wealth
George is a Partner at MASECO Private Wealth and a senior investment professional with 25 years of financial markets experience who advises high net worth families on their cross border financial needs. For the first decade of his career, George was doing primary investment research as a Financial Analyst (CFA), spending most of that time as an Institutional Investor-ranked analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York. Though responsible for a range of consumer industries, his notable coverage was the dynamic TMT (telecom, media and technology) sector. The second half of his career has been focused on working with high net worth investor clients, principally with AllianceBernstein (AB) and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). Working in New York, Miami and London, George has experience advising a very broad range of investors around the world on investment strategy and portfolio construction, across all major asset classes and multiple currency regimes. George has played a key role in helping to build wealth management businesses for both AB and RBC, across Florida and in London. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, writes for and is quoted in a range of publications, and makes regular appearances on TV and radio programs. Passionate about the critical importance of the intersection of wealth planning and investment management, he has earned a Certificate in Financial Services – Trusts and Estate Planning from the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners (STEP). As an American expat in the UK, George has lived through the issues on which he now advises US clients residing in the UK and elsewhere outside the US.
 
 

NATASHA MÜLLER

Impact Investor
Natasha is a next gen impact investor, philanthropist and mental health activist. She is a convener to the core and is passionate about leveraging her deep network to build and support a global ecosystem of local change-makers that, together, create sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.NM Impact Ltd. was founded with the aim to inspire, motivate and connect like-minded Next Gens and to catalyze increased capital flows, whether philanthropically or through impactful investments, to social enterprises and sustainable businesses. Natasha’s sector involvement and proactive participation in investments focus on themes including food systems, clean tech, gender equality, affordable housing, as well as water, waste, and environmental sanitation. Ultimately, she looks at how she can use her energy and resources to catalyze a compassionate systems-change transformation that puts community and human connection at the heart of it.
Natasha also actively campaigns on mental health issues, has worked on several policy initiatives, and helps fundraise and create philanthropic solutions. She is a trustee for United for Global Mental Health and Philanthropy Impact, occupies seats on various advisory committees and boards including, the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) at the University of Zurich, the Empower initiative at Harvard Medical School, and is a founding member of The Conduit social impact membership club.Natasha holds a BA in Geography; an MSC in the Political Economy of Violence, Conflict, and Development from SOAS University, and is an Alumni of the Impact Investing for the Next Generation course at Harvard Kennedy School. Outside of her work, she was a competitive equestrian show jumper and is currently an avid weightlifter, sports enthusiast, and a contemporary art collector.

Nandu Patel

Managing Director, Rothschild & Co Wealth Management

Nandu Patel is Head of Charities and joined Rothschild & Co Wealth Management in 2010. Prior to joining Rothschild & Co Wealth Management (R&CoWM), Nandu spent 20 years working for Morgan Stanley, where he developed their charity business. Since joining R&CoWM he has built a dedicated charities team of 6 people and charity assets under management represent 9% of the Wealth Management business in the UK. Nandu founded and remains a trustee of a grant making UK registered charity focused on education, health and relief of poverty in the UK, East Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Nandu graduated from Cambridge University (Downing College) with a Masters in Economics. He had been a member of Downing College’s Alumni Campaign Board for over 10 years. He is a Chartered Insurer and a member of Chartered Securities Institute.

 

Lyn Tomlinson

Head of Philanthropy and Impact Investment, Cazenove Capital

Lyn has over 15 years’ experience in advising private clients and joined Cazenove in 2014.Lyn is Head of Philanthropy and Impact and is a member of the sustainable asset class committee which is responsible for sustainable investment strategy, fund selection and oversight. She is a Chartered Financial Planner and holder of the Chartered Wealth Manager qualification.

 

Staff

John Pepin

Chief Executive

Philanthropy and social entrepreneurship have been John's passion. This has been demonstrated in numerous ways including being an author and leader of innovation, change and growth. He has been based in the UK for 18 years.  

He spent over 15 years as a chief executive of a variety of Canadian charities/ social enterprises/ associations; and he has 20 years experience as a social entrepreneurial consultant internationally working with over 300 charities, social enterprises, infrastructure support organisations, and trade/ professional associations of all sizes and in rural and urban settings in the UK and internationally. Currently he is Chief Executive, Philanthropy Impact whose purpose is the increase philanthropic giving and social investment across Europe by working with professional advisors to HNW and UHNW individuals. 

He has experience in innovative service and programme design, revenue generation, charity management, social enterprise and social investment, venture start-up and management, and business strategy consulting across multiple third sector verticals as well as experience from Thailand and Indonesia encouraging social entrepreneurialism and feasibility studies in both countries creating social investment funds. including venture philanthropy as part of the spectrum of financial support.
 

Zofia Sochanik

Director, Training and Development

Zofia has over 15 years’ experience within the charity sector, working with UK organisations such as University of Liverpool, The Prince’s Trust, National Deaf Children’s Society and several international projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has considerable experience in revenue generation from the private sector, with a specific focus on engaging wealthy individuals and creating long-term effectual partnerships with the charities they were supporting. Zofia began her consultancy in 2014 after recognising that there was a need for professional philanthropy advisers with extensive knowledge of giving strategies and the charity sector, to enable philanthropists and their advisers, foundations, businesses and charitable organisations to work together to create the most effective change that they seek. Prior to joining Philanthropy Impact, Zofia worked with individuals and their professional advisers on personalised strategic giving, also advising on charity governance and reporting, facilitating training sessions and creating thoughtful learning space around impact for both funders and projects.  Throughout her career her passion has grown for inspiring philanthropy. She is also a Non-Exec Director for  The Conte Club, a private travel concierge advising on their social investment and corporate responsibility. 

Rachele Menditto

Communication and Events Manager

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