Trustees
Jeremy Carver CBE, co-chair
Jeremy Carver CBE is co-chair of IRC-UK and a member of the Board of the International Rescue Committee. He is a public international lawyer, recently retired as a senior partner of Clifford Chance LLP, where he continues as a Consultant and Head of International Law.
In more than 30 years of law practice, he has represented and advised many States and governments in territorial and maritime disputes, treaties and international organisations, and in cases before national courts. He is President of the British Branch of the International Law Association and a Trustee/Director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
He is also on the Board of Trustees of Transparency International (UK), and a member of the Steering Board for the UK National Contact Point for the OECD MNE Guidelines. He is an Independent member of the Council of the University of Sussex, where he lives. Jeremy is married to Anthea, with three sons.
Kathleen O'Donovan, co-chair
George Biddle
George C. Biddle is the executive vice president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and is based in New York.
Previously, he was the vice president of the International Crisis Group, an organisation that works through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. He was also president of the Institute for Central American Studies, an organisation he founded in 1989 to assist post-cold war Central America in its transition from violent conflict to peace and democracy.
George serves on several non-profit boards, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds an AB degree from Harvard and an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins.
Gillian duCharme
Gillian duCharme lived in the USA for 19 years and was head of The Town School, New York, New York. On her return to England she was headmistress of Benenden School, in Kent, for 15 years. She now works as an associate of Resource Group 175 (www.rg175.com), a small consulting group which takes on assignments in school leadership and governance, and she has done work in both Europe and Asia. She is a member of the European Council of International Schools, the National Association of Independent Schools and the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls.
Her current work on boards in the not-for-profit sector includes Marlborough House School, Kent, the Greenwich School of Management and International Rescue Committee UK. Prior to that she served on the Court of the University of Greenwich and the board of Wellington College, Berks.
Jacqueline de Chollet
Jacqueline, who is Swiss, has over the past 30 years been active in the fields of Women’s Health, Social Justice, Education, Public Housing, and the Arts.
She founded the Global Foundation for Humanity, in the US (1994) and UK (1998) to support various projects in the USA, the UK and India, designed to improve the health and education of individuals, particularly girls and women. The Foundation currently funds several projects, the Veerni Project in India being the most important one.
The Veerni Project was self-established and sponsored since 1993 and delivers comprehensive reproductive health care to women in 16 villages in rural Rajasthan, India. As well, the project funds access to secondary school for adolescent girls through a boarding school programme and village based literacy centre. The Veerni Project is very involved in nutrition programmes to alleviate the chronic malnutrition of children.
Jacqueline has been a board member of the following: The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, NY; Rainbo/Amanitare; International Women’s Health Coalition NY and the Synergos Institute NY.
She has lectured widely in the States as well as in France, South Africa and the UK.
She was a founding member of the National Gallery Development Committee and Chairman of the George Beaumont Group of the National Gallery London and is a Trustee of the Solti Foundation UK. She was a board member and Chair of the Southern Housing Foundation, London.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock GCMG
Jeremy Greenstock is the Director of the Ditchley Foundation, the Conference Centre in Oxfordshire which focuses on international policy issues of particular interest to the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
Born in 1943, Sir Jeremy was educated at Harrow School and Worcester College, Oxford. His principal career was with the British Diplomatic Service, ending as UK Permanent Representative at the United Nations in New York (1998-2003) and then, after a suspension of his retirement, as the UK Special Envoy for Iraq (September 2003-March 2004).
After three years as an Assistant Master at Eton College, he joined the Diplomatic Service in 1969. The two themes of his career were the Middle East and US/Western European Relations.
Sir Jeremy took up his position as Director of the Ditchley Foundation in August 2004. He also works as a Special Adviser to the BP Group, is a Non-Executive Director of De La Rue and a Trustee of the International Rescue Committee (UK). He is married with three grown-up children.
John Makinson CBE
John Makinson is the Chairman and Chief Executive of the Penguin Group, the international publishing company. He was the Finance Director of Pearson, Penguin’s parent company, between 1996 and 2002, and is a member of the Pearson Board.
John's career has included journalism and investor relations both in London and abroad. From 1994 to 1996 he was the managing director of the Financial Times newspaper where he was responsible for the production, distribution and marketing of the newspaper worldwide.
John is Chairman of the Institute for Public Policy Research, the UK’s leading progressive think tank, as well as a director of the National Theatre. He is married with two children and lives in London.
The Hon. Richard Sharp
Richard Sharp has over twenty five years of experience in finance, having spent over twenty years at Goldman Sachs. Richard was most recently Chairman of Goldman Sachs’ Principal Investment Area in Europe, with responsibility for European Private Equity and Mezzanine Funds.
Richard is Chairman of the Royal Academy Trust and has been involved with the Royal Academy of Arts since 2004. He is non-executive Chairman of Huntsworth PLC, a member of the Mayor of London’s Legacy Board of Advisors, Deputy Chairman of the Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign, a Trustee of the Royal Marsden Hospital, a Director of the Institute of Cancer Research, Director of Development at SAID Business School (University of Oxford) and a Director and the Treasurer of the Centre for Policy Studies.
Diane Simpson
Diane Granzow Simpson, known as Dee Dee, is from Dayton, Ohio. She received an AB in Government from Dartmouth College and a Master’s in International Affairs from the University of Virginia.
She worked in Washington, DC as a legislative aide to US Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana. She then served as a US Foreign Service Officer from 1980-1990, with posts including London, delegate to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces negotiations in Geneva, and the Department of Politico-Military Affairs with responsibility for verification protocols to the Threshold Test Ban and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaties. She was subsequently Managing Editor of Strategic Comments at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
She has been Chairman of the Fundraising Committee of the International Rescue Committee UK since 2006 and on the Board since 2007. She is Secretary to the Trustees, Dartmouth College Trust, and on the Development Committee of the Godolphin and Latymer School. She chaired the Parents’ Association at both Eaton Square School and the Westminster Cathedral Choir School.
