Board Members

Louise has 25 years HR experience, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and has a Master’s degree in Employment Law. She currently works as an HR and Estates Director, leading on all people issues for over 6,000 employees. She believes that people are the most valuable asset in any organisation and is committed to creating a positive working environment. Louise has a particular interest in championing women’s issues in the workplace.

Louise lives locally in Port Talbot with her husband, enjoys dining out and live music and spending time with her little granddaughter.

Karen has worked within the supported housing sector for 7 years and is currently a Service Manager within the Thrive team at United Welsh with responsibility for partnership working and delivering health and wellbeing contracts. Prior to this Karen has managed Supporting People services including homeless hostels and floating support services. Karen originally trained as a Probation Officer after graduating from University and worked as a Probation Officer for 8 years before moving into housing. Karen has a keen interest in ensuring that services are delivered based on what matters to the person using that service and has recently completed the Vanguard Method for Person Centred Services programme.

Karen lives in the Vale of Glamorgan with her husband. In her spare time she enjoys gardening, growing her own vegetables and long walks along the beach.

Carly has worked in or supported the voluntary sector for almost 20 years in both the charities and  public sector. She previously worked as a Social Economy Officer for Bridgend County Borough Council, managing a £2.2m European grant scheme to support the development of social enterprises. She also managed the Community Asset Transfer programme for Bridgend County Council,

Carly has worked for Wales Cooperative Centre for the last 5 years, Wales largest development agency supporting social enterprises. She was previously employed as Project Manager for the Community Shares Wales project where she supported community businesses to raise capital from its communities from the sales of community shares.  She now manages the Social Business Wales New Start project a £4m ERDF funded project where she manages a team of 10 business advisors across Wales to provide business support to start up social enterprises across Wales.

Carly has a wide range of experience in the voluntary sector around business development, fundraising, project development and management. Carly has lived in Port Talbot all her life, she has two children; Ava 13 and Finley 17.

Carly is the longest standing Board member, with over 12 years’ service both in the Charity and more recently in the Enterprise.

Her interests involve keeping fit, spending time with family and going to the cinema.

Nia is currently Community Liaison Manager UK at Tata Steel in Europe. Based in Port Talbot, she has over 10 years experience in communications, undertaking numerous role within Tata Steel including; Internal Communications Business Partner and External Communications Community Relations Executive.

Nia has been instrumental in helping to shape ‘Thrive Women’s Aid’ to be recognised as a leading provider of domestic abuse services.

Nia was previously a Drug and Alcohol Misuse Counsellor and is a trained Probation Officer.

Nia is also a Welsh language speaker and writer.

Gail is a qualified and registered social worker with almost 17 years’ experience in child and family social work in the South Wales area and the south of England. She have experience of undertaking child protection investigations as well initial and core assessments alongside working with children in the looked after system and work within the courts. Gail has experience of completing fostering assessments, auditing files and has spent the last seven years working as an Independent Reviewing Officer and Child Protection Case Conference Chairperson.

Gail has a huge passion for training and have undertaken a great deal of training related to social work, child protection, counselling and education. She is also qualified to masters level and hold additional professional qualifications in Teaching and Counselling.

Gail currently chair the Parents and Friends association at her son’s school, where she is also a parent governor.

Louise is currently employed at the Wales Audit Office (WAO) as Manager of the Performance Development & Guidance Team, supporting auditor colleagues with audit guidance, learning and development, and ensuring compliance with internal quality framework for audit work.

Louise is an elected employee Board member of Wales Audit Office (WAO) and is a member of the HR and Remuneration Committee.

Louise has significant experience, at a senior level, of auditing public sector bodies, analysing and interpreting complex data, making judgements and forming reasoned conclusions based on robust evidence.

Since 1993 Louise has been a Magistrate and in 1999 she became a Chairman in the Adult Court and Family Court in Swansea.

During 2017/18 Louise was the High Sherriff of West Glamorgan.

Louise is also currently the Chairman of the Neath Port Talbot Child Contact Centre.

Louise is a keen golfer and in 2010 was Appointed Director of the Board of Ryder Cup in Wales. She also enjoys keeping fit, reading, music, theatre and cooking.

Claire has over 30 years’ experience within government and has extensive skills in policy and delivery.

Claire is currently the interim Deputy Director for Economic Policy within Welsh Government and she has also worked with Ministers in London and in Cardiff Bay.

Claire is also a governor at a high school and enjoys keeping fit by attending her local gym and running half marathons. She is a mum to twin boys.