Derek Harding

Chair of Spectris Foundation and CFO of Spectris plc

Derek is the Chief Financial officer at Spectris plc and Chair of the Spectris Foundation. Previously he served as Group Finance Director at Shop Direct and CFO at Senior plc from 2013 to 2017. He previously held a number of group roles, including group financial controller, director of group strategy and investor relations, and head of mergers and acquisitions. Derek qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC.

Andrew Heath

Andrew is CEO of Spectris plc. He previously served as CEO of Imagination Technologies Group plc from 2016 to 2018 and before that was CEO of Alent plc. Prior to this, Andrew had a 30-year career with Rolls-Royce where he held a number of international and senior management roles, latterly serving as the President of Energy from 2010 to 2015. Andrew has a BSc in engineering from Imperial College London and an MBA from Loughborough University.

Yasmin Ali

Yasmin Ali is a chartered chemical engineer in the energy sector, with experience in power generation, oil and gas, district heating, and managing energy innovation programmes. She is passionate about the future of energy, and an avid promoter of engineering careers. She has featured on television and radio, regularly presents at events, and writes about the achievements of engineers.

Karen Usher

Karen Usher is a serial entrepreneur having designed and launched several companies in the human capital arena. Her most recent 10-year project involved the design, development and founding of NMITE, a new engineering higher education institution based in Herefordshire. Karen is focussed on ensuring that education at all levels is equitable, helps to truly prepare young people for their future lives, and educates them to effectively and meaningfully contribute to the challenges that they will face as our world evolves.

Kate Kerr

Kate is a senior user researcher at Monzo and previously led the Research and Design teams at The Very Group. With a background in consumer and organisational Psychology she is passionate about crafting experiences based on human behaviour and helping organisations to build digital products that customers love. Outside of work Kate plays an active role in the wider community as a women in tech mentor, she ran the first InnovateHer in-school tech for good course for 13-16 year olds and leads a bi-monthly Ladies that UX Liverpool meetups.

Colin Smith CBE

Colin is an internationally recognised engineering leader with over 40 years’ experience.

Having joined Rolls Royce as an engineering apprentice, Colin advanced to be Group President in 2016 serving on the main board since 2005 as Director Engineering and Technology. He was awarded the CBE for services to Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, The Royal Academy of Engineering, The Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Amit Agarwal

Amit started his career in finance, before spending fourteen years managing global businesses based in the US, Australia and India, and then over 20 years with Thermo Fisher. Amit holds an undergraduate metallurgical engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (India), a graduate engineering degree in materials science from the University of Houston, and an MBA in finance and strategy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Rebecca Levy

Foundation Director

Rebecca has over 12 years of experience working in the charity sector with a dual specialism in international logistics and fundraising. She has worked in the fields of animal welfare, healthcare and education; securing over £1,000,000 in funding for organisations and managing the delivery of services around the world.

Priscilla Asirifi

Foundation Finance Manager

Priscilla is a chartered management accountant with broad experience in the financial management and reporting in the charity sector having worked in the sector for over 10 years. Over the years, she has also volunteered her skills to support a number of small charities in various capacities such as an independent examiner of their end of year accounts and also as a volunteer accountant. 

Sarah Smith

Foundation Director (Maternity Cover)

Sarah has enjoyed 17 years of working in the charity sector, including 2 years’ leading an HIV education project in Uganda. She has worked in education, youth work and international development, in various roles including CEO and fundraising management. She also has experience in the commercial sector through working for a global HR consultancy. Sarah is a trustee of a grant-making charitable trust and is delighted to have joined the Spectris Foundation to support excellent grant-making in STEM education