Advisory Board
The Charity’s active advisory board plays a crucial role in guiding our small charity focused on preventing Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). Comprising experts and experienced professionals, the board offers strategic advice, helping the charity set clear, impactful goals. Their diverse expertise in areas like education, risk assessment, fundraising, social media and public relations enhances the charity’s ability to address VAWG effectively. They serve as a vital link to the community, ensuring the charity's initiatives resonate with those it aims to help. Additionally, board members act as ambassadors, raising awareness and garnering support for the charity's mission. Their oversight ensures ethical governance and financial transparency, fostering trust among supporters and beneficiaries. Overall, the advisory board is instrumental in steering the charity towards achieving its vision of a world free from violence against women and girls.
Nousheen Jalal
Chairperson Advisory Board
Nousheen Jalal is a Strategy and Human Capital advisor with a passion for people development, organisation effectiveness and purposeful change. She is grateful for her life experiences of growing up in Bangladesh, Pakistan, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom before the age of 18 and as a young adult in the United States and Germany. Her appreciation for multicultural experiences has grown further through an international career living and working from London, Singapore, and Chicago.
With her Bangladeshi-Muslim heritage, Nousheen has always been curious about multiple perspectives and conscious of the importance of bridging societal inequities within communities. Her current volunteer commitments focus on empowerment for women and girls in the United Kingdom and Bangladesh.
Nousheen has been an HR business partner at Vue International and was in business leadership roles at the Human Capital Leadership Institute and Hewitt Associates in Singapore. She has also held principal client-advisory and client-engagement roles at Mercer and Duke Corporate Education. She has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor degree from Grinnell College.
In 2016, Nousheen, her husband and two sons returned to live in London after Singapore as their home-base for 12 years. As a family, they enjoy long walks, games of tennis, skiing and celebrating multiple cultural and religious events reflecting their mixed-ethnicity, mixed-religion and multi-national family make-up and experiences. With the sons now at university, the family quite likes to engage in constructive and lively exchanges about global politics and economics, cultural values, personal identify, and ethics.
Nousheen Jalal
Mary Liu
Mary is a Director in Risk at Barclays. She has over 10 years of experience working in Financial Services where her day job requires quick thinking, effective problem solving, driving continuous improvement and attention to detail. Outside of her technical role, Mary is passionate about developing women. She has led several initiatives to develop, engage and promote women in the work place. She previously held the role of co-chair of the Enable & Engage committee in Win – The Gender Network at Barclays, where she expanded her focus on career development to promoting wellbeing and safety for women. Mary decided to join Action Breaks Silence after hearing the inspirational stories of Debi and the volunteers in Action Breaks Silence and looks to support them in every way possible for this truly worthwhile cause.
Mary Liu
Silas Edmonds
An alumnus of Calday Grammar School, Silas Edmonds completed his BA in English Literature and Latin at the University of Keele (the poetry of William Blake and Catullus being particular favourites), later achieving Chartered London Teacher Status, an NPQH through the Institute of Education and then his MA in Educational Leadership and Innovation through the University of Warwick.
Formerly Head of Senior School and Acting Principal of Surbiton High School, Silas was appointed as Principal of Ewell Castle School in 2019. His educational focus is inspiring young people to discover their strengths and to stimulate their intellectual curiosity so that they can think freely for themselves, “knowing what to do when they don’t know what to do…” (Piaget).
Silas is honoured to contribute to the essential work of Action Breaks Silence to bring about lasting change for formidable girls and women, to become all that they can and should be, through courageous education and empowering experiences to challenge and to effect social change.
Silas Edmonds
Mary Catterall
Mary has a diverse background in corporate IT consulting and management. She has worked with a variety blue-chip company to implement global programmes across many countries, which has provided her with invaluable insights into problem-solving on a large scale.
Mary has extensive experience of working on boards for non-profit and financial organisations, with a strong focus on providing strategic risk analysis and guidance.
Mary has always been a strong advocate for women and girls and is privileged to contribute to the work of Action Breaks Silence to create a safer world.
Mary Catterall
Aliya Kahn
Aliya has extensive experience as a project manager in the not-for-profit sector, having worked across local authorities, higher education, charities, and most recently with the Royal College of Occupational Therapy. She has successfully delivered a variety of projects, ranging from software implementations to organisational change.
Driven by an increased awareness of the extent and impact of violence against women and girls, Aliya is committed to raising awareness in this area. She was drawn to volunteer for Action Breaks Silence because of its focus on education and prevention and is excited to contribute to this work.
Aliya Kahn
Lucy Marsh
Lucy has 5-years’ experience working in the Financial Services industry, having worked for Barclays Bank since graduating from the London School of Economics in 2018. She is currently studying for the final level of the Chartered Financial Analyst programme.
Lucy is passionate about furthering the gender agenda across the industry. As co-chair of the subcommittee of the Barclays gender employee resource group aimed at pipeline and junior talent, she lead a group of colleagues with the aim to provide a safe space and empower the voice of these colleagues through creating events and initiatives focussed on personal and career development.
In her spare time, she is a keen marathon and ultramarathon runner, and through this a huge advocate for women in sport. She hopes to see more women and girls on the start line reaping the mental, physical, and social benefits that sport has rewarded her with.
Lucy Marsh
Francesca Lewis
Francesca currently works in the banking world to help tackle various financial crime risks through enhanced due diligence. She has honed her investigative skills through working abroad and between languages in France, West Africa, and China.
Francesca has an undergraduate in International Relations, learning considerably about the structural challenges in place that enable indirect violence against citizens, and a Master’s degree in Chinese.
Francesca volunteers in her free time for various causes, most recently fundraising money for Shelter and supporting a social business in their endeavour to financially support as a partner lead in identifying ways to develop.
Francesca Lewis
Olivia Francis
Olivia has worked in financial services in London and New York for over a decade, and currently works in Emerging Markets at a London based bank. While in New York, Olivia gained experience of managing employee support groups; organising events and sharing information to give colleagues the tools to develop their careers.
Olivia is passionate about volunteering and supporting charities that promote equality through education. She was inspired by movements such as #MeToo and BLM to join the fight against VAWG and is excited to be working with such an amazing female-led charity with a global, intersectional agenda.
Olivia Francis
Abha Mazhari
Abha has over 15 years of experience working in Information Technology for corporates. She passionate about helping women who have no voice and are unable to fight for their rights. Abha volunteers for Action Breaks Silence because the charity tackles the root causes of violence against women and girls and educates all children from a young age.
Abha Mazhari
Dasha Dubovitskaya
Dasha (or Daria, as she is known professionally) is an agricultural economist who has worked across Africa on projects seeking to boost the incomes of African farmers. In her current role at TBI (a think tank) she advises governments across the world on their agricultural strategies and policies.
She also has a strong technical background in Monitoring and Evaluation, having designed results measurement frameworks for donors and funds, carried out impact evaluations, and helped social enterprises develop their monitoring capacity. She has experience in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, data visualisation, and communication of M&E results.
Dasha has a keen interest in the theory and practice of self-defence and its role in preventing violence against women and girls. She had practiced classic krav maga on and off for a few years before discovering urban krav maga and its much stronger ground and weapons defence approaches. She is hoping to qualify as a UKM instructor.
