Our Trustees

Valerie is CEO of Choice Care Group, a community provider of residential and supported living services for people with learning disabilities, autism, and mental health conditions.

Before joining Choice, Valerie was CEO of the Huntercombe Group, a hospital provider focused on brain injury and mental health. Before that, she had leadership roles at Serco and Alfred McAlpine, following a varied consulting and accounting career with KPMG.

Previously, Valerie was a trustee and chair of the audit committee of PRIME, The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise.

Caroline is an independent management consultant, primarily working with purpose-led organisations in health and social care, and with a range of charities. Before founding her own consultancy, Caroline was operations director and strategy director at Comic Relief, where she led many years of Red Nose Day and Sport Relief campaigns.

She is a former vice chair of Imperial Health Charity, which runs, among other things, a service provided by volunteers, and a trustee of the Talent Fund.

She was previously a Samaritan and a community volunteer for NCT, the UK’s biggest parenting charity, where she strove to improve women’s mental health through social connections.

Susan is a clinical psychologist employed by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust since 2011. She works at Camden MOSAIC CAMHS, a community service for children with autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.

Her clinical role involves supporting parents, families, and children adjusting to neurodisability, and supporting the skills development required to live with neurodisability. She is interested in parenting, the development of the attachment process between parents and children, the parent-couple relationship, and the way parents adapt to grief and loss. She has published research in peer-reviewed journals on parenting training programmes and positive behaviour support and on the subjective experience of hearing voices.

She was a Samaritan for several years before qualifying as a psychologist and is committed to supporting those who feel suicidal or hopeless.

Frank became involved with TLP after losing several family members and friends to suicide and has a strong personal interest in our work.

He has had an extensive career in IT. For the past 10 years, he has been regional CIO and global head of content management systems at a global media and entertainment company. Before that, he spent more than 13 years at the parent company of a Japanese consumer electronics company, as regional CIO for Europe, and North America. He has also worked for several multinational organisations across various industry sectors, with assignments taking him across the globe.

Frank is a governor on the board of the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, as well as a trustee for Salisbury Hospice Care Trust.

Tanaka is a partner at Kearney (and previously at McKinsey), an entrepreneur and businesswoman. She qualified as a chartered accountant 23 years ago and subsequently moved into consultancy. She works with leaders and stakeholders in the private and public sectors on strategy, large-scale transformation and value delivery.

She founded a consultancy and technology practice that today turns over more than £15m a year. She sold the practice in 2017 and now helps start-ups scale their businesses.

Early in her career, she spent two years with UNICEF and she continues to dedicate time to healthcare and education programmes. She serves on the boards of WorldSkills UK and the Harpur Trust as well as The Listening Place. Tanaka is also a supervising volunteer at TLP.

Helen is the director of health policy, advocacy, and public affairs at Hanover Communications. She has spent her career working in the health sector and has held roles in the NHS, at health policy think tank The King’s Fund, and at the Department of Health and Social Care.

Helen applied to be a trustee at TLP as she was concerned about the lack of statutory support for people struggling with suicidal feelings. She hopes to be able to offer her experience of the wider health sector to the board and to support the charity in the crucial role it plays for so many people who feel that life is no longer worth living.

Alex is the secretary to the board. He is a psychoanalyst and a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He works at the Camden Psychotherapy Unit, the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis, and in private practice.

He has volunteered at both Samaritans and The Listening Place.

Sonia is a co-founder of Consultants at Work, where she has led many change projects across several professional services firms in the City of London, in the insurance and banking sectors in London and the Channel Islands, and in further and higher education in Scotland and England. The focus of her work is always helping leaders of organisations address and adapt to the challenges posed by their clients and communities.

Before undertaking a master’s degree at the Business School of the University of Bath, she worked in adult outpatient psychotherapy settings, helping to support people both individually and in groups.

Sonia served for eight years as a governor of Lewisham College, becoming its vice chair, a member of its audit committee, and leader of its human resources committee.

Phalisha works for the Ministry of Justice, where she heads the suicide and self-harm prevention policy team for prisons in England and Wales. Before this, she worked in the Cabinet Office, with a focus on improving diversity and inclusion, and for IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse).

Phalisha has been volunteering at The Listening Place since April 2019 and is currently a supervising volunteer. She has seen the difference having a safe space to talk makes to the suicidal and she is passionate about the work that TLP does.

Craig was co-founder and chief executive of The Challenge, a leading UK youth charity, and chief operating officer at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

He is a trained accountant and strategy consultant, having worked for P&G, Marakon Consulting, and Rio Tinto. He is a supervising volunteer at The Listening Place.

Sarah founded The Listening Place in July 2016, having recognised the gap in statutory services, and has been running the charity ever since. She spent 37 years with Central London Samaritans, three of them as branch director, before setting up TLP.

She has extensive experience in the private and public sectors, as well as the third sector. She started her career in HR, working for a large commercial company, and then went on to run small businesses. She has been a non-executive director for many commercial and public organisations, as well as social enterprises.

Sarah has also been a public appointments assessor and commissioner for the Commission for Equality and Human Rights and ACAS. Author of the 2009 Anderson Report on small-business regulation, she is a former chair of the SME council of the CBI, where she sat on the president’s committee.

More recently, she has been a member of the State Honours Committee, chair of judges for the annual Everywoman awards for women running their own businesses, and a lay adviser to the independent investigation into discrimination in the Conservative Party.

Sarah was made a CBE for her work in the public sector in 1999 and awarded an honorary degree by Middlesex University for her contribution to mental health advocacy in 2024.

She continues to support our visitors and draws no salary in her role as CEO.