Our trustees

The Booth Centre is governed by a board of trustees who are appointed for terms of five years.

 Elena Fowler - Chair

Elena worked for ten years as Chief Executive of the National Youth Advocacy Service, a socio-legal charity for children, young people and vulnerable adults. She has also been Head of Children and Family services, and Mental Health services in North Wales, and Drug services on Merseyside.

Elena is currently a member of the Hospital Managers panel for the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS foundation Trust. She is a Custody Suite visitor in North Wales, checking that people in police custody are receiving all their rights. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.

​She is an active member of Amnesty International and for fun enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and walking with her recalcitrant rescue dog.  Elena joined the board in 2017.

Andrew Mullen - Vice Chair

Andrew is Deputy Director of Human Resources at the University of Manchester. He has worked in HR in Manchester for over 30 years and has expertise in all aspects of employment, including HR strategy, change and performance management, employee engagement, equality and diversity, and policy design.

​Andrew is a keen advocate of the role of education as a bulwark against social exclusion and serves as a Director and Chair of the Education and Leadership Multi-Academy Trust, which comprises three Manchester secondary schools. Andrew joined the board in 2013.

Toni Phoenix

An economics graduate from The University of Leeds and 11 years in business, Toni is now the Director of Digital Gurus North and opened up the Manchester office in January 2017. Toni’s experience in business, finance, digital and information technology brings a wide range of skills to the board.

Toni first started volunteering and fundraising for the Booth Centre in  2014 with extreme challenges such as racing across the Himalayas, bungee jumping 220m and sky diving from 15,000 feet.
 
She is a certified NLP Practitioner and qualified business and executive coach gaining a merit from Leeds Beckett university in a post graduate diploma. Toni joined the board in 2017.  

Joshua McGarey

Josh is a chartered accountant and for the last ten years has worked for various accountancy firms, primarily providing tax advice to companies and individuals.  He enjoys being able to make complex tax issues understandable.  He uses his accountancy background and his experience gained working with companies of all sizes to support the work of the Booth Centre.

Josh has been involved with the Booth Centre since December 2018.  He started off as a volunteer helping out in the kitchen, before being asked to join the board of trustees in August 2019.
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In his spare time, Josh enjoys playing guitar, hiking, and cooking (though not all at the same time!).

David Briggs

After ten early working years in a wide mix of roles including professional theatre stage management, residential children’s social work and running a pub – David joined the civil service. This led to a career of 15 years in business development and a further 10 years working with universities. David has held various Director positions leading successful, multi-million pound projects, teams and partnerships. Now as an independent consultant and coach, he provides support to a broad group of senior executives and leaders.

In earlier times David has chaired various youth and community bodies. He is married to Sue, a teacher. They have one son working as a computer research scientist and two cats. He has lived all his life in the North West near Manchester and has a particular interest in history and the city. David has supported the Booth Centre through the Manchester Sleepout and other activities since being introduced in 2010. He joined the board of trustees in 2020.

Andy Morris

Andy is an experienced health and safety professional who has worked in and around Manchester City Centre for the last decade or so, at the University of Manchester, United Utilities and Bruntwood. He currently works for Cadent Gas as Head of Safety. He's a proud Mancunian, having been born and bred here, and having gone to University at Salford. He's actively involved in the development of others through his role as IOSH Merseyside Vice Chair and as an IOSH Mentor. He joined the board of trustees in 2020.