Board of Trustees
Adrian Bell
Chief Executive Office
Blind Veterans UK
Governing Charity Trustee
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A veteran himself, Adrian served in the Royal Navy for 30 years as a Warfare Officer with the privilege to command three warships. He finished his time as Commander of British Forces in Gibraltar.
He decided to leave the Navy in 2010 to work in the charity sector. He was Chief Executive of the Kent, Surrey & Sussex Air Ambulance Trust and joins Blind Veterans UK from his role as the Chief Executive of the Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity (RNRMC).
Mark O'Donnell
Chair of the Board
Founder and Director
O'Donnell Associates
Independent Trustee
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Mark is an experienced health and social care leader with third, public and private sector experience. He runs O'Donnell Associates, a Consultancy specialising in strategy, growth and impact primarily for charities. He was a founding Trustee of AAAMD whilst CEO of Sight Scotland & Sight Scotland Veterans, between 2017 – 2021. He is a Trustee of two other charities, Heart Research UK and Day One Trauma Support, and also sits on the UK Policy & Research Committee of Marie Curie.
Ed Holloway
Chief Executive Officer
Macular Society
Governing Charity Trustee
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Ed is the CEO of the Macular Society, a UK charity dedicating to supporting people living with macular disease and funding research to find a cure, and a founding and governing charity of Action Against AMD. Ed has spent his career in the UK charity sector, and was previously the CEO of a benevolent fund, and before that Director of Services and Digital at the MS Society. Ed is passionate about the role that charities can play in driving forward the research agenda, and excited about the innovative approach being taken by Action Against AMD. Ed is also a Trustee of the Association of Charitable Organisations, an umbrella body for charities providing support to individuals.
Ton Rijnders, PhD
Independent Trustee
Ton holds a PhD in molecular biology. He joined the Dutch pharmaceutical company Organon in 1986 and moved to the position of Vice President Research in 2003. After the acquisition of Organon by Schering-Plough in 2007,Ton was appointed VP Discovery and Site Head Oss and continued this position after the merger of Merck and Schering-Plough. In 2011 Ton co-founded TI Pharma, a public private partnership in drug discovery, and acted as its Scientific Director. He continued this work after the merger of CTMM and TI Pharma into Lygature in 2016. Until 2020, Ton was General Director at the Oncode Institute (Netherlands), created to develop innovative cancer treatments.
Craig Spalding
Chief Executive Officer
Sight Scotland Veterans
Governing Charity Trustee
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Craig is the Chief Executive of Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans, having joined the organisation in January 2022. Craig initially trained as a microbiologist, and worked in the food and pharmaceutical fields for a number of years, predominantly in quality management roles. He then moved to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service where he held a number of positions in quality management and medical services, with a focus on service transformation. He has subsequently held senior management positions at th Irish Blood Transfusion Service, and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service prior to joining Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans.
Cathy Yelf
Independent Trustee
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Cathy is a former BBC journalist who has worked in the sight loss sector since 2008, before leading the Macular Society as its CEO between 2015 - 2024. She was previously a Trustee of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC).