Karen has both a charity and commercial background and continues to support local charities with her experience in business management from her exposure to national and international operations. She has worked closely with trustee boards and executive teams, and throughout her business career has worked alongside creative and marketing teams working on many high-profile projects. She is looking forward to helping FFAT further develop the narrative and programme for the issues it seeks to represent for Hull and Freedom On Tour.

A Hull girl through and through, Trish retired as Deputy Chief Executive from Hull City Council in 2019. Since retirement, Trish has continued her commitment to the City in a number of voluntary roles, including taking on the Chair of Generation Hull in 2021, the city’s Local Cultural Education Partnership. Generation Hull has a mission to support schools and creative organisations in Hull to work together making sure that our children and young people get the best creative experiences possible and access to the wonderful cultural opportunities in our city.

Rob feels honoured to live in Hull and has had a varied career, from starting out working in retail, working as a nurse, bank clerk, chief officer of several voluntary and community organisations, and now a City Councillor. He has a passion for his city and loves being involved in making it a better place to live. He loves the arts in all its forms, and feels privileged to be the Portfolio Holder for Culture, where he gets to meet amazing people from around the city and beyond. Rob believes he wouldn’t have achieved half as much as he has without his amazing wife Linda, who he has been with for over 30 years.

Sally is passionate about festivals, live events and the Arts, with a particular knowledge of festivals and over twenty years of experience and industry knowledge, including working on Glastonbury Festival, Norfolk and Norwich Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Sally is also a fan of large-scale events and mass participation projects, having worked as part of the Big Dance 2010/12, the Ceremonies teams delivering London 2012 and Rugby World Cup 2015. Sally has a variety of roles under her belt along with a Masters in Arts Management and Cultural Policy and Undergraduate Degree in English Literature and Drama.

Louise is an accomplished professional major gift fundraiser who joined the board in 2023. Louise brings her unique skills and knowledge of fundraising for charities, business strategy, driving complex campaigns and building relationships.

Mark’s expertise on the Trustee Board is from being a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years’ experience in senior financial management. Based in Hull, he lives locally and is passionate about live performance, either in traditional settings or through innovation that is delivered by Freedom. His recent roles have included being the Financial Director for a leading Northern Theatre, helping it through the challenging landscape Arts and Culture is going through. Mark believes we all have a role to play in making our region and communities better, and prior to joining Freedom, for 8 years he worked as a board member for a local college.