Our board

Kate Denby

Chair of Trustees

Executive Director at Northern Stage

John Meehan

Trustee

Director of Meehan Marketing & Comms

Karen Okra

Trustee

Community Support Worker

Malcolm Relph

Trustee

City Economy Manager at Hull City Council

Sally Christopher

Trustee

Freelance Producer

Neil Porteus

Trustee

Finance at the Deep

David Keel

Trustee

Hull’s Digital Awards Lifetime Contribution winner, David Keel is the founder of Hull based Sonoco Trident. David is also Chair of Hull’s C4DI (Centre for Digital Innovation) where as well as helping tech business startups he leverages his experiences of rapid business growth and pivoting a traditional business into a cutting edge tech business to help local businesses to achieve similar objectives. David serves as a Governor of the Ron Dearing UTC and was a trustee of the Hull2017 Enterprises Board and a proud City of Culture Volunteer. Currently working as a consultant helping businesses to define and engineer industry disrupting reinvention.

Billie Mcloughlin

Trustee

Trish Dalby

Trustee

A Hull girl through and through, Trish has recently retired as the Deputy Chief Executive at Kingston upon Hull City Council and has worked in Hull and East Riding since 1989.  In addition to the corporate role as Deputy Chief Executive Trish’s strategic responsibility was for the development and delivery of services across an extensive range of operational and infrastructure functions. Trish was also the Council’s lead on Emergency Planning and was the Council’s strategic lead on culture during Hull’s year as UK City of Culture 2017 and continued in that role until her retirement.

Trish was also on the Board of Esteem, a public private partnership that delivers infrastructure solutions for the city including £450m of new and improved education, cultural and sports facilities across Hull.   Trish also represented the Council’s interests on the boards of The Deep, Hull Truck Theatre and the Freedom Festival Arts Trust.

Trish is also currently the Deputy Chair of Governors at Appleton Primary School in Hull and Deputy Chair of the Freetown Society in Hull.

Samantha Madden

Trustee

A marketing and economic development specialist, Samantha has a wealth of experience working in local government, private and not for profit organisations, including managing the launch of the £200m Hull St Stephens development. Skilled in bringing together partners to achieve one common purpose, including large scale events like Bizweek and regeneration strategies, such as the Fruit Market food and drink sector.

Previous roles include the University of Hull, to connect businesses with the latest research and development across healthcare, renewable energy, computer science and tourism. Most recently she has worked at Fika Creative to deliver marcoms contracts for Destination Beverley and various consumer facing e-commerce brands.  She is passionate about supporting and improving FfAT during her 7 year tenure on the board.

Councillor Rosemary Pantelakis

Trustee