Trustees
Paul Kelly
Chair
Paul is the CEO of DK Worldwide, the world’s leading illustrated non-fiction publisher and part of the Penguin Random House group. DK’s mission is to spark curiosity and inspire a love for reading, something Paul is hugely passionate about.
Sue Williamson MBE
Vice Chair
Sue worked in public libraries for 18 years in a variety of roles, finishing as Head of Library Services in St Helens before joining the Arts Council in 2018 as National Director for Libraries. Under her leadership, the Arts Council tripled its investment in libraries and supported a wide variety of library projects with national and international significance. Sue is currently President of CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information professionals. Her love of libraries is rooted in her passion for reading for pleasure, a passion she is devoted to sharing now that she is retired, but not retiring.
Zoinul Abidin
Safeguarding Lead
Zoinul is a senior local government manager with expertise in library services and community development. He is currently Head of Universal Services for London Borough of Barking & Dagenham.
Maureen Corish
Trustee
Maureen Corish has more than 30 years’ experience working in the media and communications. Her early years as a journalist were followed by in-house communications roles at the BBC, Emap PLC and Penguin Random House and she is currently managing director of Pumpkin, an award-winning B2B PR agency for global media and advertising clients.
While UK & International Communications Director for Penguin Random House, she was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Publishing by The Bookseller and was included in PR Week’s Power Book for her role in communicating the £2.45billion merger between Penguin Books and Random House and her subsequent work on campaigns and advocacy for the broader industry.
Corish said: “When mentoring my teams, they often ask: ‘how do I improve?’. My answer is always: ‘read’.
“Read for pleasure. Read for health. Read for opportunity. Find joy in a beautiful turn of phrase and satisfaction in a story well told. Everything changes when you read, and I’m delighted to be joining the Reading Agency and their inspiring and committed board. I’m honoured to have the opportunity to support their incredibly important mission of promoting reading for pleasure.”
Teresa Cremin
Trustee
Teresa Cremin is a Professor of Literacy Education at The Open University. She is co-director of the Literacy and Social Justice Centre, a Fellow of the English Association, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Society of the Arts. Teresa leads a reading for pleasure research and practice coalition, seeking to build readers for life.
Aimée Felone
Trustee
Aimée Felone is managing director of KNIGHTS OF a multi award-winning inclusive publisher focused on bringing underrepresented voices to the forefront of commercial children’s publishing. With a team led by women of colour, and an unwavering focus on their intended readership for each book, Knights Of works to engage with gatekeepers across the industry, including booksellers, teachers and librarians, and supports non-traditional community spaces with events, outreach, marketing and partnerships.
Davinia Green
Chair of Diversity & Inclusion Working Group
Davinia is Director for Stonewall Cymru (Wales), where she provides strategic vision, oversight and operational management of activities across Wales. She is a health promotion specialist by background, and in particular specialised in developing health promotion programmes for people who face high levels of physical, psychological or structural barriers to optimal health or prevention of disease. Davinia is currently studying for a Degree in Forensic Psychology with the OU.
Sue Hall
Vice Chair of the Finance Subcomittee
Sue is a successful leader with 15+ years’ board level and senior management experience spanning a range of public, charitable and private sector businesses. She is a respected and inspirational leader who helps to shape, influence and deliver organisational change.
Michael Lewis
Trustee
Michael has over 30 years’ experience of working in and managing libraries, supporting local community organisations and encouraging greater community partnerships.
Derek O’Gara
Chair of the Finance Subcomittee
Until the end of 2023, Derek was at Banijay UK (formerly Endemol Shine UK).
Banijay UK makes a diverse range of drama, comedy, entertainment, quiz, documentary, factual entertainment and more for all major UK broadcasters and international platforms.
Vera Owen
Member of the Finance Subcomittee
Vera is an experienced lawyer and civil servant. She has a sound understanding of the creative and cultural sphere, gained in the private and public sectors. Vera is passionate about reading for pleasure and the way it connects us to the world and to each other.
Baroness Sanderson
Trustee
Baroness Sanderson of Welton is a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. A former feature writer with The Mail on Sunday and adviser to the former Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Theresa May, in September 2022 she was commissioned by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to undertake an independent review of English public libraries. Completed in August 2023, the review made eight wide-ranging recommendations to better support our public libraries and ensure they are properly recognised as one of the most valuable community assets we have at our disposal.
James Sanderson
Trustee
James is Director of Community Health Services and Personalised Care at NHS England where he leads on a range of programmes that are supporting people to have greater choice and control over their health and wellbeing. Programmes include: the delivery of the comprehensive model for personalised care; NHS @home; and the National Palliative and End of Life Care Programme.
From 2019-22 James was also CEO of the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), established by the SofS for Health and Social Care in 2019 to advance social prescribing across the arts, health, sports, leisure, and the natural environment, alongside other aspects of our lives.
David Shelley
Trustee
David Shelley started his career at independent publisher Allison & Busby. He joined Little, Brown as Editorial Director in 2005. Initially commissioning mainly crime and thriller novels and overseeing the audio and ebook lists, he became Publisher of their commercial imprint Sphere in 2007, then overall Little, Brown Publisher in 2011. Authors he published include Mitch Albom, Mark Billingham, Carl Hiaasen, Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid and J.K. Rowling. He became CEO of Orion and Little, Brown in 2015, and in January 2018 became Group CEO of Hachette UK, which is the second-largest consumer publisher in the UK. David is an Officer of the Publishers Association.
Kit de Waal
Trustee
Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the ’60s and ’70s.
Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022 it was adapted for television by
the BBC.
Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions and the Big Book Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020 and was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019. She is a patron of Prisoners Abroad, ambassador of Well-being in the Arts and a trustee of The Reading Agency.
Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor and Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at Leicester University.
Tony Durcan OBE
Emeritus Trustee
Tony joined the The Reading Agency Board in 2013, and became vice chair in 2016. He has worked with all of The Reading Agency’s Chief Executives and Board chairs. He retired from the Board in March 2023, and has since been appointed as an Emeritus Trustee.
Tom Moody-Stuart
Emeritus Trustee
Tom joined the The Reading Agency Board in 2012 and retired from the Board in 2024, and has since been appointed as an Emeritus Trustee.
Tom was called to the bar in 1995. A member of Middle Temple, he was awarded a Queen Mother Fund Scholarship in 1994. He took a first class degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University specialising in microbiology, genetics and the history and philosophy of science and is a scholar of Gonville & Caius College.
