Marc Woods
Marc Woods represented Great Britain as a swimmer for 17 years, winning 12 Paralympic medals from 5 Games and a further 21 from either World or European Championships. In the past he has held world records for 200m, 400m, 1500m Freestyle and as well as being part of the team that held the world record for 4 x 100m Freestyle. He now runs his own business delivering conference speeches and training to corporations around the world such as IBM, Pfizer and RBS. As well as this he has written two books ‘Personal Best’ and ‘Where do all the Paperclips Go?’ and is occasionally called upon to do commentary for the BBC. Additionally he is a founding member of the British Athletes Council, an ambassador for both CANSA (South Africa’s Cancer Charity) and the Teenage Cancer Trust and patron of the Bone Cancer Research Trust.

Paul Dickenson
Paul Dickenson is a BBC commentator and has worked on every Olympic Games since 1988 covering Athletics and many other summer and winter sports. His broadcasting portfolio also includes World Cup Rugby, World’s Strongest Man, Superstars, Blue Peter, The Lord Mayor’s Show and the Teaching Awards. A former Olympic Athlete, British record holder and GB team Captain, he chaired the International Athlete’s Club during the 1980’s and was a National Athletics Coach. A former school teacher, he is still actively involved with coaching and now combines his television work with Media and Presentation Skills Training within the corporate sector. He was appointed Governor of SportsAid in 2003 and Director of the Youth Sport Trust in 2007.

Rod Thorpe
Rod Thorpe trained as a Physical Education teacher. After four years teaching he returned to Loughborough College as a lecturer, training teachers. In his final six years of a 35-year career at Loughborough he was appointed Director of Sports Development. He contributed to the development of National Sports Leaders programmes and was one of the first NCF (now sports coach UK) tutors writing workshop material. He was central in the development of Teaching Games for Understanding – an approach being used internationally by PE teachers and he subsequently adapted the ideas for coaches. Rod has been associated with the Trust since its inception, being the university’s negotiator in setting up the Trust in the Sir John Beckwith Building. As author of Playsport, he was instrumental in the development of TOP Play and TOP Sport.

Shirley Pearce CBE
Shirley Pearce is Vice Chancellor of Loughborough University. She was previously Pro Vice Chancellor at University of East Anglia (1994-2006) responsible for the health and professional schools, where she led the successful bid for a new medical school for the East of England. Prior to joining UEA, Shirley held an academic post in the Department of Psychology at University College London (1977-1981) with clinical leadership for health psychology in Camden and Islington. Shirley was also Deputy Chair of the Healthcare Commission until September 2007. She was awarded the CBE in 2005 for services to education in the NHS.

Thelma Probert
Over a 38-year period Thelma Probert worked in six schools across Birmingham in a variety of roles, including a 12-year period as a Headteacher of an inner-city school. This was an exciting time for Thelma as during her tenure the school became a Sports College. In 2002 she was awarded an OBE, which she regards as a tribute to the school and the community which she was privileged to serve. Following retirement in 2004, Thelma has remained involved in education. She works part-time as a Headteacher Consultant with Sandwell LA, and more recently as a School Improvement Partner for six Birmingham schools. She is a Governor of a Science College and a Board member of a Sixth Form College.

Vanessa Wiseman
Vanessa Wiseman has had an extensive career in the inner London education service, holding a variety of posts in schools and in Local Authority advisory work. She has been a member of a number of Government Advisory bodies including the National Advisory Group on SEN, the Children and Young People’s Unit Advisory Group and the implementation group for the Governments Sports strategy, ‘A Sporting Future for All’. Vanessa has been Headteacher of Langdon Secondary School since 1992. Langdon has been a Sports College since 1998 and is also a training school. Students from Vanessa’s school formed the main part of the ambassadors group that went to Singapore to promote the Olympic bid. Vanessa has contributed to a wide range of Youth Sport Trust initiatives and has been a Board member from the beginning.

Viscount Mackintosh of Halifax
Viscount Mackintosh is a founding Trustee of the Youth Sport Trust having been involved since it’s inception in 1994. He is Treasurer of the Trust and Chairman of the Audit Committee. He was educated at The Legs School, Cambridge and Oriel College, Oxford where he gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1984 and has been a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its previous firm of Pricewaterhouse) since 1992 where he specialises in advising on Private Client Tax. He sat in House of Lords between1980-1999. He is interested in all sports but these days his main participation is in cricket and golf.