Alex Shammas

Alex is working at DeepMind as a Program Manager, following his seven years of Management Consulting experience at PwC.  Alex has seen the impact that a child having cancer can have on a family first hand and was extremely excited to support World Child Cancer from the minute he met the fundraising team. Alex has supported World Child Cancer since 2015 with their fundraising strategy, supported securing partnership to events and schools, as well as taking part in various challenge activities including Amsterdam, Berlin and London Marathon.

Geeta Nanda OBE

Geeta is Chief Executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing and a proud Ambassador of World Child Cancer. Over the last few years, Geeta has raised over £300,000 with fellow Ambassador Mark Everard engaging new supporters from across the housing sector and hosting multiple events such as a Gala Dinner and their very successful annual Christmas Quiz. The money raised helped fund the new ‘We Care’ Family Support Home in Cameroon and Geeta attended the opening ceremony. In 2018, Geeta embarked on an epic challenge to climb northern Africa’s tallest peak – Jebel Toubkal raising over £80,000 for children with cancer all over the world. Geeta continues to support the charity and her target is to raise £1 million over the next few years. You can follow and support Geeta’s fundraising efforts here!

Guy Farquharson

Guy was first introduced to World Child Cancer in 2015 when working in the same building as the team. Guy, who works at an independent estate agent, has always been interested in helping young people, and having had a young cousin with leukaemia, has seen the damaging effects of childhood cancer first hand. Guy was inspired to get involved with World Child Cancer and has taken part in a number of events, including the Royal Parks Half, the London Marathon and Spartan race and has raised almost £5,000 from social media posts and hosting a quiz. He decided he wanted to take his support further and become an ambassador, to raise donations on a larger scale and provide strategies on how to do so.

In his spare time, Guy plays Volleyball for England and is a keen Chef. He also likes to travel with his favourite holiday destination being Zanzibar.

Lauren Chivers

Lauren is a Strategic Account Director for Plentific, Plentific is a technology company supporting Housing providers in the social housing industry with an innovative platform which supports both client and contractor in meeting KPI’s and delivering high quality of work. She is an ambitious professional with a passion for building relationships, her sales experience enables her to become familiar with working in a pressured and competitive environment. She thrives on working collaboratively both internally and externally and champions working as a team in every aspect of her role.

Prior to Plentific Lauren’s experience is being a service provider working with contractors on Planned Maintenance, Development and Responsive Repairs.

Lauren has a passion for the social housing sector and really feels she has an opportunity to make a difference in tackling the housing crisis. Her passion for social housing is coupled with a passion for championing women. An Enthusiastic and respectful approach for her fellow colleagues shows her ambition to further support like minded professionals and being the Chair of the Southeast region is able to use Women In Social Housing (WISH) as a platform to help them achieve their goals.

Additionally, Lauren is also an Ambassador for World Child Cancer and promotes all opportunities to give back to this amazing charity by helping less fortunate children by raising awareness and funds for the treatment they deserve.

Mark Everard

Mark is Executive Director of Property at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing and Chair of the Ambassadors Group at World Child Cancer. Mark has worked with a number of charities and community projects throughout his education and working life. He started supporting World Child Cancer late in 2016 as the Ambassadors group was formed. A mix of black tie dinners, quizzes, mountains climbed, raffles and the incredibly generous support of so many individuals and companies has seen fund raising by the Ambassadors edging ever closer to its original, initial target of raising £1m.

Sara Bailey

Sara Bailey is Senior Partner at international law firm Trowers & Hamlins involved in setting strategy, managing the partnership and growing the profile of the firm. She has over 20 years of experience, helping her clients to navigate and deliver complex, and often high profile, real estate projects and regeneration schemes.

Sara is passionate about helping businesses and governments shape the way we live and work and particularly driven by the positive influence the built environment can have on people, places and communities.

She is a regular speaker at high profile industry conferences and events including MIPIM, is a member of the British Property Federation Residential Committee and Patron of LandAid working with the charity to provide relief and security to the most vulnerable across the country.

She is also an Ambassador of the World Child Cancer charity, a member of the Care Leavers Business Council and a Board Member and Chair of the fundraising committee for Open City, a charity dedicated to making London and its architecture more open, accessible and equitable.

Shahena Ali

Shahena is a trainee doctor, nutritional therapist and naturopath. She has written and contributed to newspaper and magazine publications including The Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Time Out and SHE, and featured on television and radio for the BBC, UKTV and Good Food Channel. Shahena has a keen interest in increasing longevity through the food we eat and the prevention of lifestyle-based illnesses and diet-related diseases.

Shahena first became involved with World Child Cancer when she invited to join the #WhenIWasYoung campaign. After seeing the charity’s work first-hand and the positive impact it was making to children with cancer during her programme visit to Bangladesh, she wanted to become more involved. Discovering that childhood cancer survival rates are as low as 10% in developing countries like Bangladesh, compared to 80% of children with cancer surviving in high-income countries like the UK, means Shahena is passionate about lending her support to World Child Cancer.