Trustees are responsible for overseeing all activities

Including Jeroen van den Bergh, who also serves as our Operations Director in Nepal, all Trustees are volunteers and all have experience of delivering humanitarian projects in Nepal. Accountable to the Nepal Trust Membership and the UK Charity Commission, the Trustees are responsible for overseeing all activities of the Nepal Trust and for ensuring that it operates in full compliance with UK and Nepalese regulations.

The Nepal Trust is constituted in the UK as a Limited Company limited by guarantee and the Trustees also serve as Directors of the company, with responsibility for filing statutory returns with Companies House.

In 2022 5 of the long standing Nepal Trust trustees stepped down to encourage new, younger trustees to step forward: the retiring trustees have all agreed to act as “grandparents” providing support and continuity to the new Board of Directors. These changes came into effect following the Nepal Trust AGM held in March 2023.

Chris Rae

Chairman

Chris has been involved with the Nepal Trust since 2004, and joined the board in 2008. He helped UNICEF and Rugmark in Nepal prior to joining the Nepal Trust team, so has a long love affair with Nepal! His “day job” is dominated by his role as a partner in an international law firm. Chris is based in Glasgow, and enjoys running (including now 10 marathons raising money for the Nepal Trust), cycling, kayaking (all when weather permits!), and travelling with his family.

Anna McPherson

Communications Director (UK)

Anna has been involved with the Nepal Trust as a Trustee since 2010. She first visited Humla, in NW Nepal during a documentary trip to provide a video update on various projects. She returned a second time post 2015 earthquake to the epicentre in Sindhupalchowk, again to provide video updates on various projects. Anna is a freelance filmmaker and academic Programme Leader on a contemporary Film making degree programme at UHI. In her spare time she oversees communication for the Nepal Trust, by contributing content to our e-news and Namaste newsletter, social media and drafting project reports for our Global Giving site. Anna is keen for Nepal Trust International to develop and see that the Nepal Trust are a leading NGO for other charities to carry out lifechanging works across Nepal. Her interests are travelling, making short films and documentaries, cooking, outdoor sports and being an auntie.

Melanie Stallen

Programme Director

Melanie's acquaintance with Nepal started in 1977. As Construction Engineer for the UN, she built schools there. In the eighties she lived in east Nepal (Koshi / Mechhi Anchal, named differently now) for 4 years while building Healthposts. Other work in Asia frequently brought her to Nepal on international projects for infrastructure, water and energy, which included capacity building at different levels. Knowledge transfer remains the pivot in a modernizing Nepal. She would like to share her knowledge with our Nepali partners in order to strengthen Nepal's unique character and independence. At this moment, the increasing formal and operational demands from Nepali government side demand a revisiting of our English and Dutch project inputs. With her knowledge of the Nepali language, she can assist this process in the field. She is thankful to Nepal for the lessons she’s learned from her time in the country and this has taught her to become a world citizen.

Jeroen van den Bergh

Operations Director (Nepal)

David Hurman

Medical Director

David is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Oncologist. His first visit to Nepal was as a backpacker/trekker way back in 1979 - a great trip and he always wanted to return sometime and hopefully be able do something useful. This opportunity arose, quite fortuitously, some 16 years later, when he was asked to try and help improve cancer treatment services in Nepal. Just before this return trip, David coincidentally met members of the Nepal Trust at a slideshow in Aberdeen given by the late Doug Scott (Everest summiteer and former NT patron), who were also departing very soon for Nepal on the first NT Trek-to-Build. They arranged to meet up in Kathmandu and over the next few years their paths continued to cross as they pursued our different projects. By the early 2000’s, the Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital was fully established and working independently and David, keen to explore new challenges, started working more closely with the Nepal Trust, subsequently being invited to join the NT Board as Medical Director in 2003. Twenty years on, he looks forward to working with the new Board of Trustees to continue to “do something useful” in Nepal.

Gemma Roxburgh

Gemma is based in Glasgow and is a chartered accountant by trade, with a background in corporate accounting, change and project management and mergers & acquisitions activity. She has been an avid fundraiser for several local charities over the years and is keen to lend a hand to those in need further afield. Gemma has yet to visit Nepal but is passionate about supporting the trust's incredible projects and well-established Board of Trustees where she can, taking on the management of the financials for the charity from long serving "grandfather" Rod Lowcock. Outside of work, Gemma enjoys spending time with family and friends and tries to maintain an active lifestyle, including regular gym visits, running on both road and trails.....and running around after her young daughter!

The grandparents are

Mike Love

Formerly Chairman Nepal Trust

Mike retired in 2020 from his role as Executive Chairman of SciSys plc, the company he was instrumental in setting up back in 1980. During his career at SciSys Mike was also non executive chairman of a number of quoted companies and served as a member of the LSE AIM advisory group. He was Chairman of the Nepal Trust from 2006 to 2023 and, although now retired, remains intimately involved with all aspects of its activities, having spent many weeks in the ‘Hidden Himalayas’ supporting delivery of Nepal Trust field programmes in the areas of primary health care, education and renewable energy. He is married to Pavla, also a keen supporter of the Nepal Trust; in addition to a large family with nine grandchildren their interests include sailing, walking and gardening.

Rod Lowcock

Formerly Finance Director

Sally Woodes Rogers

Formerly Director Community Healthcare

Sally is well described as a very enthusiastic supporter, with a passion for all the NT is doing, having worked in different parts of Nepal for the last 15 years, doing both Masters and PhD Research there on issues concerning the survival of Neonates and Maternity services. Sally has worked hands on in Public Health programmes, teaching and training mothers in rural areas of Nepal, with a history of being a midwife for a number of years in Asia, particularly the Maldives before working in Nepal.

Our Trustees