Board of Trustees and Directors

 

The Trustees are responsible for ensuring the good governance of the Windsor Fellowship. The Trustees are also the charity legal Directors. Together, the Board brings together a range of skills and knowledge and includes recent graduates of the organisation’s programmes.

 

 

Kevin Coutinho 

Chair of Board of Trustees, Kevin Coutinho

 

Kevin was appointed as the Chair of the Board of Trustees in 2012. He is a Group 11 Graduate Windsor Fellow, sponsored by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was previously the Director of Higher Education and Employment Programmes at the Windsor Fellowship.

 

Kevin joined University College London as an Equality and Diversity Manager  in June 2018.  He is also the Vice-Chair of the Higher Education Race Action Group (HERAG), a sector wide body that promotes race equality, and an Athena SWAN panellist.   Between 2008 and 2018 he was the Head of Equality and Diversity at the University of Oxford, an Equality and Diversity Consultant at the University of Cambridge and an HR Strategy and Policy Partner at Birkbeck, University of London.

 

Kevin has a Bachelor’s Degree in Law from Cardiff University, a Master’s in International Studies and Diplomacy from SOAS. In 2004, he was awarded an Instituto de Empresa (IE) Foundation scholarship to read an International MBA in Madrid, which he completed in 2005.  He was awarded the honorary University of Cambridge Master’s degree in 2012.

 

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Melissa Coutinho

 

Melissa is a barrister, called to the Bar in 1997 as a Scholar of the Middle Temple.  Currently, she provides legal services to the Medicines & Healthcare Products Agency as part of the Government Legal Department.  She is a dual practising barrister, who also works in the areas of health and professional regulation, representing young barristers at Lincolns Inn and acting as a Legal Assessor for the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service (formerly GMC) and the Health & Care Professions Council.  She has represented the UK in EU negotiations on the Medicrime Counterfeiting Convention and at a number of EU working groups.  She regularly lectures and writes on areas in which she has expertise.

 

Melissa sits in the Magistrates Court, is Programme & Project Management certified, and an accredited Mediator.  She has been a Clutterbuck Institute trained Mentor since 2005, working within HMG and with the University of Law students.  She is passionate about motivating and developing skills in others and has previously served as a Non-Executive Director on Miss Dorothy.Com and the Kid’s Taskforce. 

 

Melissa has been a Mentor on the Leadership Programme for Undergraduates and Passport to Employment Programme since 2003.  She is committed to supporting the identification of talent and its development, irrespective of arbitrary characteristics.

 

 

Akilah Jeffers

Akilah was appointed to the Board of Trustees in December 2012. Akilah is a Graduate Windsor Fellow, sponsored by Dyfed-Powys Police on Group 25 of the Leadership Programme for Undergraduates, and a graduate of the Junior Fellowship (Birmingham).

 

Akilah Jeffers graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2012, where she read English Literature. Akilah became very engaged in student politics, serving as President of the university’s Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Campaign from 2010 to 2012. The Campaign seeks to enhance the experience of students from diverse backgrounds studying at the university. Akilah’s leadership won her the NUS Black Students’ Officer of the Year Award. Akilah has also held the position of Cambridge University Students’ Union Secretary and was a 2012 Students’ Union presidential candidate.

 

However, politics is not the only way in which Akilah expresses her commitment to her community. As a participant on the Teach First Graduate Programme, she worked as an English and Religious Studies teacher at a secondary school in Hackney for two years. Here, she coordinated the school’s debating society. She has also been instrumental in raising students’ aspirations by running the Lawyers in Schools programme, in which she arranged for City lawyers to work with, and mentor students. Akilah continues to contribute to the academic and cultural development of young people from Black and Minority backgrounds in her role as trustee of the Windsor Fellowship. She is currently a postgraduate law student, and aspires to become a solicitor. In her spare time, Akilah enjoys dancing, debating and travelling.

 

Faeeim Nori

Faeeim Nori was appointed to the Board of Trustees in October 2012. He is a graduate of the Windsor Fellowship Passport to Employment Programme. 

 

Faeeim is a primary school teacher working in Cambridgeshire. He graduated from the Royal Holloway,University of London in 2008. He completed his PGCE in 2010 and completed his Master’s in Education at the University of Cambridge. 

 

In 2010, he received the Helga Todd Award and worked with trainee teachers and graduate students in Himachal Pradesh in northern India. Faeeim is the previous President of the CUSU Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Campaign.

 

 

Raj Shah

Rah Shah was appointed to the Board of Trustees in October 2012. 

 

Raj is a Chartered Certified Accountant with 35 years’ experience. He has several roles including the Chief Accountant for the Printing Division of Cambridge University Press. He has lectured in Accounting and Taxation at Cambridge Regional College for over 20 years was an elected Councillor for Cambridge City between 2006 and 2011.

 

Raj currently runs his own accounting practice and is a member of a Valuation Tribunal Service panel that deals with Business Rates and Council Tax disagreements. He is also active in several charities including the Cambridge Indian Association, Cintra - Interpretation Agency, Arthur Rank House - Hospice and TOPS - A Charity that helps elderly with their tax matters.