Nick Owen CBE appointed as Chair of Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation

The Trustees of Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation (RNCSF) have announced that Nick Owen CBE will join RNCSF as a Trustee with immediate effect and will succeed Robert Swannell as Chair at the end of June 2022.

Nick was, until recently, Chair of Deloitte North & South Europe and Deloitte UK. He has long been a passionate advocate for inclusion and social mobility. He is also fully committed to continuing in his role as Trustee, and Chair of the Business Leaders Council, of Teach First and as a Trustee of Macmillan Cancer Support.

Tim Bunting, Deputy Chair of RNCSF, who led the process for the appointment with the RNCSF Nominations Committee, said:

“We are delighted that Nick has agreed to become our next Chair. His passion for, and deep understanding of, our work and his interest in social mobility shone through so clearly to us. I am certain he will bring wisdom and impetus to the next leg of our mission. He was the outstanding candidate and our unanimous choice to Chair the Charity.

I also want to say a huge thank you to Robert. He was one of the founding Trustees of The SpringBoard Bursary Foundation a decade ago and instrumental in its creation. His unrelenting commitment since then, latterly as Chair, has taken the charity from an idea, via a merger with Royal National Children’s Foundation, to our position now as the UK’s largest bursary charity – a respected, national organisation transforming the lives of hundreds of young people facing complex and challenging circumstances”.

Nick Owen said:

“I am really pleased to be taking on the baton from Robert in June. I am excited at the opportunity to work with Ali and the RNCSF team and grow the charity in the years ahead. I am deeply impressed with what they have achieved in the last 10 years in transforming the boarding and independent sector’s approach to widening access, and the scale of placement is increasing at some rate to ensure more of the UK’s most marginalised and vulnerable young people can access the great education on offer through bursary placements. Encouraging social mobility is a national priority in the UK and RNCSF’s work so obviously does just that. That’s why I want to help support its work.”