Who We Are
The Clothworkers’ Foundation improves the lives of people and communities – particularly those facing disadvantage and marginalisation – through grant making. We award more than £7 million annually in capital grants to charities registered in the UK or not-for-profit organisations working across the ten areas of priority defined in our Large and Small Grants programme.
Meet our Founders
The Clothworkers’ Foundation has awarded capital grants in excess of £165 million since 1977, when we were was set up as the primary vehicle of charitable giving for The Clothworkers’ Company. Today, The Company is a membership organisation with a mission to inspire and empower individuals and communities through action, partnership and financial support (with a particular focus on UK textiles, charity governance, and philanthropy – through The Clothworkers’ Foundation and beyond). Following its initial endowment gift, The Company transfers more than £3 million in surplus funds to The Foundation each year.
The Clothworkers' Company has a long history of charitable giving, going back almost 500 years when one of the functions of The Company was to support members who had fallen on hard times. In the 1500s, to fulfil the longstanding object of ‘relief of poverty’, The Company began to pay pensions to members in financial difficulty and, by 1540, it maintained alms houses in locations including the City of London and Islington. The Company has also worked to improve the lives of blind and visually impaired people for at least 300 years. Over the centuries, as The Company’s wealth increased, and it started to help non-members, but it was not until 1977 that The Company created The Clothworkers’ Foundation to more effectively direct the majority of its philanthropic activities.
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Meet the Team Chief Executive: Jocelyn Stuart-Grumbar Director of Finance, Property and Investments: Hamesh Patel Foundation Director: Jenny North
All staff are employed by Ramteazle Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of The Clothworkers' Company) and are engaged under a service agreement together with staff of The Clothworkers' Company; staff of both The Foundation and Company work together to support the mission of The Clothworkers' Foundation. |
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Meet the Board of Trustees Hanif Virji (Chair) Hanif started working in the City in investment banking at various financial institutions, including Lazard Brothers and JP Morgan. He now acts as a financial services expert in litigation. Hanif gained a first-class degree in Physics from the University of Bristol, where he continued with research in theoretical solid-state Physics. He is married with two children. He has wide-ranging interests from photography to electronics, reading to fitness. In addition to serving as the Deputy Chairman of The Clothworkers’ Foundation, he is also a member of the Court of Assistants of The Clothworkers’ Company. |
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Susanna O'Leary (Deputy Chair) Susanna is a solicitor in the Property Department at Farrer & Co, having trained and previously worked at Allen & Overy. She is a member of The Clothworkers’ Company Court of Assistants and became a trustee of The Foundation in 2018. She is currently Chair of the Small Grants Committee and also sits on the Proactive Grants Committee. She has a particular interest in the Care Leavers and Better Futures Proactive Initiatives and is excited by what these have achieved so far. Susanna is also very keen to make sure that smaller grass-roots charities are able to access grants from The Foundation. |
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Denis Clough After a degree in Economics in the early 1980s, Denis spent most of his working career as a fund manager investing in Japanese equities, and most of that time working at Schroders (which included a few years in Tokyo). He is passionate about wine; as a result, after leaving Schroders, he spent a couple of years working in a small local wine business based in Suffolk. This was very enjoyable and improved his wine knowledge significantly, but was not a great business success. In 2010, he moved back to working as a Japanese equity fund manager at a small firm called Morant Wright. Denis is married with three grown children – and now has time to indulge his enthusiasm for sports. His wife might call him obsessed with tennis. He is also involved with local societies and charities in Hertfordshire where he lives, including a church restoration fund and, of course, the local tennis club. |
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Charlie Hutchins Charlie has been a trustee of The Clothworkers' Foundation since 2019. Professionally, he works in executive search, where he focuses on leadership and talent development across the hedge fund sector globally. He is most interested in groups that support neurodiversity and inclusion as well as men’s mental health charities. Outside of this, his hobbies are wide ranging so long as they involve a ball of some kind.
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Emma Ingham Clark Emma joined The Clothworkers’ Foundation as a trustee in 2020. She is passionate about partnering with public sector and charitable organisations to drive impactful and lasting change. Emma is a Management Consultant by profession, specialising in Business Transformation for Public Safety agencies. She began her career at Accenture, following varied international experience in the Middle East, working with NGOs. Emma is based in London and holds a degree in Politics and Arabic from the University of Cambridge. |
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Michael Jarvis A former Chair of The Foundation, Michael is a member of the Court of The Clothworkers’ Company and occupies an ex officio role on The Foundation board. His professional background was in forensic accountancy. Michael's particular interests in education and the arts and follows The Foundation’s Dramatic Arts Proactive Initiative closely. He held a part-time position as Finance Director of The Rambert School of Dance and is a keen supporter of Chickenshed theatre company in north London. He has long been a UK trustee of pioneering multiracial school Waterford Kamhlaba in Eswatini, where he spent a year as a volunteer teacher in 1970.
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Ola Opoosun Ola is an accomplished senior manager with more than 21 years’ experience within the charity sector, specialising in managing programmes, service delivery, grant management, and partnership service development. She is the interim Project/Grant Lead for The London Community Foundation. Ola was formerly the Head of Services and Grants at the Bank Workers Charity and spent more than a decade at the Terrence Higgins Trust, first as a casework supervisor, then Head of Advice Services and finally Head of the Hardship Fund. She was previously a trustee for Hackney CVS. |
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Neel Patani Neel has been a Trustee of The Clothworkers’ Foundation since September 2020. He has over 10 years’ experience in the Finance industry with leading investment banks, including RBS, Nomura and MUFG. He previously served as Chairman of the City-based voluntary organisation, City Hindus Network, organising networking events for Hindu professionals, raising funds for charitable purposes and commenting on topical issues in print and broadcast media. He was recently Co-Chair of Mosaic, an employee network at his current employer, MUFG Securities plc, championing a number of diversity initiatives such as the Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting and the Race at Work Charter. In his spare time, Neel enjoys playing squash, exploring Hertfordshire on his bicycle and taking his son to swimming lessons. |
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Dhruv Patel Dhruv is a Livery member of The Clothworkers' Company. He is a businessman with interests in Property, Retail Pharmacy and Insurance. Other roles he has held within the Charity Sector include: Trustee of The Lord Mayor's 800th Anniversary Awards Trust (2015-2019), Council Member of The Heart of the City (2019-2021), Chairman of the City Bridge Trust (2019-2021) and Deputy Chairman of Bridge House Estates (2021). Dhruv was awarded an OBE for voluntary service to the British Hindu community and to Social Cohesion in the Queen's Birthday Honours 2018.
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Amir Rizwan Amir is Big Society Capital's Investor Relations Director, leading on relationships with trusts and foundations, supporting them in their work around mission-led investments as well as how impact can play a role within their endowment investments. He also leads the organisation's work around partnerships and innovation, focusing on the development of early-stage impact funds to tackle UK social issues. Amir has been working in the social investment sector for eight years and recently led on Comic Relief’s social investment strategy. Prior to that, he managed a community housing investment fund for CAF Venturesome, as well as a portfolio of social investments for a range of social purpose organisations. Through his role at Big Society Capital, Amir is a member of the Social Impact Investing Group (SIIG). He also sits on the Impact Advisory Board for the Growth Impact Fund. Prior to joining the social investment sector, Amir worked in the financial services sector in a variety of roles for BNP Paribas and Royal Bank of Scotland. Amir is currently the co-chair of the Diversity Forum (set up to improve diversity, equality and inclusion within the social investment sector) and a Governor at the Cripplegate Foundation in Islington.
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Hugo Slim Hugo has worked in international aid since 1983, moving between operational agencies and universities with a particular focus on the ethics of war and humanitarian aid. Hugo has worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the United Nations and Save the Children, and been a trustee of Oxfam GB and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD). As an academic, he has held teaching and research positions at the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, Tsinghua University, the University of Oregon and Geneva University. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford, where is researching climate emergencies.
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Tom Stoddart-Scott Tom became a Qualified Chartered Surveyor in 2003. He worked for Cluttons, GVA Saxon Law and Hanover Private Office specialising in UK and Central London commercial property investment and development. In 2012, he became the property director for Armila Capital and London Resort Company Holdings for Middle Eastern shareholders. Since 2013, Tom has served as a trustee of the Harrow Club, a charity that operates six youth clubs in West London and delivers youth work and other specialist interventions to 500 young people each week. Tom holds a BSc in Land Management from Reading University.
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