CASA's Trustees

CASA's Board of Trustees holds ultimate responsibility for the agency. Our Trustees agree our strategic direction, policies and work plans. Trustees use internal controls, such as regular finance reports, to ensure that CASA's service delivery, finances and risk are effecively managed.

Current Trustees

The composition of our Board reflects our local community, and brings together the mix of skills and experience needed for the charity to perform to a high standard. Six of the seven current Trustees live within the boroughs of Camden or Islington, which is CASA's main catchment area.

    •  Barry Peskin, Chair
    Barry has been a Trustee of CASA for twelve years and Chair for the past three of these. Previously he was a Labour Party Camden Councillor for a total of eight years chairing Social Services for some three years. A business man before his retirement, he has extensive commercial knowledge alongside considerable experience in various fields of social and health care.
     
     Russel Lyseight, Vice-Chair
    Russell works for Barclays Bank running project governance for the Retail Change Portfolio. He is keen traveller, enjoys music and cinema and is a board member and Chair of the Capital Projects Committee at Newham Further Education College.
     
     Geoff Lindey, Treasurer
    Geoff retired as a Managing Director of JPMorgan Investment Management at the end of March 2003. He was a member of the Council of the Faculty of Actuaries, the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers and the Greenbury Committee and until September 2002 was Chairman of the FT-SE Actuaries Share Indices Steering Committee. In 2004 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom Society of Investment Professionals and is currently a Trustee or Advisor to five major British pension funds. Geoff's principal interests are his family, opera, and football.
     
     John Dervan
    Over a long career, John has at different times worked as a theatre actor, BT marketing executive, construction worker and Post Office telegraphist. Since 1987, however, his work has been focused around alcohol misuse issues. He has worked as an alcohol counsellor, trainer, service manager and agency CEO. He was the first Director appointed to run City & Hackney Alcohol Service, which he served from 1993 to 2004.

    John is trained in generic counselling and holds a specialist qualification in alcohol counselling and consultation. He is currently helping NICE develop guidelines for early identification and prevention of alcohol related harm at primary care level, click here for more details.
     
     Dr Emily Finch
    Emily Finch is a Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist working for the South London and Maudsley Foundation NHS Trust. She is deputy clinical director with responsibility for clinical governance and is responsible for addiction services in Southwark.

    From 2004 to 2007 she was clinical team leader at the NTA where she took a lead in the clinical aspects of national drug policy and in liaising between the NTA and the professionals working in the field. She was part of the secretariat for the 2007 Drug Misuse and Dependence: guidelines on clinical management. She is joint honorary secretary of the addictions executive of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

    Emily is a tutor, lecturer and examiner on the MSc in Clinical and Public Health Aspects of Addiction. Her research interests include the outcome of treatment for opiate users, dual diagnosis and injectable prescribing.
     
     Robert Graham-Harrison, CMG
    Robert has spent most of his career in international development. After working with VSO in India, he held a range of positions with the Department for International Development in Africa and Asia, as well as London. He has been a director of the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
     
     Dr Dianne Hayter
    Dianne, a former Chair of CASA, was the first Director of Alcohol Concern, and has previously been Chief Executive of the Pelican Cancer Centre, the European Parliamentary Labour Party, and the Fabian Society; and Director of Corporate Affairs at the Wellcome Trust. She is Chair of the Property Standards Board and of the Consumer Panel of the Bar Standards Board, and a member of the Insolvency Practices Council, the Board for Actuarial Standards, and the Determinations Panel of the Pensions Regulator.

    Dianne is past Chair and a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee. She was on the Board of the National Consumer Council; Vice Chair of the Financial Services Consumer Panel, a JP, and a member of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. She has a PhD in history and is the author of one book and the editor of another.