Staff

The Aldridge Foundation consists of a small dedicated team.

Elizabeth Anderson - Head of Foundation Affairs & Executive Assistant to the Chairman

Elizabeth is responsible for project managing our involvement with Essentially Dance, relationship management with v, and working with We Are What We Do on their Young Speakers Programme.  She is responsible for developing the new Opening Eyes programme, which will see students taken on life-changing visits overseas, and other projects relating to Darwen and Brighton Academies.  In addition she manages the Foundation's events programme and the Foundation website.  She is also Executive Assistant to Rod Aldridge OBE, Chairman of the Foundation, and works closely with him on the project management and delivery for the Dance Champions Group.

Elizabeth began her career at the CBI, where she worked for four years, assisting the President and Director-General. She recently graduated from LSE with BSc (Hons) International Relations completed in her own time.

Petra Coveney - Director of Communications

Petra leads on the Foundation’s communications and public affairs strategy and is also the project manager for My Life is My Business – an innovative project which will train 100 NEET young people aged 16-18 to become entrepreneurs.

After a 15 year career as a newspaper journalist, BBC Radio 4 and Granada TV documentaries producer, she left the media to fulfil a life-long ambition to improve the lives of disadvantaged children. She has worked for the past eight years in campaigns and communications for The Children’s Society and v the youth volunteering organisation. Petra is also a Trustee of VOICE, the national charity for children in care and has developed specialist media training for young people, which she delivers to charities.

Anita Luthra-Suri - Connecting Communities Director

Anita is a civil servant seconded from the Department of Communities and Local Government.  After studying at Sussex University she completed her teacher training at the Institute of Education in London. She then spent the next twenty years teaching in schools  and colleges in central London .  In search of new challenges she went to work in Slough as Head of Lifelong Learning,a Director of the Berkshire Learning and Skills Council and then back into local government in Harrow. 

Anita joined the civil service as a Deputy Regional Director in the Government Office of the South-East leading a team of staff to work in partnership with 74 local authorities and a range of stakeholders to improve the delivery of  services. The team also worked in negotiating 19 local area agreements, a national challenge.Anita’s role in the foundation is to better connect the two Academies  to their communities, develop a framework for measuring and improving performance, develop strategies thatbetter engage community organisations, service providers and Academies to raise aspirations, and to influence national, regional and local government policies.

Sally Ritchie - Academies Director

Sally began her career in Westminster and Whitehall before going on to work in public affairs consultancy.  She joined Rod when he was Chairman of Capita in 2005 to support his work on public service reform, and of his charitable trust, and left Capita to help him establish The Aldridge Foundation in August 2006. 

Sally is the Foundation’s Academies Director for two Academies sponsored by Rod Aldridge, in Darwen near Blackburn and in Brighton.  She also works on the Essentially Dance Project and is a qualified Body Pump teacher. 

James Sale - Administrator/Researcher

James joined the Foundation in October 2009 beginning as an intern after completing a degree in Politics from The University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. In November 2009 James was appointed to the position of Administrator/Researcher.

James’s responsibilities are general administrative work and research support to all areas of The Foundation’s work.

Joe Stockwell - Policy Researcher

Shortly after graduating from The University of Birmingham with a degree in Theology in 2008, Joe joined the Foundation as an intern.  In November 2008 Joe was appointed to the position of Policy Researcher.

Joe’s areas of responsibility include research and coordination of new and existing data on public service reform; research on background material for all The Foundation’s projects, relationship management for Participle, as well as keeping The Foundation updated on relevant activity in Government, Whitehall, Think Tanks and the Third Sector.  Joe manages the Aspire 2 B programme and our relationship with MyBnk, who are working with us in Brighton.

Honor Wilson-Fletcher MBE - Director

Honor Wilson-Fletcher joined The Aldridge Foundation as its first Director in January 2010.  Previously she was at the National Literacy Trust, where she was appointed on behalf of the Deparment for Children, Schools and Families as Director of the 2008 National Year of Reading. She was awarded an MBE for services to Education in the New Year's Honours List 2009/10 for her work in that role. She stayed on at the Trust as Strategic Development Director until the end of 2009. 

Wilson-Fletcher has worked in the booktrade in a variety of roles – as Head of PR at Waterstone’s, Associate publisher at Transworld, Sales and Marketing Director at Hodder Children’s Books and in both sales and marketing roles at Penguin. She also worked in editorial with BOL.com, before joining the British Museum as Head of Marketing. She subsequently joined Southbank Centre as Director of Marketing to prepare for the re-launch of Royal Festival Hall and  the Southbank Centre site. She has served as a member of the Literature Panel of the Arts Council of England, was an appraisal panel member for the National Theatre, has served as a board member for Booktrust, Poetry Book Society, The Edinburgh International Book Festival and The Reading Agency and is now a Member of the Public Programmes Committee for the Bishopsgate Institute. She has previously acted as a judge for the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize.