Jill Berry, Senior Independent Director

Jill is an experienced commercial board level HR professional with a proven track record of working successfully with CEOs to improve and transform their business performance and profitability through designing and implementing the appropriate global people strategies. Her experienced has been gained across multiple geographies and industries, including the arts, media, industry and not for profit.

Jill is currently Global Director of People & Organisational Development at Amnesty International, supporting their human rights agenda worldwide. Prior to this she held senior human resource roles with some of the world’s best-known brands. These include Global Head of Resourcing/ Senior Vice President HR, Europe Middle East, Africa at Christie’s, the world’s leading Auction House, and Senior Vice President, Europe, at CNN/Turner Broadcasting. Jill was a board member of Thorn Lighting Ltd. where she was Group HR Director for their international business and played a key role in transforming the organisation. Her early HR years were spent in the music business which included 10 years as Director HR & Operations for Virgin Records Ltd.

An experienced mentor, trainer, and business coach, she is also a West Ham United and Scotland fan.

Nina Stewart – Independent Finance & Risk Director

Nina is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) and a Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA). The early years of her career were spent at a Big 4 firm in London providing international tax advice to large corporates and since then she has worked across a range of sectors including oil & gas, professional services, financial services and the legal sector. She is currently a Partner at a boutique law firm specialising in commercial disputes and regulatory matters.

Nina has served on several Boards and Audit Committees in both the private and charitable sectors, including several years spent as Honorary Treasurer on the Board of NCT, the UK’s leading charity for parents.

Nina is a mother to three boys who are all very keen footballers, so she is heavily involved in both school and grassroots football around South West London.

Tom Barnard, Non-Executive Director

Tom is a solicitor specialising in commercial dispute resolution with a particular focus on the sports sector.  He has a great deal of experience advising governing bodies, clubs, athletes, agents and commercial entities. Tom mainly advises in relation to regulatory, governance and commercial issues, but he has experience dealing with a range of legal issues within the sport sector and more widely.

Ian Wallis, Deputy Chair & Football Director

Ian joined the Council of the London FA in 2002 and has been on the Board of Directors since 2012. He is Chair of the Cup Competitions Committee and has been Chair of the South-East Division and many Judicial Commissions. 

Previously Ian spent 27 years as General Secretary and 20 years as Chair of the London & Kent Border Football League, at that time comprising 120 adult Sunday teams and has therefore considerable experience with all aspects of football at grassroots level. 

He runs his own business and is a life-long Charlton Athletic fan. He is also a founder and trustee of the Charlton Athletic Museum.

Christina Oshodi, Football Director

A former football player who was part of Nigeria’s national team training camps, Christina has a wealth of experience in the sports industry. She is a qualified coach and coach educator, working for the FA from 2014 to 2020 as an FA Coach Developer.

Christina was also previously the head coach of the female academy at Tottenham Hotspur and is a member of the Lawn Tennis Association’s Safeguarding & Protection Committee.

Abu Nasir – Independent Commercial Marketing Director

Abu is a sports entrepreneur and football business leader who has been involved in football and sports since the age of 7 as a player, coach, and sports business executive at both grassroots and professional level. His career highlights include Board, Director and Consultant roles with Liverpool FC, The Football Association, The Premier League, and Government and he is involved in commercial and acquisition deals in professional football. Abu is also an FA licensed football intermediary, and his sports firm manages high profile players and coaches.

He is a passionate and innovative leader with a strong commercial background of leading, managing and developing high profile multi-agency programmes in the sports industry, and in the public and private sectors, as well as managing a diverse range of businesses which includes a global sports management consultancy, technology, and hospitality sector enterprises. He has managed business turnover of £800m to date and successfully delivered projects and programmes circa £1bn.

Abu represented Luton Town FC and Liverpool at schoolboy and youth level but was unable to make the grade at professional level due to serious injuries. He went on to play semi-professionally.

Roger Fox, Football Director

Roger lives in Enfield with his wife and has two grown-up children. He qualified as a referee in 1971 and officiated at contributory league level for 18 years.  

He is a National Football Association Instructor and a Football Association National Observer of referees and assistant referees.

He joined the London FA Council in 1988 and has served on the Referees' Committee for over 25 years in various roles, including Chairman for five years. He has been involved in grassroots football since 1972, serving on the George Roberts' Enfield Alliance in various positions including Referees' Secretary, Vice-Chairman and Chairman. He was made a Life Vice-President for services to the league in 2008.

From 2013 to 2017 he was a director of London FA, re-joining the board in 2019. In his professional life he worked for the London Ambulance Service for 41 years.

Yashmin Harun, Football Director (Council-elected)

Yashmin is Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Muslimah Sports Association (MSA), an award-winning sports organisation that delivers participation opportunities for Muslim women. 

Established in 2014, Yashmin has grown the MSA to become a recognised charity that engages over 200 young women a week. Yashmin and the MSA won the inaugural FA for All Award at the London Football Awards in 2019, was highly commended at the She Awards as a Community Champion in the same year and won the Muslim News Awards for Excellence in Sports 2017 and London Sports Workforce Award 2018.

Yashmin’s professional background is in banking and she is also a Non-Executive Director of British Fencing.

Mark Deveney, Football Director (Council-Elected)

Mark has been Chairman of Erith Town FC since 2017, taking the club from near collapse to a thriving community club that encompasses the adult teams, an academy and 6 youth teams. The club works across the local community, running a weekly community scheme and raising money for local charities.

Mark has been an avid Charlton Athletic fan since 1983.

Paul Mortimer, Football Director / Safeguarding Champion

Paul is a former English professional footballer and has played for several London clubs. These include Fulham, Crystal Palace and most famously Charlton Athletic, with whom he made over 200 appearances, many in the Premier League. He also had stints at Aston Villa and Bristol City. 

After his playing career ended, Paul held coaching roles with Wimbledon, Arsenal, Torquay United and Brentford. In 2007, Paul returned to Charlton Athletic to coach the club's women's team.

Paul has previously worked for Kick It Out, an organisation tackling racism and discrimination in football, as Professional Players Engagement Manager. He speaks regularly on football and diversity issues and currently is engaged in media work in football.

He is the London FA Board Safeguarding Champion and works across the Association to ensure that the highest standards of safeguarding are embedded in everything the London FA does.