Jonathan Cheshire
Independent Governor   

Jonathan Cheshire joined the Board in November 2007 and sits on the Resources Committee. 

Jonathan is a leading developer of charities and voluntary agencies with particular expertise in youth and young people's issues, employment and training, housing and regeneration, and outdoor and informal education. In 1998 he was invited to become the CEO of the local education-business partnership, which was restarted as Wheatsheaf Trust in 2001. He set up new programmes to develop positive links between education and business, raise standards of attainment in local schools, and initiated a number of schemes to enhance employability, access to training, and social inclusion. 

Between 1996 and 1998 Jonathan founded Portsmouth Foyer, a housing and employment project for disadvantaged young people, and between 1989 and 1996 was Director of a major national charity, Ocean Youth Club, then Europe's largest sail training organisation and provider of outdoor education for young people drawn from all social, ethnic and geographical backgrounds.  

Jonathan has founded a number of other charities for homeless people in London, and has been appointed to various government committees on homelessness, rehabilitation of offenders, and marine safety. He is a member of the local Learning & Skills Council, the Southampton Partnership, the SE England Regional Assembly and the SEEDA Scrutiny Committee, a Trustee of the Association of Sea Training Organisations and a Board member of Street Kids International.  

A keen sailor and rower (he rowed for England in 1969), Jonathan is married with two children.