The Board

Baroness Nicholson is a member of Britain’s Upper Chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords, and has recently been appointed as the Chairman of the House of Lords Sexual Violence in Conflict Committee. She chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Foreign Affairs and was a member of the influential ad-hoc Soft Power Committee. She has taken part in many election observer missions to countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Russia, Moldova, Kenya and Zambia, and was Chief International Observer twice in Yemen and Armenia.

She was a member of the European Parliament for ten years, and served as Vice President of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Defence, and Security Policy.  She also served as a Rapporteur for Iraq, Kashmir, and Romania. She continues to serve on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and is the former chairman of the Interparliamentary Standing Delegation between the European Parliament and Iraq.

Baroness Nicholson began her political life as a Member of the Parliament in Britain in 1987, serving a constituency in the South West of England for 10 years.  Previously she had worked as a Director of Save the Children, and started life as a computer software developer and engineer. Away from work, her great love is music. She trained at Britain’s Royal Academy of Music.

Theodore Zeldin is President of the Oxford Muse Foundation. After graduating from London University (Birkbeck College) at the age of 17, and then from Christ Church, Oxford (with Firsts from both), he helped to build up St Antony’s College, Oxford as the university’s postgraduate centre for international studies, and was its Dean for thirteen years.

His books have focused on the role of the emotions in every aspect of life. His History of French Passions won Britain’s top historical award, the Wolfson Prize, and was followed by the bestseller The French, dealing with contemporary society.  He was president of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Planning Commission, adviser to the French Millennium Commission, and presenter of the Prime Minister’s website.

His book on Happiness, his Intimate History of Humanity and his BBC lectures on Conversation marked the expansion of his research to all civilisations. His writings have been translated into 24 languages. He became a member of the BBC Brains Trust and made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Picked as an international thought leader by Fast Company USA, and as “one of Britain’s leading intellects” by Management Today; he has been active in the executive leadership programmes of Templeton College Oxford, is an Associate Fellow of Oxford University’s Said Business School, a Professor honoris causa of HEC, the Paris Business School, and a Fellow of the World Economic Forum.

He is a Patron of the National Academy of Writing and of the Oxford Food Symposium for the study of international gastronomy (of which he was the co-founder), a Member of the European Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has been on the Management Committee of the Society of Authors, a visiting professor at Harvard and the University of Southern Carolina, and has lectured in 15 countries. He is married to Deirdre Wilson, the co-inventor of the Theory of Relevance.

His practice includes advising on defective tax schemes, often for large groups of investors.  He acts for families and trustees in both onshore and offshore trust litigation.  He is recommended in the 2011 edition of Chambers & Partners as one of the leading practitioners in his field.

Chris Stott is the Founder, Chair, and CEO of Lonestar Data Holdings Inc., the Lunar information, technology, and communications company sending the first in a series of data centers to the Moon for Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Edge Processing. A lifelong entrepreneur, Chris is also the Founder and Non-Executive Chair of ManSat, the world’s largest commercial provider of satellite spectrum. Chris serves as the Chair Emeritus, alongside the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, of the Space and Satellite Professionals International (SSPI), the largest professional association in the global space and satellite industry, which also named him Satellite Industry Mentor of the Year in 2015.

Chris’s passion for the economics and commerce of space has led him to co-found both the Institute of Space Commerce in Austin in the United States, and the International Institute of Space Commerce on the Isle of Man in the British Isles. He has served on faculty at the International Space University (ISU) since 2003 and is a former co-chair of the university’s school of business and management. Chris is also a guest lecturer in space law and regulation at MIT Media Labs, the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the School of Law at the University of Houston.

Chris is also passionate about public service and was a co-founder of global NGO, Geeks Without Frontiers (where he now serves as the Chair of its Advisory Board), and having served on the board of AMAR US. In his spare time, Chris is a multi-award-winning producer, writer, and documentary filmmaker.

A naturalized Manx American, Chris lives in Florida with this wife and son and their dogs. He enjoys shooting (pistol, rifle, skeet, and trap), SCUBA and Free Diving, and flying helicopters. He drinks way too much coffee and rarely watches TV. When he needs to sleep, he reads his own bio.

Stan Parrish is an American businessman with nearly 60 years’ experience, who has successfully run the Salt Lake and Utah Chambers of Commerce. He also served in Washington DC as Chief of Staff to the Utah Senator Orrin J. Hatch during the Reagan administration. Senator Hatch then appointed him to run the Federal Government’s Small Business Administration. Over the last three decades he has owned and/or managed at least four major companies in the Utah/Nevada area.
In 2017-18 he and his wife Joyce served as Public Affairs Missionary Ambassadors to the UK on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in South Kensington. They have now returned home to Utah. They have 6 children, 18 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.

Alastair was Bishop of Derby from 2005 to 2018. He has expertise in the fields of theology, church history, social justice, clergy training, leadership and spirituality.  He is an accomplished speaker, lecturer and teacher, and an author of books and papers on a variety of Christian themes. He is a member of the House of Lords and is the Church of England’s spokesman for international development. Alastair sat on the joint parliamentary select committee for the draft modern slavery bill and supported the legislation through Parliament until the Royal Assent of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Alastair is the Independent Chair for the Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s Advisory Panel and the Vice-Chair of the Anglican Alliance.

Honorary Council Member