Our Team

Zoe joined City Year in September 2010 as a volunteer on the first full corps, and then joined the staff team in July 2011 as Operations and Finance Assistant. As a corps member serving on the Barclays Capital team, based at St Anne’s RC Primary School (Tower Hamlets), she saw the difference she could make to children as a tutor, mentor and role-model. Prior to joining City Year, she studied Philosophy at the University of Birmingham and worked in various departments of the Children and Young People’s Service at her local council. Zoe is delighted to have joined the staff team and to be able to support the new corps!

Alex joined City Year London in May 2011 and is currently working as Development and Communications Assistant. Prior to joining City Year, Alex studied Political Science at the University of Birmingham and he undertook a number of volunteering projects whilst living in the city. He volunteered for one year with Niteline, offering advice and support to distressed university students, and was also part of a team of eight students who travelled to Uganda to teach sexual health in primary schools.   After spending time working for a government department, Alex quickly moved into the charity sector in 2010 and had his first roles with Save the Children UK and the Terrance Higgins Trust. What motivates Alex at work is a sense that he is contributing to a fairer and more equal society, where those people excluded from the political system are given the support they need to get on in life and be happy. City Year London offers Alex the opportunity to make that difference.

Hannah joined City Year London in September 2011. She began as one of the 60 volunteers which made up the first full corps, and soon after became Team Leader for the ARAMARK civic engagement team. As a  Team Leader Hannah organised and lead over twenty community action days, engaging over 1,000 volunteers in total. Hannah now works as Leadership Development Assistant at City Year London which involves coordinating corps member training, alumni relations and the City Year corporate mentoring scheme.

Outside of City Year, Hannah volunteers with The Sock Mob social enterprise on their Unseen Tours. As part of this she works closely with the homeless and vulnerably housed, training them to be professional tour guides. The tours are historical but have a quirky twist, as they draw on the guide’s own personal experiences of an area. Hannah is also a supporter of SANE – a mental health charity – and she volunteers annually at the Crisis Christmas shelters.

After City Year Hannah plans to return to education to study for a post graduate certificate in Mental Health Nursing.

Eric joined City Year London in September 2010 and is responsible for recruiting our corps. His previous employment includes five years working for a national charity called the Back-Up Trust where he managed their Mentoring and Youth Services. This involved recruiting and managing volunteer mentors to support children and adults affected by spinal cord injury in the UK. Alongside these experiences, past professional engagements as a musician have also led Eric to work with a range of both ‘for-profit’ and ‘non-profit’ practitioners at local, regional and international levels as a performer and workshop leader.

Aniela is Development Director at City Year London. She has over thirteen years’ fundraising experience, including at the University of Cambridge and Harvard Business School. At Cambridge, she was one of the senior team leading the Cambridge 800th Anniversary Campaign, which raised £1 billion for the University and Colleges, and at HBS she was responsible for alumni fundraising from a portfolio of MBA classes. She has an MA in Ancient and Modern History from Magdalen College, Oxford.

Aniela is a Trustee of Streets Kids International.

Chair, City Year London Board of Trustees and Managing Director, HarbourVest Partners

Peter Wilson joined HarbourVest’s London-based subsidiary in 1996 and focuses principally on secondary investments in Europe and European venture partnerships. He serves on the advisory committees for partnerships managed by Atlantic Bridge, Baring Vostok Capital Partners, Index Venture Management, Indigo Capital, Nordic Capital, Paragon Partners, and Pond Venture Partners.

Prior to joining HarbourVest, he spent three years working for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), where he originated and managed two regional venture capital funds in Russia and worked on several other debt and equity transactions in the former Soviet Union. Peter also spent two years at The Monitor Company, a strategy consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a BA (with honors) from McGill University in 1985 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1990.

Chief Operating Officer, City Year, Inc.

Jim Balfanz begun his work with City Year in 1993 as a corps member. After his corps year, Jim joined the City Year staff to help grow the programme, taking on various roles including Director of New Site Development and founding Executive Director of City Year Greater Philadelphia. Under his leadership, City Year Greater Philadelphia became one of the largest and fastest growing City Year sites.

In 2004, Jim became the first former corps member to be promoted to the vice president level of City Year. He served as the Senior Vice President for External Affairs before being promoted to Chief Operating Officer in January of 2005. As Chief Operating Officer, has lead the organization through a sustained period of growth reaching 20 locations throughout the United States. Jim has also been a driving force behind City Year’s strategic shift to impacting students through its Whole School Whole Child service model and In School and On Track initiative. Jim is a graduate of Northeastern University and has completed a two-year Executive Management Program at the Wharton School of Business.

COO, General Counsel, and Senior Managing Director, TowerBrook Capital Partners LLP

Mr. Cardini is COO, General Counsel and a Senior Managing Director of TowerBrook, and is also a member of the Investment Committee as well as responsible for investor relations at TowerBrook. Mr. Cardini was previously a partner, COO and General Counsel at Soros Private Equity. Mr. Cardini is extensively involved in structuring and executing all of TowerBrook’s transactions. Previously, Mr. Cardini was a senior solicitor at the London-based law firm, Ashursts, in the Private Equity Group in London and Milan. Mr. Cardini earned his LLB from Brunel University and completed his Law Society Finals at the College of Law in London.

Caroline has a B.A. in history from Yale University in 1980 and a J.D. from Columbia University Law School in 1984. Following law school she clerked for Judge Robert Sweet of the Southern District of New York and then joined the New York law firm of Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett as a litigator. In 1986 she moved to Tokyo and worked for the Japanese law firm Miyake Hatasawa and Yamasaki, as well as teaching American Law at the University of Yokohama.

Upon returning to New York in 1989, she joined the Affirmative Litigation unit of the Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, working primarily on environmental cases. She moved to London with her family in January of 1992 and joined the Washington law firm of Covington and Burling, specializing in software litigation.

After her third child was born she co-founded a mail order company, The Great Little Trading Company. The business markets practical products and toys for parents with children under the age of 12. She resigned from the company in September 2004 and remained as a non-executive director of the company until March 2005.

Caroline Clark has been a member of the Board of Trustees at ASL (American School London) since 2005 and currently sits on the Finance Committee and the Buildings and Grounds Committee. In the past year she has been actively involved in the creation of the school’s new mission statement and is co-chair of the Strategic Planning committee. For the last five years she has been acting for the Rugby Portobello Trust as a mentor for a teenage rape victim from Cameroon who is now the mother of a four-year child and is still in full time school.

Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President, City Year, Inc.

AnnMaura Connolly joined City Year as Chief of Staff in 2000 and then served as Senior Vice President for Global Initiatives and Strategic Partnerships. In 2009, she was named Chief External Affairs Officer. As CEAO, AnnMaura directs City Year’s public policy and public affairs work, manages relationships with national and international leaders and organizational partners, and oversees City Year’s international work. She also works closely with the CEO on a wide range of policy and strategic advancement issues and serves as a member of City Year’s Senior Leadership Team. In addition, AnnMaura serves as a co-convenor of ServiceNation, and oversees the day-to-day work of Voices for National Service, a coalition of hundreds of service organizations that work together to advance citizen service policy.

AnnMaura has worked to expand opportunities for young people to serve since 1989. After graduating from college, she served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Southern California. As a Jesuit Volunteer, she helped to create and lead a counseling programme for refugees from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The programme offered counseling and other assistance to victims of domestic violence, recent arrivals experiencing adjustment problems and young people with behavioral and emotional issues.

After returning to Washington in 1987, AnnMaura spent two years directing a national grants program and managing special projects at Very Special Arts, an international organization dedicated to increasing opportunities in the visual and performing arts for people with disabilities. In 1989, she joined the staff of Youth Service America, where she held several senior positions, and helped to create a series of new programs, including National Youth Service Day, the New Generation Training Program, the Social Entrepreneurs Program and the National Service Seminar. AnnMaura served as a member of the senior management team of Youth Service America for more than five years, during which her responsibilities included project development and management, policy, fundraising and communications.

In 1995, she joined the Corporation for National Service, where she served as Deputy Director, Independent Sector in the Office of Public Liaison. AnnMaura was responsible for managing relationships between the agency and foundations and national nonprofit organizations. In addition, she worked closely with the CEO on a variety of special projects, including the Presidents’ Summit on America’s Future. After leaving the Corporation in 1998, AnnMaura was an independent consultant to a variety of foundations and nonprofits, including the Grantmaker Forum on Community and National Service, Atlantic Philanthropies, the AmeriCorps Anniversary Committee and the Corporation for National Service. She joined City Year as Chief of Staff in 2000.

AnnMaura holds a B.A. in political science from the College of the Holy Cross. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Taproot Foundation, the Advisory Board for the Eli J. Segal Citizen Leadership Program at Brandeis University and the Steering Committees for the Civic Mission of Schools and Voices for National Service.

Chief Executive, The Private Equity Foundation

Shaks Ghosh is the first Chief Executive of the Private Equity Foundation. For the previous nine years she was Chief Executive of Crisis, a homelessness charity in the UK. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Shaks pursued a career in housing and regeneration working at Community Housing Association and the National Housing Federation. She has a Masters degree in Urban Studies. Shaks spent her early years in India, but now lives in London.

The Private Equity Foundation’s mission is Full Potential. It is focused on helping disadvantaged young people to develop as learners, workers and good citizens. Its model borrows tools and techniques from the business sector and supports community organizations to increase their scale and impact.

City Year Alum and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Kanna Kunchala manages the Global Emerging Markets Equity Derivatives sales franchise in Europe, focusing on Western institutions and hedge funds as well as local clients in the Middle East and Russia. He and his team develop market and sell volatility and synthetic products on emerging market equities in EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa), Asia and Latin America.

Previously, Kanna worked in the Absolute Return Group in London for three years, focusing on European equity derivatives with the US hedge fund client base. Prior to that, he began his career in Chicago working in Equity Derivatives Sales, covering Midwestern hedge funds, mutual funds and pension plans. Kanna joined Goldman Sachs in 2001 as an associate. He was named managing director in 2008.

Prior to joining the firm, Kanna worked in community service for City Year, Inc. and in public service as a speechwriter for the City of Boston. Kanna earned a BA in English Literature from Harvard University in 1994 and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 2001.

City Year Alum and Director, ESRO

Dr Robin Pharoah is a fully trained Social Anthropologist. After completing his PhD at the London School of Economics, he founded ESRO, a social and market research agency that aims to bring the rigour and innovations of academia to an applied research context. Since then the company has worked across the Public, Private and Third Sector on a range of national and international projects. ESRO has built a reputation for conducting research using methods and targeting groups which go beyond the traditional foci of applied research. The company specialises in working with ‘hard to reach’ groups including, for example, illegal migrants, creationists and low income families.

Robin has authored many reports including the influential report on low-income families called “Just Coping”, which has gained recognition at central and local government levels for its revealing insights into the struggles of living on a low-income. Robin is also a City Year alumn, and was part of the City Year Boston Corps during 1995/96, one of only two British participants.

Group Vice-President & Managing Director, Timberland Europe and Global Distributors

Richard O’Rourke started his career in 1971 with a 2 year Management Trainee Programme at Harrods whilst continuing his studies at the College of Distributive Trades. During his 19 years with Harrods he developed through a variety of roles, including Department Controller – Womenswear, Assistant Buyer – Childrenswear, Buyer for Sports Equipment and Clothing, to become Section Merchandise Manager for the entire Leisure business and finally Project Director responsible for the store’s special projects related to space planning and merchandising.

In 1990 Richard joined Timberland as the first Managing Director for the UK, responsible for overall management of the UK business and establishing the brand. He oversaw good sales growth, raising of brand awareness, the introduction of a clothing range and expansion into Ireland and Scandinavia. He took on his current role in 1998 which, as well as overseeing growth and development of all business units within Europe, also includes the responsibility for new markets in Africa, South America, Australia, Middle East, Russia and India through Distributor partners.

Managing Partner and Founder of Silverhawk Partners

Shirley Soskin’s early career was spent creating the successful communications consultancy Clarion Communications, which specialised in brand reputation management for leading organisations. Clarion was acquired by the global communications network, WPP in 2001. Shirley is a passionate believer in effective flexible working; having successfully established herself as an independent consultant she was determined to build an organisation to provide clients with access to flexible talent.

Shirley manages Silverhawk through a network of key partners in specific industry sectors bringing in relevant experience where needed in the areas of resourcing, consulting and coaching. She has an excellent network ensuring that each client assignment is resourced appropriately. The back office function is also vital to the smooth running of the business and Shirley employs a team of flexible workers to provide cost effective and highly efficient support.

Shirley has a portfolio of non exec and philanthropy roles including: advisor to Margaret Street, the public relations consultancy part of the Golley Slater network, and she is on the advisory board of Editorial Intelligence.

Shirley attended the Harvard Business School Owner President’s Program

Dr Caroline Whalley has held Executive roles in both public and private sectors; she was Executive Director for Education for Ealing until 2004, when she left to become a Director of Babcock International, setting up their Building Schools for the Future programme. She has a strong organisational development background and now works with leaders across a range of organisations. She is a trustee of SHINE, as well as is the Chair of the West London Academy, Academic Director for Reed Learning and Chair of the British Council for School Environments and Executive Director at her local PCT. Caroline has published on learning about learning and mentoring to inspire leaders, as well as written for professional publications, such as Training Manager, Local Government Chronicle, The Times Educational Supplement and Management in Education.