Charity awards 2010: Judges
Jane Asher
Jane Asher is an actress, writer and businesswoman. She has worked in the field of autism for many years, and is President of the National Autistic Society, as well as of Arthritis Care and the Parkinson's UK Disease Society. She is a Patron of many other voluntary organizations, including Leonard Cheshire Disability, Bowel Cancer UK and the Scoliosis Association. She has also been an Ambassador for the Prince's Trust for a number of years.
Lynne Berry OBE, Chief Executive, WRVS
Lynne Berry is Chief Executive of WRVS – a major national charity that enables older people to get more out of life by providing practical services, powered by volunteers.
Previous posts include: Chief Executive of the General Social Care Council and of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Executive Director of the Charity Commission and Chief Executive of FWA (now Family Action). She has also worked at the Department of Health, National Institute for Social Work and as a lecturer and practitioner in community and social work.
She is a government advisor – currently serving on the Office for Civil Society's Advisory Body. She has served on other government advisory bodies, as a Trustee and Chair of a number of voluntary organisations and commissions.
David Brindle, public services editor, the Guardian, chair

David Brindle is public services editor of the Guardian. He has been the paper's social affairs correspondent and edited the Society section. He has won awards for his coverage of social services, disability and nursing and was awarded the Social Care Association's merit award for 2007. Previously he was labour correspondent of the Financial Times and he started his career with the Coventry Evening Telegraph. He is vice-chair of 2Care, a mental health service charity, and also of Mental Health Media, a charity working to improve understanding of mental ill-health and counter stigma. He is a visiting fellow at the Centre for Citizen Participation, Brunel University.
David is chair of the Charity Awards judging panel.
Sarah Brown
Sarah Brown is married to the Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP. She is president of the children's charity PiggyBankKids, which she founded in 2002, and has edited a number of books, both fiction and non-fiction. Sarah is also patron of a number of charities including SHINE, Maggie's Centre, Wellbeing of Women, Women's Aid and the White Ribbon Alliance.
Caroline Diehl, chief executive, Media Trust
Caroline Diehl is Chief Executive of Media Trust, the charity that brings the media industry and charities together. Caroline set up Media Trust 14 years ago. Media Trust runs a range of services including communications training, film production, matching of media industry volunteers with charities, the Community Newswire, media campaigns, Youth Media team and Community Channel, the UK-wide digital television channel for the Third Sector. Community Channel broadcasts 24 hours a day on Sky 539 and Virgin Media 233 as well as 3 hours a day on Freeview 87. Community Channel is uniquely supported by all the UK's broadcasters, who provide programming, bandwidth and cross-promotion.
In 2004 Caroline was awarded an MBE for services to the media industry and also received the Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year award for London. She is on the Advisory Board of INSEAD's Social Entrepreneurship Programme, and a trustee of the Small Charities Coalition and the World Film Collective.
Caroline has played a major part in ensuring that the voluntary sector's voice is heard in the ongoing debates around communications and media policy. She is a founder member of Public Voice, the voluntary sector body that campaigns for citizens' interest in communications.
Stuart Etherington, chief executive, NCVO
Stuart Etherington was appointed Chief Executive of NCVO in 1994. NCVO is a membership organisation that represents the interests of charities and voluntary bodies. Previously he was Chief Executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, a major UK charity. Throughout his career he has been involved in the leadership of voluntary organisations and policies surrounding them. As such he has become a leading commentator, both through his writing and his media profile.
Stuart is Chair of Greenwich University Court, a member of the Community and Social Affairs Committee of Barclays Bank, and was a trustee of Business in the Community. He was also the Chair of the BBC Appeals Advisory Committee, Chair of Guidestar UK and a Board member of Guidestar International.
His recent Government appointments include the Treasury's Standing Committee on Euro Preparations and the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit. He has also served on the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit's Advisory Board on theVoluntary Sector and HM Treasury's Cross Cutting Review on the role of the Voluntary Sector.
Emma Harrison CBE
Emma Harrison CBE is the founding chairman of the FSI, and a well-known, charismatic and respected entrepreneur. She established the FSI in 2007 with a view to empowering charities by delivering learning and development opportunities to move them toward sustainability. Under her leadership, the FSI has grown to provide a full training, support and advocacy service, delivered free of charge to charities with raised income up to £1.5m.
Emma has a unique approach to leadership, seeing her role as being to inspire, encourage and elevate. Her success as a entrepreneur, visionary and philanthropist saw her awarded a CBE in the 2010 New Year's Honours List.
Emma has supported charitable causes for many years including as trustee of the Eden Project and through her role as chairman of the NSPCC's Regional Full Stop Appeal where she helped raise almost £57 million which played a prominent role in helping them reach their national fund raising target of £250m.
Baroness Valerie Howarth, chair and president of Livability, and vice patron of Childline - WAITING FOR APPROVAL
Baroness Valerie Georgina Howarth OBE was until July 2001 the Chief Executive of the charity ChildLine, the free national helpline for children in trouble or danger. Under her leadership, ChildLine counselled over one million children and young people since it opened in 1986 and developed from a small London based project to a UK-wide children's charity.
A social worker by background, she worked in the Family Welfare Association, the London Borough of Lambeth and then Brent where she was Director of Social Services. During this time she served on numerous working parties and chaired several child care service groups. She was the first UK representative of the European Forum for Child Welfare, a founder member and first Chair of the Telephone Helplines Association, founded the King's Cross Homelessness Project and London Homelessness Forum.
Baroness Howarth has taken a leading role in changing the law concerning child witnesses and serves on the Department of Health's Quality Protects Steering Group. She has spent over ten years in consumer protection and standard setting as a committee member of the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Telephone Information Systems (ICSTIS). She is Vice Chair of John Grooms Association for Disabled People, Vice Chair of the Faithfull Foundation, an organisation providing treatment for child abusers and a Trustee of the Seiff Foundation. She chairs the 'Stop It Now' campaign, a partnership organisation involved in child abuse education.
In February 2000 she was appointed to the Board of the Food Standards Agency and serves on the Meat Hygiene Advisory Committee. In February 2001 she joined the Board of National Care Standards Commission. Awarded the OBE in 1999, she became Baroness Howarth of Breckland in April 2001, one of the first of the new commission appointed peers.
Dame Suzi Leather, chair, Charity Commission
Dame Suzi Leather is Chair of the Charity Commission. She has a long-standing relationship with the third sector, first volunteering for Age Concern and the Inner London Probation Service over twenty years ago. She has broad professional experience having been chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the School Food Trust, the Exeter and Devon Community NHS Trust and deputy chair of the Food Standards Agency. She was the founder chair of a community project, Exeter's St Sidwell's Centre, the UK's first combined healthy living and UK Online centre.