About us Who we are Directors
| Directors |
Martin Houghton-Brown - Chief Executive
Martin has steered the charity through two inspiring years of strategic development including the launch of work at local level and sustained financial performance against a 75% cut in public funding. In addition he is a founder member of the Prime Ministerial Task Force on Missing Persons, has hosted UNICEF TV debates and acted as a keynote speaker for the annual ACEVO conference in 2010. To date Martin has, and continues to, work extensively with the UK Government on policy matters and has contributed towards Guidance on Children Who Are Sexually Exploited, Police Guidance on the Investigation of Missing Persons and Strategy for Missing Children and Vulnerable Adults. He has been appointed as a member of the Government Inquiry into sexual exploitation in gangs and also sits on advisory panels for studies from the International Centre of the Study of Sexually Exploited and Trafficked Children. Martin’s early career involved working with young people affected by substance misuse, mental and sexual health issues. He has a deep, well informed understanding of the issue of, and good public policy in relation to missing people and is all too aware that those who go missing are often vulnerable and in need of support. He is a Director and Trustee of YMCA England and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Ross Miller - Director of Supporters and Communication
Douglas Parkhill – Director of Finance and Resources
He is former Group Company Secretary of pharmaceutical group SkyePharma PLC, and former Finance Director of Black and Edgington, then the UK leading provider of tented structures for major events including the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships, Henley Royal Regatta, Farnborough International Airshow, state visits and royal garden parties.
Jo Youle - Director of Services
Jo Youle has worked for Missing People since 2002, starting as the Co-Head of Helplines. Jo led the development and launch of Runaway Helpline in 2004 and played a key role in the strategic review of the charity’s services in 2006. Jo was previously a Co-Director at the Central London Samaritans in Soho. Jo is a key spokesperson on the issue of missing and disadvantaged people, featuring in the BBC documentary ‘Runaways’ (November 2004) and has represented Missing People on ITV News and BBC Breakfast News, amongst many others.
Nicola Sharp - Director of Policy and Advocacy
Nicola joined Missing People in June 2011 as Director of Policy and Advocacy. She is a Trustee of the National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People, as well as a registered UNICEF consultant. Nicola’s policy background has led her to develop specialist knowledge of a range of public protection issues, including: child protection; domestic abuse, stalking and harassment, forced marriage and honour based violence; prostitution and sexual exploitation; and most recently missing persons. She is also currently undertaking a professional doctorate related to going missing, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation at the University of Bedfordshire. Her first senior management role was at the domestic violence charity Refuge where she was Head of Policy and Parliamentary Affairs. Prior to this she held research, policy and advocacy roles at Plan International and within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. At the beginning of her career, Nicola spent two years living and working in Japan. Nicola is a first class graduate in Management Sciences (BSc Hons) and a post graduate in International Policy Analysis (MSc) and Woman and Child Abuse (MA). |
Martin joined Missing People as the charity’s new Chief Executive in August 2009. Prior to taking up this role, he was Deputy Director at The Children’s Society, where he authored the ground-breaking report ‘Stepping Up’, which generated the UK Government’s Young Runaways Action Plan.
Ross joined Missing People in 2001 having previously worked in a number of communications roles in the private sector. In May 2007, Ross managed a complete rebrand of the charity to ‘Missing People’. Later that year Ross accepted the award for Grand Prix: non-FTSE 100 companies at the CorpComms Awards - celebrating excellence in corporate communications.
Douglas joined Missing People in September 2008 as Director of Finance and Resources. He has a background of senior financial, company secretarial, corporate governance and consultancy roles in industry and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and a graduate of the University of Glasgow. Douglas was named Company Secretary of the Year 2011 for the not for profit sector by ICSA.
