Sunita is the Head of Regions for Channel 4 News leading the newsroom in Leeds which features a mix of television, data and digital production.  C4 News is the first primetime national news programme to be dual presenter from two locations. Sunita also leads the teams working outside of London in Greater Manchester, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales.

She previously worked at BBC News leading the Learning and Identity story team in Leeds and the Northern Bureau news operation which covered all the main national news in the North of England. She has worked on stories ranging from the Manchester Arena Bombing to the Hillsborough fight for justice. She started her BBC career at BBC Radio Lincolnshire in 2007, and has worked across regional TV and Online, as well as Newsround.

Sunita started her journalism career working at the weekly newspaper The Craven Herald in Skipton before moving to the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford.

Holly is the Head of Workforce Delivery at Skills for Care, the leading workforce organisation for adult social care in England, where she is responsible for a portfolio of national programmes.

She has over 20 years’ experience in senior leadership positions across health and social care, with a successful track record in strategy, governance, finance, workforce, change and programme management. Holly is passionate about social justice and inclusion issues, and this is reflected in her career history. She believes in the power of difference and the value that comes from a range of lived experience perspectives.

Rob is a multi award winning journalist based in Wales. He presents the long running political programme Sharp End for ITV Cymru Wales and is also the channel’s National Correspondent. Rob has a long established relationship with the John Schofield Trust having been a fellow, senior fellow and now a trustee.

Markus is treasurer for the John Schofield Trust.

Markus currently acts as an advisor for the Thomson Foundation and Thomson Media gGmbH. He draws on over 30 years’ experience in the news business – including most recently as Director of Business Development at BBC Monitoring, and as the AP’s EMEA Director prior to that.

Eileen is part of the News Editor team working across BBC News, around the world.

Working in the centre of the BBC newsroom she oversees the day-to-day news and current affairs agenda, legal and editorial policy issues and leads on several long-term projects.

She previously led digital teams at the BBC and worked at the Press Association, IPC Magazines and across local and national newspaper titles.

Jack Aldwinckle is a history and politics teacher at a sixth-form college in London. A former John Schofield Trust mentee, he previously spent a decade working as a journalist, primarily for The Economist, where he started as a multimedia producer before becoming a foreign correspondent and bureau chief in Latin America.

His reporting covered major political and economic developments across the continent, and he contributed to outlets including The Financial Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, France 24 and the BBC. In 2019, he retrained as a history teacher as part of the Teach First programme.

Jack is also on the board representing the Schofield family, as the nephew of our founder Susie.

Fergus Bell is a journalist and media consultant with a long-standing commitment to fostering innovation and sustainability in the news industry. With over a decade of experience, Fergus has worked at the intersection of journalism, technology, and social impact, helping to drive collaboration and ethical transformation within global media organisations.

He is the co-founder of Pop-Up Newsroom, an initiative known for pioneering collaborative journalism projects, including the award-winning “Verificado” and “Electionland” misinformation monitoring initiatives.

In 2019, Fergus co-founded Fathm, a consultancy and news lab dedicated to addressing the challenges of misinformation, facilitating sustainable change, and exploring the role of AI in journalism. Most recently, he co-launched Syli, a non-profit organization aimed at transforming how the climate crisis is reported by newsrooms worldwide.

Fergus began his career freelancing in local radio before moving to CNN, ITV and Channel 4 News. He spent eight years at the Associated Press, where he served as the organization’s first International Social Media and UGC Editor, shaping newsroom practices around digital newsgathering and verification. His expertise is sought after by broadcasters, publishers, and start-ups across the globe.

He is also a 2019 Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, a faculty member of the European Broadcasting Union’s Academy, and a Senior Fellow of the John Schofield Trust.

Ayshah is a BAFTA-nominated news correspondent and presenter for Channel 4 News. She has worked at Sky, BBC and ITN in various roles and is was a mentee in one of our earliest cohorts.

Shaunagh Connaire is a double Emmy-nominated independent journalist and filmmaker and the first female recipient of the Freedom of Longford (Ireland) honour. She’s worked as a Director at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, reporting directly to George and Amal Clooney, an Editor at the Financial Times in New York, a Producer and Edit Director at the BBC, and a Reporter/Producer at Channel 4 in the UK.

Shaunagh was the first documentary maker to enter the Ebola zone in West Africa in 2014. Her Channel 4 and PBS Frontline film was nominated for an Emmy award and won the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award. While at the Financial Times, she established and spearheaded the paper’s first-of-its-kind partnership with major US broadcaster PBS in a film called ‘Opioids Inc’. This film was nominated for an Emmy and won a Gerald Loeb Award from UCLA.

Shaunagh has made documentaries in Iran, Lebanon, China (undercover), Honduras, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, US, Albania, Mexico, and Ireland. She’s been published in the Financial Times, the Irish Independent, Elle Magazine, openDemocracy, the Guardian, and Broadcast. She’s also the host of the Media Tribe podcast, which hit number one in the ‘Society & Culture’ Apple charts in Ireland.

Jonathan is Managing Editor of The News Movement. He is a trustee for Podium Me and a visiting lecturer in journalism for City University of London.

Jonathan spent a decade at the BBC, most recently as their Head of Video.

Nick Phipps is an output editor at Sky News. He has run the channel’s election night programming since the Scottish Referendum of 2014, a period which has taken in four general elections and the Brexit referendum of 2016. He also has responsibility for evening programming including Sky News at Ten and the Press Preview.

He was part of the leadership team for the launch of two multi-platform news operations and was executive editor for the launch of Sky News Arabia in 2012. He also ran the Sky News business unit during the global financial crisis.

He began his career with ITN as a news trainee, and worked in both newsgathering and output before becoming the programme editor of the ITV Evening News.