Senior leadership team

Alastair Pringle – CEO

Alastair brings more than 30 years of experience in the public sector.

He most recently served as Interim CEO at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – Britain’s Equality Regulator and a National Human Rights Institution.

Alastair joined the EHRC as Scotland’s National Director in 2012, before taking on UK wide role as Executive Director in 2016.

In recent years he had executive responsibility for EHCR major investigations including BBC on Equal Pay and Labour Party on Anti-Semitism as well as inquiries into Adult Deaths in Detention, Housing and Disability and Accessible Football Stadia.

Previously, he held senior leadership roles in the NHS in Scotland and the Scottish Government, leading on national programmes of work on patient information, patient experience and patient’s rights.

Mike Strang – Chief Operating Officer

Mike joined Venture Trust in November 2016. Mike has 20 years’ experience in the third sector delivering and managing personal development programmes in the outdoors with hard to reach groups.

Mike holds a BA in Outdoor Education in the Community, a wide range of outdoor leadership and instructional qualifications, is a Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming and a certified practitioner in Choice Theory and Reality Therapy. Recently retired Chair of The Institute for Outdoor Learning in Scotland and sits on various industry working groups.

Shared practice and sector development are important to Mike and he has led our involvement in a European project called From Outdoors to the Labour Market. Mike has been working with partners in Ireland, Spain and Poland to set up programmes using outdoor learning to move young people struggling with employment closer to the Labour Market.

Mike works closely with Youthlink, the national agency for youth work and sits on the National Youth Voluntary Sector Leaders forum (NYVOS), the policy planning group and the Outdoor Learning group. Youthlink champions the value of the youth work sector, challenging government at national and local levels to invest in your development.

Mike is also a busy outdoor dad and enjoys adventuring with his little people… open canoe is the preferred adventure mode.

 

Connect with Mike.

Tejesh Mistry – Director of External Affairs

Tejesh joined Venture Trust in January 2020. He joins us with a wealth of Third Sector experience having started his career in community outreach work with young people and quickly developing on to Senior Leadership roles. Starting his career with Cycling UK he developed national behaviour change programmes, launched a monitoring and evaluation unit and developed a new business plan for the national training department.

After moving to Scotland in 2016 he led the development of community services supporting older people for Royal Voluntary Service, before joining University of Edinburgh as a Change Manager on the ambitious Service Excellence transformation programme delivering improved services to over 50,000 students and staff.

With a passion for community and volunteering Tejesh is often involved in local activities with his family, exploring by bike or dabbling with woodwork. He is also Vice Chair for mental health charity Amaudo UK delivering rehabilitation programmes in Nigeria. 

 

Connect with Tejesh.

 

Jenny McIvor- Head of Finance

Jenny is a qualified chartered accountant with 13 years’ experience, working across a number of jurisdictions and industry sectors.  Jenny’s career began in offshore finance as an auditor with Ernst & Young, moving on to insolvency and dispute resolution before moving out of accountancy practice and into a financial controller role.  After taking a career break Jenny moved to the third sector, joining the HALO Trust as a Regional Finance Manager in 2018. Jenny joined Venture Trust in March 2021 and heads up the finance team, as well as overseeing HR and other corporate services.

In her spare time Jenny enjoys running and cycling, and likes to take on challenges that are way beyond her capability.  She loves the outdoors and having recently acquired a dog is enjoying exploring local parks and beaches with her four-legged friend.

 

Andrew Russell – Head of Performance and Impact