CILEX Board Members

Professor Chris Bones – CILEX Chair

Chris Bones is the first Chair of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX) and the first non-lawyer to lead a legal professional body in England and Wales. Appointed in 2018, Chris chairs a Board of lay and members and officers of CILEX.

In January 2024 he was appointed as a Lay Commissioner at the Judicial Appointments Commission where he Chairs the Digital Board and represents the JAC on the review of the Judicial Skills and Abilities Framework. He is also a non-executive director of Equals PLC, an AIM listed Fintech where he chairs the RemCo.

As well as an extensive non-executive career, he is a former senior executive in Diageo and Cadbury Schweppes. He was appointed Dean Emeritus of Henley Business School after being its Principal and Executive Dean for six years, he was also awarded an Emeritus Professorship at Manchester University after retiring as a Professor at the Alliance Manchester Business School.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Aberdeen for his work on leadership. He won the Management Book of the Year Prize in 2012 for his analysis of leadership in business in relation to the financial crisis of 2008: The Cult of the Leader. He was appointed to the Expert Panel of the Criminal Legal Aid Review in 2021 was a member of the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board until December 2023.

Yanthé Richardson – CILEX President

Yanthé began her career in law in 2003 and qualified as a Fellow of CILEX in 2010. Having practised family and residential property law in Lincolnshire, London, and the southwest, Yanthé is now a senior leader across Foot Anstey’s Conveyancing Services team with a particular specialism in all new build matters. Her role involves overseeing the management and supervision of teams, with responsibilities including strategic growth, risk management and technical oversight. Yanthé leads on projects developing the operational direction of her team, utilising her 20+ years of legal experience to deliver with a commercial, innovative approach.

Yanthé was a Specialist Reference Group Advisor to CILEX (from February 2019 to September 2021) and during that tenure became CILEX’s representative on the Home Buying and Selling Council. She continues to advise Government on the Land Registry’s Advisory Council and Digital Property Market Steering Group and more recently has been appointed as the Conveyancer representative on the New Homes Quality Board’s Code Review Council. She is known as an expert in her field and is a regular public speaker.

Having started out in law somewhat accidentally, Yanthé attributes her career in part to the opportunities offered to her by the alternative route to qualification CILEX provides. She is passionate about ensuring others have the same opportunities regardless of their background, and strongly believes that we must continue to drive the standards expected of our legal professionals no matter which route to qualification they have taken.

Sara Fowler – CILEX Vice President

Sara is a senior leader in the NHS and a qualified fellow of Cilex, with over a decade of experience in healthcare law. She has a reputation for being resilient, driven, and tenacious in improving performance and efficiency within her portfolios. Sara trained as a fellow at Hill Dickinson LLP in London, specialising in clinical negligence litigation before moving to the NHS to contribute to improving patient safety from learning from legal claims.

She now heads up the Covid-19 Public Inquiry team across Barts Health NHS Trust and Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), in addition to heading up Legal Services at BHRUT. Her area of expertise is clinical negligence litigation with a secondary interest in inquests and advisory work, as well as strategic change management and performance improvement.

Prior to this, Sara was in a senior leadership role at NHS Resolution, an arm’s length government body, pro-actively investigating high value, emotive and complex brain injuries in maternity on a national level with a focus on learning. Coming from a disadvantaged background herself, Sara is passionate about equal access to justice, social mobility and ensuring that the legal profession is accessible for all, regardless of background.

She mentors care leavers and those who have suffered homelessness pursuing a legal career and is a strong advocate for continuous lifelong learning.

Emma Davies – CILEX Immediate Past President

Originally qualifying with a degree in Tourism Management, and trying various roles, Emma found a home within law and was admitted as a Fellow of CILEX in 2010.

Passionate about this diverse route to qualification she was one of the founding members of the CILEX Devon Branch. She served on the committee for 10 years in various roles, including Chair, watching the branch scoop awards for ‘Most innovative branch’ and ‘Best branch’. Her involvement with the branch has provided a great opportunity to fly the flag for the CILEX route to qualification through events, attending careers fairs and networking with both CILEX members and other parts of the legal profession. She re-joined the branch committee in 2022.

Emma started out in private practise as a Legal Secretary/Trainee Legal Executive specialising in debt recovery and Claimant personal injury. Since 2011 she has worked in-house for the Royal College of Nursing representing nurses subject to fitness to practise proceedings before their regulator. She also represents nurses under investigation by the Disclosure & Barring Service and Social Care Wales.

Emma has served on both the old-style Council and now on the professional board. In her role as Vice President she will be focusing on membership engagement and is looking forward to meeting as many CILEX members as possible.

Matthew Huggett – Past President

Matt is an experienced employment lawyer and also a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD. He is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association and the Industrial Law Society and a former Secretary of the West of England branch of the CIPD.

Matt started his legal career a little later in life, commencing his CILEX qualifications in his early thirties. At this point in his career, he had already started advising on HR and employment law matters but realised, in the increasingly litigious area of employment, that he needed (and wanted) to become a lawyer. Matt discovered the CILEX route to qualification which allowed him to continue to work in his established employment with a large employers organisation – and to raise a young family at the same time.

During his career, Matt became a lead lawyer for global manufacturing and engineering businesses. He now runs his own employment practice with Carbon Law Partners. He advises on all matters relating to HR and employment with a particular interest in discrimination and diversity matters. Matt is also an experienced advocate, representing clients at Employment Tribunals.

He is also an avid user of LinkedIn as a platform to access and educate the wider population on employment matters having published a series of videos and podcasts on specialist topics.

Candice Thorpe – Chair of Audit & Risk Committee

Candice is a qualified solicitor with almost 20 years experience in a range of specialisms within the public and regulatory sector. She is currently a lawyer at the Financial Conduct Authority. She has a long standing commitment to social mobility and social inclusion and the removal of barriers to entry in work and education. She shares the vision of CILEX to make the legal profession more accessible.

Candice has a reputation for her ability to identify and mitigate risk, think strategically and find solutions to complex problems. In addition to working full time she volunteers as a vice chair school governor and advisory board member for a not for profit youth community based organisation.

Jamie Radford – Senior independent Director and Chair of Nominations Committee

Jamie is the Senior Independent Director of Cilex. He sits on the Scrutiny Committee and the Regulatory Compliance Board

Outside of Cilex Jamie is the Group General Counsel for Azets Group and accountancy, tax, audit, advisory and business services provider across Europe.

Jamie has previous worked for a variety of companies across a number of sectors such as recruitment, pharmaceuticals, public sector.

Lucy Winskell – Chair of the Regulatory Compliance Board

Lucy was Pro Vice-Chancellor (employability and partnerships) at Northumbria University  for 12 years until 2022 when she stood down from that role on her appointment  as Lord  Lieutenant  of Tyne and Wear 2022. She remains as a Visiting Professor at Northumbria and will continue her non-executive roles whilst serving as Lord Lieutenant.

Prior to joining Northumbria University in 2010, Lucy was a litigation lawyer for 28 years, sitting on the Council of the Law Society of England and Wales, on the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority and President of Newcastle Law Society.

She has extensive non-executive director experience and she is currently Chair of the ACCA’s Regulatory Board.  Previous roles include Chair of the North East Local Enterprise Partnership,  Government Office North East, Darlington Building Society, the British Chambers of Commerce, Heritage Lottery Fund, the North East Industrial Development Board and the Arts and Humanities Research Council,. Lucy also has international experience as a former UK President of the Union Internationale des Advocats and s UK chair of the British-American Project.

Lucy was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday 2014 Honours List in recognition for her services to Higher Education and the regional economy in the North East. She was appointed as Deputy Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear in 2014,  and was High Sheriff of Tyne and Wear 2015/16. She lives in  Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Maura Sullivan – Chair of Finance Committee

Maura is a chartered accountant with over 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry, ranging from large international banks to UK FTSE 250 organisations. Maura is actively building a non executive portfolio as she winds down her executive career; her current portfolio includes roles in the Building Society and Public sectors.

Maura is passionate about education, having previously worked with the Department of Education on the development of the new Accounting Technical Level qualification.

Professor Stephen Lee – Chair of PR, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs Sub Committee

Stephen Lee is currently a Senior Teaching Fellow at Bayes Business School.

He has recently been the Chair of CILEX Law School and is a Main Board Director at the Chartered Institute of legal Executives, where he also Chairs the Corporate Communications Committee of the Institute.

From 2012 until the General Election in May 2015 he was Chief Executive at CentreForum, the UK based liberal think tank. Under his leadership CentreForum was awarded Prospect Magazine Economic Think Tank of the Year in 2013.

He has been Professor of Strategy and College Secretary at Henley Management College and Faculty Director Strategy and Professor of Marketing at Henley Business School where he also established and ran the Centre for Voluntary Sector Management.

He has been a visiting Senior Research Fellow, South Bank University Business School and taught marketing theory programmes at University of Utrecht Business School, Erasmus (NL), Bristol Business School (UWE) and the University of Geneva.

Having undertaken research and later taught at Lancaster University Professor Lee entered the voluntary sector in 1982 as Deputy Chief Executive at the Charities Advisory Trust and Directory of Social Change. Following further senior appointments in the not-for-profit sector Professor Lee held the post of Director of the Institute of Fundraising (IOF) for a period of eleven years.

He has been a Trustee of numerous national and international organisations, currently he is the Chair and Company Secretary of his local Tennis Club CIC Ltd and Senior Independent Trustee, The Amy Winehouse Foundation.

A Fellow of the RSA and one of only four Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Fundraising, in September 2000 he received the inaugural, Professional Fundraising Lifetime Achievement Award.

Steve Chantry – Chair of the Sales and Marketing Advisory Board

Steve is a passionate marketer, business leader, and family man: Steve has spent the past 20 years in the consumer goods industry & the past 7 years at Kraft Heinz, where today he leads Growth functions (Marketing, R&D & Commercial) for Emerging Markets.

Steve has chaired our CILEX Sales & Marketing Advisory Board for the past 18 months & is both impressed and inspired by what we continue to achieve at CILEX for our members, for inclusion and for the future of the legal industry.  He is a proud Brit, currently living in Dubai, with his wife and 2 daughters, and can be found most weekends on one of the UAE’s many golf courses.

Sukhjit Grewal – Chair of safeguarding and Apprenticeship Committee

Sukhjit sits on the Main Board of CILEX as well as the Audit & Risk Committee, Education Committee and he Chairs the Safeguarding & Apprenticeship Committee. In addition, he is a Board Trustee for the Lord’s Taverners who exist to empower and positively impact the lives of young people facing the challenges of inequality.

Sukhjit is Director of Commercial Operations and Membership at CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) and has been there since 2013. As an organisation they have circa 11,000 members in 85 countries. A qualified pharmacist by trade, having registered in 1996 after reading pharmacy at the University of Nottingham, Sukhjit won a Medical Research Council (MRC) bursary to study Epidemiology / Public Health Medicine at the University of Cambridge.

Sukhjit says “I was born and bred in Watford, Hertfordshire where I still live with my family (including our lovely fluffy Chow Chow dog). I am passionate about social mobility, all things spiritual and obsessed with Liverpool Football Club. I enjoy exploring the world, and am trying to find out more about blockchain technologies such as Bitcoin / cryptocurrencies”.

Tim McIntyre Bhatty – Chair of Education Board

Tim joined CILEX in April 2024 as Non Executive Director and Chair of the Education Board.  He has a longstanding record in senior university and Board positions, alongside his experience in academic and educational leadership, including 12 years as a Deputy Vice-Chancellor.

Tim has experience of transformation, innovation and building and embedding an inclusive and nurturing culture in organisations.  This sits alongside his track record of governance and assurance experience.

Tim is a Non-Executive Director for the NHS Hampshire & Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board and for the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Chair of AIM Community, an educational charity, Governor of the University for the Creative Arts, and an independent reviewer for the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education.

In his spare time Tim says he enjoys mountain biking and scenic walks by the coast, though he is not necessarily very good at either!”