George Hosking OBE George Hosking OBE is WAVE Trust's Founder, CEO and Research Co-ordinator. He is one of the UK's foremost experts on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and has developed a UK-wide ACE-prevention project. Expand George is an economist, accountant, psychologist and clinical criminologist. He is also a traumatic stress counsellor. Before focusing on social issues, George had a successful career in business, first as a senior line manager working in the field of international strategy, then as a strategy consultant and corporate turnaround specialist. At 26, he became one of the youngest ever senior managers in Unilever. After a 17-year career there, where he became responsible for helping create and produce the strategic plans for 30 countries, he left to open his own consultancy. His major lines of work were international strategy and turning around loss-making businesses. He has carried out around 30 successful corporate turnarounds in a range of countries and industries, adding more than £10 million per annum to the profitability of such companies as the Mothers Pride Bread company and Booker Cash & Carry. In the mid-1990s he founded (and for many years funded!) WAVE Trust, to adapt his corporate turnaround technique to transform the lives of children. Since then he has advised the Met Police, Scottish Government, Cabinet Office, Home Office, Departments for Education and Health and No 10 Downing Street on policies for children or to tackle violence. As a criminologist he has worked with victims and perpetrators of violence, in prisons and in the community delivering WAVE’s very successful ‘An End to Violence’ programme.
Anthoulla Koutsoudi Anthoulla Koutsoudi is WAVE Trust's Company Secretary, Director of External Relations and Fundraiser. Expand Anthoulla was a Solicitor in private legal practice for 27 years until 2010, specialising in commercial property transactions and non-contentious legal work. Prior to 2010, Anthoulla provided pro bono and financial support to WAVE while pursuing her career as a Solicitor. WAVE’s ever growing sphere of influence and achievements led to expansion of opportunities for WAVE to achieve social transformation. The possibilities excited Anthoulla such that she could no longer remain in the law. She left the legal profession in 2010 to join the management team, and to present WAVE's preventive message and strategic solutions to audiences throughout the UK. Anthoulla fills two key roles within WAVE: Company Secretary and in-house lawyer -handling all internal and third party contracts, governance, dealing with Companies House & Charity Commission requirements, and liaising with and supporting the Board of Trustees. Director of External Relations and major donor fundraiser - engaging with major supporters and ambassadors.
Ita Walsh Ita Walsh is WAVE Trust's Director of Operations and Writer of WAVE reports including 'Conception to Age 2 - the age of opportunity' and 'Age 2 to 18 - Systems to protect children from severe disadvantage'. Expand Following a successful career running her own business, Ita moved into management consulting where she became first a Director, and later owner, of an international consultancy. Much of her work was in international strategy, where her assignments for airlines, breweries and chemicals companies took her around the world. Ita is passionate about ending the maltreatment of young children. She also believes WAVE's work, in uncovering and tackling the root causes of violence and abuse, may do more to reduce cruelty to animals than all the good work of all the symptom-oriented animal charities put together. As well as many other publications, Ita is co-author of The WAVE Report 2005: 'Violence and what to do about it', co-author of the WAVE Report 'International experience of early intervention for children, young people and their families' 2010 and wrote 'Working Together to Reduce Serious Youth Violence'. She also produced the first drafts of Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith’s booklet 'Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens'. In 2013 Ita played a major role in writing, editing and designing the joint Department for Education/WAVE report 'Conception to age 2 - the age of opportunity'. Her latest report, 'Age 2 to 18 - Systems to protect children from severe disadvantage' comes after four years of intense global research, and was published in June 2018. In this report, Ita shows how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in our early years fuel social disadvantage and inequality, and recommends excellent examples of trauma-informed approaches to heal these ACEs.