Board Biographies

Vic­ki Beere, Brad­ford VCS Alliance Board Chair (Appoint­ed 20 July 2021)

Vic­ki Beere in her day job is Chief Exec­u­tive of Project 6, a char­i­ty work­ing with peo­ple affect­ed by sub­stance use across York­shire. She has over 20 years’ expe­ri­ence of work­ing with peo­ple using drugs and alco­hol, start­ing off as a front­line work­er and then devel­op­ing to become a Chief Exec­u­tive 8 years ago. Vic­ki is pas­sion­ate about sup­port­ing peo­ple to make pos­i­tive changes to their well­be­ing and reduc­ing the shame and stig­ma asso­ci­at­ed with alco­hol and drug use. is 

Vic­ki has been a trustee of the Brad­ford VCS Alliance for 5 years and the Chair for the past 12 months. She is a well-known and respect­ed leader (can I say this about myself!!) across our health and care sys­tem, espe­cial­ly in Brad­ford and Craven and has held many posi­tions in the health and care sys­tem as a VCS sys­tem leader. She is dri­ven by a need to make a dent in the health inequal­i­ties that exist across our patch and wider social jus­tice issues. She has a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in sys­tems lead­er­ship and sys­tems con­ven­ing and the role of the VCS in sup­port­ing the sys­tem eco-system.

Vic­ki is keen to use her expe­ri­ence in lead­er­ship to sup­port oth­ers and have been a cas­cad­ing lead­er­ship con­sul­tant at the Kings Fund and a Pilot­light men­tor sup­port­ing new and upcom­ing VCS lead­ers across the country.

In addi­tion to this Vic­ki is a fel­low of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Arts and trustee of the nation­al char­i­ty of drug and alco­hol providers Col­lec­tive Voice.  In her spare time, she is study­ing for a PhD at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter on drug pol­i­cy and its impact on women.  She can often be found tour­ing Scot­land in her camper­van with her scruffy res­cue dogs.

Bev­er­ley Fearn­ley PhD, Brad­ford VCS Alliance Board Direc­tor, Deputy Vice Chair and Chair of Sub-Com­mit­tee Con­tract and Per­for­mance (appoint­ed 1 March 2023)

Dr Bev­er­ley Fearn­ley start­ed her career by work­ing in acad­e­mia. Since then she has worked in the vol­un­tary sec­tor for 8 years, fol­lowed by time deliv­er­ing health­care reg­u­la­tion with NHS Improve­ment before mov­ing to her cur­rent role as Deputy Direc­tor of Patient Safe­ty, Com­pli­ance and Risk at Brad­ford Dis­trict Care NHS Foun­da­tion Trust, a provider of com­mu­ni­ty and men­tal health services.

Hav­ing lived in Brad­ford since she was 7, Bev­er­ley brings a range of insights from across all sec­tors and an under­stand­ing of how these impact on Bradford’s diverse com­mu­ni­ties. She has expe­ri­ence of work­ing in local health and care sys­tem spaces, bring­ing togeth­er peo­ple from dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions and back­grounds to deliv­er col­lab­o­ra­tive objec­tives aimed at improv­ing health and care ser­vices for her local community.

Over the course of her career, Bev­er­ley has devel­oped sig­nif­i­cant expe­ri­ence in per­for­mance man­age­ment, gov­er­nance and the deliv­ery of safe, high qual­i­ty ser­vices and is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in how the voice of expe­ri­ence can be effec­tive­ly used to dri­ve trans­for­ma­tion and improve­ment with­in organ­i­sa­tions and across systems.

As a local girl who has worked for both statu­to­ry organ­i­sa­tions and in the vol­un­tary sec­tor, Bev­er­ley is keen to sup­port the alliance in strength­en­ing the voice of the vol­un­tary sec­tor with­in deci­sion mak­ing about health and care and is a firm believ­er in empow­er­ing local communities.

Bill Gra­ham, Brad­ford VCS Alliance Board Direc­tor, Trea­sur­er and Chair of Sub-Com­mit­tee Finance and Resources (appoint­ed 16 July 2019)

Bill has recent­ly been appoint­ed the Health Inequal­i­ties lead (non-med­ical) for the Modal­i­ty GP part­ner­ship and PCN based in Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven. He is an Asso­ciate of Leeds Com­mu­ni­ty Foundation/Give Brad­ford and vol­un­teers as a trustee with Leeds Com­mu­ni­ty Spaces and Brad­ford VCSA.

Pre­vi­ous roles include lead­ing a char­i­ty in Leeds, New Wort­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion and trustee/ trea­sur­er of Bram­ley Baths. He is an advo­cate for com­mu­ni­ty busi­ness­es and char­i­ties, a Fel­low of the RSA and tweets under the han­dle @systemanarchist.

Mohammed Zafran Liaqat, Brad­ford VCS Alliance Board Direc­tor and mem­ber of Sub-Com­mit­tee Con­tract and Per­for­mance (appoint­ed 1 March 2023)

Zaf was born in Brad­ford and has lived here all his life. He grad­u­at­ed in Law but didn’t go on to prac­tice or qual­i­fy fur­ther as this was beyond his finan­cial means at the time. He decid­ed to go into busi­ness and opened sev­er­al mobile phone retail out­lets, this went extreme­ly well and lat­er he moved onto whole­sale sup­ply of mobile phone acces­sories and parts as well as recy­cling. This allowed him to spe­cialise in sourc­ing goods from the Far East (Chi­na in par­tic­u­lar), since then he has had sev­er­al busi­ness­es. Zaf con­sid­ers him­self very for­tu­nate and appre­ci­ate great­ly the oppor­tu­ni­ties that his par­ents didn’t have. He has giv­en his time as a result to dif­fer­ent vol­un­tary roles, rang­ing from being a board mem­ber on the West York­shire Region­al Flood Defence Com­mit­tee (DEFRA- APPOINTEE) to being a mem­ber of the Board at Girling­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. More recent­ly, he has also tak­en a role as a Lay Mem­ber with the Min­istry of Defence. 

Jon Royle, Brad­ford VCS Alliance Board Direc­tor and mem­ber of Sub-Com­mit­tee Peo­ple & OD (appoint­ed 30 June 2018)

Jon Royle has worked in the vol­un­tary sec­tor for 30 years as a vol­un­teer, researcher, ther­a­pist and senior man­ag­er. Pri­or to that he held a num­ber of jobs includ­ing insur­ance, steeple­jack and was a sol­dier in the Para­chute Regiment.

Jon became Chief Exec­u­tive of The Bridge Project, Brad­ford in May 2007 and is respon­si­ble to the Board of Trustees for the man­age­ment and admin­is­tra­tion of Bridge with­in the strate­gic frame­work and pol­i­cy objec­tives set by the Board. He holds an MBA and a Diplo­ma in Counselling.

He is Chair­man of the Board of Trustees of the UK Faces and Voic­es of Recov­ery Char­i­ty (Home of the UK Recov­ery Walk) and a Non-Exec­u­tive Director/People Com­mit­tee Chair of Recov­ery Focus, a nation­al group of char­i­ties. He is a mem­ber of the Office for Health Improve­ment and Dis­par­i­ties nation­al Mutu­al Aid Ref­er­ence Group and has a spe­cial inter­est in addic­tion recov­ery communities.

Jon advo­cates for the VCS as a mem­ber of the Brad­ford Safer Com­mu­ni­ties Part­ner­ship Board. In his spare time he VCSA enjoys moun­tains, rock climb­ing and being tak­en for walks by an unruly Lhasa Apso!

Chris Whiley, Brad­ford VCS Alliance Board Direc­tor and mem­ber of Sub-Com­mit­tee Peo­ple & OD (appoint­ed 30 June 2018)

Chris Whiley is the CEO of Car­ers’ Resource, a char­i­ty offer­ing sup­port to unpaid car­ers and oth­ers in need of sup­port cov­er­ing Brad­ford, Craven, Har­ro­gate and Sel­by Dis­tricts, and has been in post since 2015.  Dur­ing that time the organ­i­sa­tion has incre­men­tal­ly grown and has dou­bled its turnover whilst remain­ing finan­cial­ly sus­tain­able.  In the past Chris was the Head of the Youth Ser­vice in Brad­ford and an Assis­tant Direc­tor for Chil­dren and Young People’s Pre­ven­tion and Ear­ly Inter­ven­tion Ser­vices. She has a wide range of expe­ri­ence at a strate­gic lev­el as well as an in depth under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges of com­mu­ni­ty deliv­ery. After years of work­ing across both Brad­ford and Craven dis­tricts she has a knowl­edge based on expe­ri­ence of the dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties that con­tribute to the rich­ness and diver­si­ty of the districts.

Hav­ing been involved in the Brad­ford VCS Alliance for some years she is pas­sion­ate about its abil­i­ty to enable all parts of the sec­tor to engage in deliv­er­ing high qual­i­ty health relat­ed ser­vices, and ensur­ing that the sec­tor is seen as an equal part­ner when it comes to deci­sion mak­ing and strat­e­gy set­ting.  She is also a keen advo­cate of the need for strong pre­ven­tion and ear­ly inter­ven­tion ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the cur­rent pres­sures on high lev­el services.

Chris is a trustee for two oth­er char­i­ties, one very small and local and one nation­al, and brings her diverse expe­ri­ences from this work to the Brad­ford VCS Alliance.