Bede invites you to meet its new Director

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Bede House
by Gwen Green
The new Bede Director, Mahua Nandi

Nick Dunne will be retiring this summer after nearly 20 years as Bede’s Director. His successor, Mahua Nandi, has been appointed and will join us in June. Read more…

As you may know, I am about to retire shortly – and it’s my great pleasure to announce that Mahua Nandi will join us on 1 June as Director of Bede.

Mahua brings many years of senior management experience from a range of sectors, including community transport, mental health, prison-based learning and social enterprise. A qualified accountant, she has worked as a community organiser with the Transport and General Workers Union (now UNITE) providing advocacy, peer support and training for low-wage workers in and around London. Most recently she was Director of Finance and Resources at SignHealth, a specialist charity for the deaf providing social care, domestic violence support and psychological therapy in British Sign Language. She is a trustee of VoiceAbility, a charity which supports people to be heard in decisions about their health, care and wellbeing. She is also a board member of Reside Housing Association, which specialises in providing high-quality housing for people with support needs.

Mahua is chair of governors at her local primary school. She enjoys singing and is a member of her local choir. She loves to get involved and try new things – in recent years she has learned British Sign Language and Bengali, and she is trying her hand at carpentry.

“I’m very excited to be joining Bede at such an important time in its development,” says Mahua. “I believe strongly in the power of local organisations to build strong, confident communities. It has been a delight to learn how Bede has put this into practice so effectively over 80 years. I am looking forward to becoming part of the Bede community as we move into our new building, with all the opportunities that will bring for the people of Southwark.”

We’ve started planning Mahua’s induction and, during her first two or three weeks, she is keen to be involved as practically as possible in our projects to enable her to meet staff and clients and understand our day to day work thoroughly.

With Mahua starting on June 1, we expect to complete handover of day to day management responsibility to her in July. We’re working on my leaving plans and hope to have more details shortly. Meanwhile, I’m delighted that the recruitment process has gone so well and to be welcoming Mahua to our Bede Community.

With best wishes from us all at Bede.
Nick Dunne,

Director