VODG Finance Directors' Professional Network Meeting

Kari Gerstheimer

CEO, Access Social Care

Kari studied law at Edinburgh University, qualified as a Solicitor in 2003 and has an LLM in Human Rights Law.

Kari has worked in the charitable sector since 2006 and set up a beneficiary facing legal department at Sense, before moving to Mencap with her legal team in 2017. Kari incubated the Legal Network within Mencap before setting up Access as an independent charity in 2020.

Lainey Gough

Director of Operations and Impact, Access Social Care

Lainey Gough is Director of Operations and Impact. Lainey trained in legal aid practise specialising in public law within social welfare areas and qualified as a solicitor in 2009.

She continues to support families to challenge unlawful decision making in the areas of community care and special educational needs and is particularly interested in bringing cases which will generate systems change.

Tom Noon

Chairman and Founder, Cordis Bright

Tom set up Cordis Bright because he wanted to offer a straightforward, intellectually robust and competitive research and consultancy service.

The aim was to provide consultancy and research outcomes that clients could use with confidence when planning for the future. It was also important to Tom that services really were complementary to the expertise and knowledge that clients brought to the table and that the final outcomes really were greater than the sum of the parts.

Although Tom is the Chairman of Cordis Bright he spends most of his time working on consultancy projects mainly with larger provider organisations. 

 His work is strongly focused on business development and, in particular, mergers and acquisitions, market intelligence and strategic planning. Tom has been working long-term with a range of clients providing ongoing insight and support to assist them in achieving the strategic and operational goals they have set.

As a commentator Tom has been instrumental in the development of the Cordis Briefing which has provided challenging and insightful commentary on the development of social care and supported housing for over ten years.