The Board
Chris Ashworth
Director and Chairman
For over 30 years Chris has had a career in the City of London as a M&A and Corporate Finance lawyer, as well as having been actively involved in management. He was a partner and Head of M&A and Head of Corporate at Ashurst; head of European M&A and Managing Partner, London, for O'Melveny & Myers LLP between 2005 and 2008, and was Head of Corporate Finance at Lovells LLP. Chris has a particular reputation for corporate governance, having been included in the Law Firm Directories and has been an active member of the International Bar Association both as a participant and speaker for many years, as well as having a number of publications to his name. He currently operates as an adviser, both legal and transactional, on specific projects for individual clients and is now General Counsel of an asset management group based in Monaco. Chris originally worked with the Grow group on a pro bono basis before joining the board in 2009.
Alexandra Cosgrove
Founder, Director and CEO of the Grow Organisation UK Ltd and affiliated companies.
Alex has a diverse and extensive range of business development, partnership working and creative experience. Since becoming Director of Mow & Grow in 2008 she was responsible for fully implementing office systems, business development, partnership working and franchising the Mow & Grow model. By December 2008 Alex founded the Grow Organisation UK Ltd and expanded the ‘& Grow’ brand to offer a more varied range of training and recognised qualifications. She is passionate about realising people’s potential and working in partnership to create better communities. In addition to running the Grow group she still holds an open door policy for all staff and volunteers, sits on employability and reducing re-offending think tanks, is an RSA Fellow and acts in an advisory role for other Social Enterprises.
Jacqui Starling
Chief Operating Officer
Jacqui's first “career role” was to set up the first credit control function within HMSO and then went on to a purchasing role for security items. She qualified as a buyer, responsible for all security and reprographic equipment including the supply of equipment to the MOD for the Gulf War. Jacqui then went on to work in the commercial recruitment sector for 10 years covering branch management and strategic roles, business structure and development opportunities.
This was followed by 4 years within Norfolk Children’s Services as part of the Integrated Youth Strategy team. Her work centred on the area of partnership development specifically managing NEET (not in education, employment or training) initiatives with internal delivery teams, training and education providers, and partnership organisations. Additional responsibilities included working with Economic Development within Norfolk County Council to implement the Future Jobs Fund. More recently Jacqui moved in to the training provider sector, firstly in the vocational area of construction and now as Commercial Director for the Grow Organisation to develop delivery, partnerships and funding streams.
Dr Phillip Kirby
Director of Quality Improvement and Training joined the Grow Organisation in 2009.
Phillip began in Local Government before he trained as a teacher, has been lecturer and senior lecturer in Universities both in the UK and Australia and was also adviser/inspector of early years and primary schools. He has been an Ofsted inspector and prior to retirement he was Quality Improvement Adviser for a county council and most recently a Quality Reviewer for an award body with responsibility for auditing and supporting a wide range of centres.
Academic qualifications include Cert in Ed; Media Resources Cert; MA(Ed); PhD. External and Internal verifier. Publications include journal articles and books in education with a particular focus on the development of children’s early literacy.
Patrick Shine
Non Executive Director
Patrick originally worked on the development of financial and replication strategies for Mow & Grow and more recently worked on Legal, Governance and Investment issues for the Grow Organisation. He is a former investment manager with extensive experience in social entrepreneurship. For the last 5 years he worked at UnLtd, providing consultancy support to a wide range of social entrepreneurs in their growth and replication strategies. Previously Patrick worked for nearly 20 years in investment management, specialising in global fixed income and derivatives, and was a director of Lazard Brothers Asset Management. Patrick read Mathematics at Queens’ College, Cambridge and more recently gained an MA in Middle East Studies from SOAS.
Celia Hodson
Non Executive Director
Celia Hodson has a wealth of experience from both the business community and social enterprise.
She is Founder and Chief Executive of the Ipswich based Eastern Enterprise Hub, business led, social enterprise that is responsible for creating tomorrow’s entrepreneurs via the Enterprise Academy, the School for Social Entrepreneurs, 5th Floor student to business networking club and wider enterprise support.
Celia is a Business and Third Sector leader. She has worked in a number of key posts in her career including Chief Executive Officer at Cambridge Co-operative Development Agency, Deputy Chief executive at the Social Enterprise Coalition and, most recently, Chief Executive of Choose Suffolk.
Celia's focus is the business success of the region and to that end holds a number of board positions: including Chair of Social Enterprise East of England (SEEE), has served a s Director of Choose Suffolk, and Director of local charity Housing Action and on the Board of dynamic social enterprise, the Grow Organisation. Still, she sees this role is her most exciting challenge yet.