Our Trustees
Delia Parry - Chair
Delia is an experienced CEO and non-exec with a 25+ year career in the sport, media & tech worlds. She has led BT’s Media division, overseeing its £1 billion investment into the BT Sport channels and TV platform, and spent 14 years at Sky, including as MD for Ireland, Chief Commercial Officer of Sky Italy and MD of Sky Broadband. Within sport she has been a non-exec on the boards of England Cricket and Commonwealth Games England, on the NSPCC Sport Board, and CEO of the Jockey Club. She is now an advisor and incubator of new ventures in the sports tech sector.
Delia rowed and coxed at Oxford university and has three daughters who have rowed at school, clubs on the Tideway and at Oxford, so she has a strong passion for the health and community benefits of rowing. She has long admired FRBC’s mission and achievements as a ‘sport for good’ centre of excellence and is delighted to have the opportunity to Chair this wonderful charity as it crosses its 10 year milestone.
Mark Elgar - Trustee
Mark has been involved with the club from its inception in 2014 and was appointed as a trustee on 4 April 2014. He is a Finance Director at St George PLC, Developer of the Fulham Reach scheme, which delivered the Fulham Reach Boat Club under its Section 106 agreement with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. He was actively involved in the set-up of the club with fellow trustee Matt Bostock and CEO, Steve O’Connor. He has worked for St George in a Finance role since joining the company in December 1993 and became a board director in November 2010.
Mark provides guidance to the CEO and other trustees on financial matters, with his financial background and is a member of the audit and remuneration committee. He became an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in 2003.
In his spare time he enjoys spending his spare time with his family, enjoys many sports (watching) and amongst other things is an Assistant Cub Scout Leader (8-10 year olds) in the Richmond-upon-Thames district, where he has been actively involved since 1993.
Dame Laura Lee - Trustee
Laura is CEO of Maggie’s. She worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Edinburgh, where she gave chemotherapy to Maggie Keswick Jencks, Laura shared Maggie’s vision of a cancer support centre housed in a non-clinical and uplifting environment where anybody affected by cancer could visit to access practical information, psychological and emotional support to help them build a life beyond a cancer diagnosis. There are now a network of 26 centres with plans for future centres both in the UK and overseas. In 2016 Laura was awarded a Honorary Degree of Doctor from Queen Margaret University. In 2019 Laura was awarded a Damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for her services to people with cancer.
Laura is new to the sport but as a neighbour is keen to assist in growing and developing the support for young people through learning to row.
Rachael Henshilwood - Trustee
Rachael was introduced to rowing as a junior by her father as her state school couldn't offer rowing due to financial constraints. Her life since has been heavily centred around the sport competing internationally as a junior, marrying a GB lightweight and now their son is quickly following in their footsteps. Rachael has been a member of the FRBC board for three years and brings with her fourteen years’ experience leading development teams within the top independent schools in the UK and Australia. She is currently working at St Edward’s School, Oxford and previously has been at Eton College, Marlborough College and Melbourne Grammar School, helping them all deliver authentic community engagement programs that have led to multi-million pound fundraising achievements. Rachael is also a Governor of Lord Wandsworth College, Hampshire (a Foundation School supporting children who have lost the support of a parent), and a Trustee of the Windsor Learning Partnership (a Multi Academy Trust for State Schools in Windsor & Maidenhead). Rachael’s role in all of these charities is to support strategic development, governance, fundraising and communications.
Rachael is also one of three Welfare Officers at FRBC.
Charlie Pretzlik - Trustee
Charlie was appointed a trustee in February 2021. He has been a partner at Brunswick since 2017 which he joined after a career in banking at JP Morgan and a previous career in journalism at the Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. At Brunswick, Charlie works with leading international companies on their corporate communications and financial transactions.
Charlie is an active club rower. He was introduced to rowing at Cambridge and now enjoys taking his single scull out on the Tideway at the weekend. Charlie helps organise the Hammersmith Regatta as the event's safety advisor and is a British Rowing umpire, attending races around the south east of England.
As a strong believer in the physical and mental benefits of rowing, Charlies feels passionately about FRBC's mission to make the sport more accessible.
Austen Runnicles - Trustee
Austen was appointed as a trustee in March 2024. He is a Technical Director at St George PLC, Developer of the Fulham Reach scheme, which delivered the Fulham Reach Boat Club under its Section 106 agreement with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. He has been involved in all design and production aspects of the Fulham Reach scheme since it was started by St George, initially being employed as a consultant Architect for Distillery Wharf, and as such was actively involved in the design of the Fulham Reach Boat Club. He then moved over to St George in 2012 where he has worked across multiple developments around London and is now overseeing the design delivery of the final phase of Fulham Reach.
Austen provides guidance on health and safety matters to the CEO and other trustees using his construction background.
Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his family and dogs, playing golf, tennis and swimming.
Jo Blackshaw - Trustee
Jo joins with 25+ years of capital markets experience ranging from working in the technology and media investment research sectors at Goldman Sachs and UBS, leading BlackRock’s UK Equity product strategy team and Investor Relations roles at Sky and Tritax.
Jo started rowing at school, and life on the water and all elements of sport and training became a defining part of her life. She competed for GB in the Junior World Championships in 1991 and went on to row for Oxford University in the Blue Boat in 1992. She coached, coxed and rowed in Brasenose College crews through her time at Oxford too and saw the huge benefits of the sport at every level. Jo’s father took up rowing with other parents in his fifties and was on the river rowing or mending boats throughout his later life and through cancer treatment until he passed away.
More recently, in 2021/22 Jo and her Mothership crew raised c£90k for charities rowing across the Atlantic. Jo’s twins, sixteen, compete in a range of sports including hockey, tennis, cross country, real tennis, sailing and skiing and have both participated in summer rowing courses.
Anna Jordan - Trustee
Anna has joined FRBC as one of its newest trustees. She is Principal of Kensington Aldridge Academy (KAA), a valued partner of FRBC. KAA is a secondary school in West London that opened in 2014, where Anna was a founding member of staff. She spent several years as Deputy and Head of School before becoming Principal in 2023.
Prior to joining KAA, Anna worked for ten years at a secondary school in South Manchester. She has spent her career committed to ensuring that all young people, regardless of their financial starting point, have access to the highest quality and most rounded education possible.
A passionate advocate for outdoor education, Anna recognises the powerful impact it can have on young people, in broadening horizons, building confidence, and developing resilience. She herself benefitted from an education rich in outward-bound experiences; from climbing in Slovakia and canoe-surfing in Wales, to hiking in Scotland and watersports on the Thames. She firmly believes that all London teenagers should have the same opportunities.
Anna has a particular love of the water, having spent much of her twenties white-water canoeing, and still takes every opportunity to get on—or in—the water whenever possible. While she is not yet a rower, she is keen to take the plunge very soon.