This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Tanya Barron, Chair of the board of trustees
Tanya joined our board of trustees as Chair Elect in June 2019, taking on the role of Chair in September.
Between 2013 and 2019, Tanya had been Chief Executive of Plan UK. Previously she had been International Director at Leonard Cheshire Disability.
Tanya’s career began as a special needs teacher, and then a lecturer in Politics and Philosophy. She joined VSO in 1989, becoming their Head of Programmes for Eastern Europe and the CIS.
After three years with the European Children’s Trust, Tanya was appointed as the first CEO of Home-Start International in 1999. During this period she was seconded to Brussels to manage a grant-making facility for the European Commission. Between 1995 and 2002, she was the Chair of the UNICEF NGO Committee for CEEC/CIS in Geneva.
Tanya has co-authored various papers and edited two LCD books, Disability and Inclusive Development and Poverty and Disability. In 2003, she was given the European Woman of Achievement (Humanitarian) award. In 2016, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for helping to provide safe education for girls internationally