About us

Maurice Samuel Ostro OBE KFO is a British entrepreneur and philanthropist.

He is Chairman of both Ostro Minerals (UK) and Fayre Share Investments. He is Founder and Chair of Trustees of the Fayre Share Foundation, Vice-Chairman of the Council of Christians and Jews, Founding Patron of Faiths Forum for London, and a member of the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission.

His business interests have included gemstones, media distribution, property, frozen yogurt and airline catering. His main philanthropic interests have included interfaith relations and conflict resolution.

Rt Revd Sarah Mullally became the 133rd Bishop of London.

Bishop Sarah was a senior civil servant in the Department of Health before ordination. A trained nurse, she became Chief Nursing Officer for England in 1999, the youngest person to be appointed to the post. She was ordained in 2001 and served her curacy at St Saviour’s, Battersea Fields, at first as a self-supporting minister. She left her government post in 2004 and took up full-time ministry in the London Borough of Sutton.

Bishop Sarah was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to nursing and midwifery. In 2012 she was installed as Canon Treasurer at Salisbury Cathedral, before becoming Bishop of Crediton in the Diocese of Exeter in 2015, mainly serving North and East Devon. She is a member of the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Steering Group.

Alderman Charles Bowman was the 690th Lord Mayor of the City of London. He is a senior partner with PwC and Alderman of Lime Street Ward, and served as Sheriff of the City of London in 2015/16.

Charles was born in Essex in 1961 and educated at Uppingham School, where he is a member of the school’s Foundation Board. He graduated from Bristol University with a degree in Architecture.

Muddassar Ahmed is the founding Chief Executive of Unitas Communications Ltd, where he has led projects for the United Nations, the Arab League, the US State Department and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), among others. He also founded, and is President of, the Concordia Forum, an annual retreat for senior Western Muslim leaders.

Muddassar recently completed a term as an Independent Advisor to the UK Government on UK Muslim communities, and has been listed among the 500 most influential Muslims globally by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre and Georgetown University.

Sir Anish Kapoor has been exhibiting since the early 1980s and won the 1991 Turner Prize. His work combines elements of Eastern and Western cultures, making sculptures with both natural and man-made materials.

Kapoor’s large-scale sculptures, made of steel, granite, concrete, PVC and resin, have appeared around the world, from Paris to New York and from London to Tel Aviv. Orbit, the tallest sculpture in the United Kingdom, was selected as the winning artwork for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Kapoor was the first living British artist to take over the Royal Academy, in 2009, and was knighted in 2013 for services to art.

Lord Bilimoria is the Founding Chairman of the UK India Business Council, a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London, and a former Chancellor of Thames Valley University (now the University of West London). He was the youngest university chancellor in the UK when appointed.

In 2014 he was appointed the 7th Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, the first Indian-born Chancellor of a Russell Group university in Great Britain. He is a founding member of the Prime Minister of India’s Global Advisory Council. In 2006, Karan Bilimoria was appointed Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, the first Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords.

In 2008 he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the President of India. He is an honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.

Anthony Bailey is a Patron of Faiths Forum for London and a well-known global interfaith campaigner. Since 1988 he has coordinated many inter-religious conferences, exchange visits of faith leaders and a wide range of community-led faith initiatives, in London and across Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

Anthony has been a Governor of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster since 2005. He is also the Magistral Delegate for Inter-Religious Relations of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St George. He previously served on the boards of St Mary’s University, Twickenham, the Association of Papal Orders in Ireland, the Catholic Union of Great Britain, the Maimonides Foundation, the Dignitatis Humanae Institute and the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.

In 2012 Anthony was awarded the Sternberg Interfaith Gold Medallion for his contribution to interfaith relations. In 1999 he was appointed Chairman of Painting & Patronage, a cultural and artistic exchange programme launched by the Governor of Makkah, HRH Prince Khalid Al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and HRH The Prince of Wales.

Anthony is Chairman of Anthony Bailey Consulting and an established diplomatic and public affairs practitioner in international relations, having advised over sixty nations, many at Head of State and Government level. His previous positions include Burson-Marsteller, IBM, Manning Selvage & Lee and Eligo International.

He was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to inter-religious understanding and charity, and was honoured with Papal Knighthoods by Saint Pope John Paul II in 2004 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 for his inter-religious work in the Balkans.

Ervad Yazad Tehmuras Bhadha is the Resident Priest of the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (ZTFE) in London, and Secretary of the 8th World Zoroastrian Youth Congress (8WZYC). He graduated in commerce from Byramjee Jeejeebhoy College of Commerce in 2012, and completed a Master’s in Commerce at Mumbai University two years later. He was appointed ZTFE’s Resident Priest in 2014 and came to the UK in November that year.

Dr Deesha Chadha is a lecturer at Imperial College, and gained her PhD from the University of Surrey in 2005. She is an interfaith committee member with the Hindu Forum of Britain, and sits on the national executive committee for faiths and beliefs in further education.

Talat Shaikh is chairperson of the Muslim Community & Education Centre (Palmers Green Mosque) and one of its founder trustees. With a background in IT and management, he has worked in the charity sector since 1992. He is a Trustee (and past Chair) of Enfield Racial Equality Council and a member of the Executive Board of Enfield Over 50 Forum.

Laura Marks OBE is an inter-faith social activist, policy adviser, writer and media commentator. She has founded and chaired a range of social organisations, including Mitzvah Day International and the government-founded Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Robert was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and came to this country as part of the Windrush generation in 1961. He has been an active church member throughout his life since his conversion to Christianity at a Billy Graham crusade in 1967. He arrived at Willesden New Testament Church of God (WNTCG) in December 2004 and quickly settled into the role of a servant leader in several departments, including as a Deacon on the Church and Pastors Council. Robert is integral to developing policies and strategies for WNTCG, and brings his property management specialism to support the church’s work.

Robert is a qualified member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, specialising in local government, and of the Chartered Institute of Housing, specialising in regeneration and housing management. He is also a member of the Institute of Management. He worked for central and local government for over 39 years, mainly in management and director roles.

Throughout his life Robert has given his time to both church and community. He has sat on a number of boards as a non-executive director of voluntary organisations and businesses, including The Glasshouse Trust, The South Kilburn Trust, Catalyst Housing Association, Arhag Housing Association, Willesden Pentecostal Assembly and Advice for Renters, which supports renters in the private sector. He contributes to local authorities’ strategies and governance, lending his experience in public sector housing and planning.

Jasvir is Co-Chair of City Sikhs, a national representative body for progressive Sikhs with over 10,000 members. He is involved in community cohesion and integration projects throughout Britain, and actively promotes political engagement within the British South Asian community.

He is a barrister specialising in family law, and Co-Founder and Chair of South Asian Heritage Month, a national awareness month celebrated in the UK and beyond.

Adrian Cohen sits on the board of the Jewish Leadership Council, and is Chair of the London Jewish Forum and lay Chair of Labour Friends of Israel. He is also on the advisory boards of the LSE Faith Centre (multi-faith chaplaincy) and the conflict resolution charity Concordis International.

He is a partner in the banking and finance practice of Clifford Chance LLP. His expertise includes law reform in emerging markets, and he has advised a number of governments.

Venerable B. Seelawimala is Head of the London Buddhist Vihara, the oldest Buddhist monastery in the UK, and Chief Sangha Nayaka of Great Britain. He did his monastic training in Sri Lanka and came to the UK in 1992 as a resident monk at the Vihara. He is an executive member of the Inter Faith Network for the UK and a Buddhist Chaplain to several hospitals in London.

Dr Riaz Sanatian is an active member of the Baháʼí community, with an interest in initiatives that contribute to the betterment of society. He comes from an engineering background, with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics from Cranfield Institute of Technology.

After working as a university research associate, he joined a start-up, Computational Dynamics Ltd, to help develop industrial and commercial applications of computational fluid dynamics. He was its Chief Engineer and a Director until he retired in 2014.

Over the years Dr Sanatian has been involved with a number of multi-faith forums, mainly as a local Baháʼí representative. He has diverse interests, and has taken part in art projects, working and exhibiting in the United Kingdom and Spain. In the Baháʼí community he has served on several Local Spiritual Assemblies, the local governing bodies of the Baháʼí community, in the places where he has lived.

Rajnish Kashyap has worked in credit management for the last 35 years, with in-depth knowledge of export and freight. He is a Director and Trustee of Hindu Council UK, Secretary of the Council of Dharmic Faiths UK and General Secretary of Arya Samaj Middlesex. He speaks on Hinduism, promotes social justice and welfare for Hindus in the UK, and gives a voice to voluntary and community-led organisations.