Young people, education and her native North East are Michaela’s passions.
Educated at the then South Shields Grammar School for Girls and Durham University where she studied Law, Michaela’s first career was as a solicitor. Married to a solicitor, she decided on a change in career after fifteen years in practice and moved into the voluntary sector. After four years with the Community Foundation serving Tyne and Wear & Northumberland as Director, Special Projects, Michaela accepted an invitation from Sunderland A.F.C. to help them establish a registered charity incorporating their education and community programmes, a pioneering model which has since been replicated by many other sporting institutions across the UK and which now operates as The Beacon of Light.
Now retired, Michaela is a North East Board Member of Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres and a Trustee of St Nicholas Educational Trust.
She is married with two adult children.
