Cat Hobbs
Cat is the founder and director of We Own It, which she set up in 2013 to be a voice for the people who use public services. A majority of the British public want to see services back in our hands - Cat is excited to bring these people together to win victories. She won a campaign for a more frequent rail service in Bristol before campaigning on behalf of bus and train passengers at Campaign for Better Transport.
Matthew Topham
Matthew works as a Lead Campaigner at We Own It. He set up the campaigns for Better Buses West Yorkshire and Better Buses South Yorkshire alongside a coalition of trade unions and civil society groups, winning public control of bus services in these regions. He is also leading our work campaigning to bring water into public ownership, starting with collapsing Thames Water.
Johnbosco Nwogbo
Johnbosco Nwogbo works as Lead Campaigner at We Own It. He previously campaigned against student fee rises and for renters rights as part of ACORN the community union. Johnbosco has won victories for the NHS including stopping private company Centene from taking over GP surgeries and winning commitments from NHS boards not to include private companies in their decision making. You can follow Johnbosco on Twitter here.
Hugo Fearnley
Hugo is the Press and Communications Lead at We Own It. Hugo ran his family business for many years before standing for Parliament in his home town of Whitby in 2019. He has recently worked as a Political Adviser to Jamie Driscoll, the former North of Tyne Metro Mayor. Hugo lives in the North East of England and is a member of the Common Sense Policy Group, based at Northumbria University.
John Kay
John is the Communications and Campaigns Support at We Own It. He worked in communications with a national Industrial and Provident Society providing housing and support for people with learning disabilities or mental health problems, before joining Oxford University Press as its Internal Communications Manager. He has also served as a Board Member for West Oxfordshire Citizen's Advice, advising on marketing and public relations, and as a committee member for the Institute of Internal Communications.
Liz Peretz
Liz is on our Board. She has campaigned against privatisation in health and social care for over 20 years. She also sits on the board of Keep Our NHS Public and is passionate about the NHS working for patients not profit. Liz is a retired public services manager, a historian of social policy, and is an associate fellow at the University of Oxford's Department of Social Policy and Intervention.
Fran Bury
Fran is the Treasurer on our Board. She brings experience in organisational management and finance and has been involved in We Own It almost since the beginning. Fran is a Public Health Registrar at a council in London, and has previously worked in the voluntary sector, local government and for a small consulting firm. She is interested in making public services as effective as possible.
Tom Schuller
Tom Schuller is the newest member of our Board. His professional life has been mainly in adult education, as Dean of Continuing Education at Birkbeck and before that as professor of lifelong learning at the University of Edinburgh. He chaired the Governing Board of the Working Men’s College in London from 2008-2018, and recently stepped down after six years as chair of the Prisoner Learning Alliance. Tom’s latest book - The Paula Principle: how and why women work below their competence level - was published in 2017.
David Hall
David Hall is on our Board. He is Founder and former Director of the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) at the University of Greenwich, which researches privatisation and public services worldwide. He works internationally with trade unions and civil society on the problems of privatisation and ways of returning services to the public sector.