Board of trustees

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Althea Efunshile CBE
Chair of Ballet Black

Althea Efunshile CBE has had a 40 year career working primarily in the fields of education, the arts, and children & young people. She is also Chair of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing. Althea is passionate about social justice. She was Deputy Chief Executive of Arts Council England, and a senior civil servant in the Department for Education and Skills working in various director level roles all concerned with improving outcomes for vulnerable and disadvantaged children. She was Executive Director for Education and Culture at London Borough of Lewisham, and Assistant Director of Education at London Borough of Merton. Althea has previously been a Non-Executive Director of a number of organisations including University College London Hospitals; Channel 4; and Goldsmiths College. She began her career as a secondary school teacher.

Tonye Vianana
Tonye Vianana
Treasurer

Tonye Vianana is a Chartered Accountant with a near 20-year career working in strategic finance. Currently she is Finance Director for a global membership association focused on values-driven investing worldwide. She has worked as a Finance Director for a start-up consultancy firm supporting the process of securing government funding for innovative firms. She was a Group Head Accountant for Green Deal Finance Group, a government-backed firm aimed at providing finance to homeowners for energy-saving home improvements. A ballet devotee, Tonye worked as Company Accountant for English National Ballet where she also focused on transforming systems and processes. Tonye has experience in designing and implementing fundraising strategies, working with donors, corporates, foundations and philanthropists. She also serves as a trustee for a start-up charity, The JUMP that works with communities to make key changes for sustainability and climate change.

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Tunde Banjoko OBE
Trustee

Tunde Banjoko is a societal change advocate, and the founder of multiple initiatives that are trying to help make the world a fairer place, initiatives like the social mobility charity Making The Leap, the UK Social Mobility Awards and Black Charity Leaders. He has 30 years’ experience of running a grassroots organisation and is known as an inspiring and convincing public speaker who has engaged with a number of senior business leaders to proudly talk about diversity. Tunde is qualified as an Executive Coach, provides consultancy to businesses who wish to make advances on race equity within their walls, and is the Chair of an education charity set up to give small grants in the name of his late younger sister. He has an MSc in Urban Regeneration from UCL and was awarded an OBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

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Christopher Hampson
Trustee

Christopher Hampson joined Scottish Ballet as Artistic Director in 2012 and was appointed Artistic Director / Chief Executive in 2015. He has created many award-winning works for major ballet companies throughout the world including, Scottish Ballet, Ballet Black, Atlanta Ballet and English National Ballet. In 2017 he curated the world’s first Digital Season and produced numerous works for screen since. Beyond Scottish Ballet, Christopher has participated in TEDx Glasgow, and has developed and led the inaugural Young Rural Retreat for Aspiring Leaders, in association with Dance East. He is a co-founder of the International Ballet Masterclasses in Prague and has been a guest teacher for many major international companies. He is on the Board of both Ballet Black and Central School of Ballet and completed an MBA at Hult Ashridge Business School in 2019.

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Patricia Hamzahee FRSA
Trustee

Following a 20 year career in investment banking and financial communications, Patricia is an avid champion of conscientious capitalism and social change. She now helps social enterprises attract private capital and advises funders on their responsible investment strategies through her consultancy Integriti Capital.  She also advocates for access to funding for diverse entrepreneurs as co-founder of Extend Ventures and access to philanthropic capital as co-founder of Black Funding Network. Patricia is a Trustee of Theatre Royal Stratford East, of NFL UK Foundation, Social Enterprise UK, Areté Network and International House New York. She is also on the Advisory Board of Money A+E and Shaw Trust Foundation as well as a member of Women in Social Finance.

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Andrew Hochhauser KC
Trustee

Andrew Hochhauser is a KC at Essex Court Chambers and a Deputy High Court Judge. He specialises in commercial and employment litigation. He is a former Trustee of the V&A, Treasurer of the Hon Soc of Middle Temple in 2021, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Chair of Paintings in Hospitals, a Governor of the University of the Arts London, a Trustee of the National AIDS Trust and the V&A Foundation, a Director of Ensemble Plus Ultra and Chair of the Samuel Courtauld Trust and an ex officio member of the Board of the Courtauld Institute of Art. He is passionate about dance and was Chair of Dance Umbrella from 2007-2014 and thereafter a Governor of the Central School of Ballet. In 2011 he co-founded the Access to the Bar Awards at the Hon Society of Middle Temple to provide bursaries to encourage talented students from less privileged backgrounds to come to the Bar.

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Anna Prag
Trustee

Anna Prag has worked for over 25 years in fundraising and grant-making roles across the not for profit, business and government sectors.  She has worked with organisations from the European Commission, Plan International, to the Sainsburys Family Charitable Trust.   Anna has volunteered since 2016 on the Red Cross’ refugee support programme. She’s a dance lover and sits on the Board of Ballet Black Company.

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Louise Small
Trustee

Louise Small, a therapeutic transformative coach and workforce development manager, boasts a decade-long tenure dedicated to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion within educational settings and local authorities. Driven by the goal of enhancing representation for ethnically diverse children she started her own small business and serves as a school governor for a primary school federation where she actively contributes to educational governance and diversity in schools. Louise nurtures a passion for dance, particularly in diversifying ballet for children and young people, blending her professional expertise with personal passions to effect positive change.

Ballet Black

CEO, Artistic Director & Founder: Cassa Pancho MBE
Patrons: Kwame Kwei Armah OBE & Thandiwe Newton OBE

Senior Producer – Live | Digital – Richard Bolton
Media & Special Projects Producer – Kelly Quintyne
Assistant Producer – Christina Nicole
General Manager – Isabelle Drummond
Operations Manager – Simone Measures
Company Secretary – Jane Webster

Cassa Pancho’s Ballet Black continues to provide the UK with a volume of new and exciting choreographic works. Commissioning from a wealth of diverse talent, the Company is seen both as a platform for great artistic direction and as a means to assist the development and raise the profile of all culturally diverse dancers.

We support more than a professional ballet company. We also run the Ballet Black Junior School with subsidised classes so that all have a chance to experience ballet and our Associate Programme forms a natural bridge between the School and those who wish to extend their ballet towards a professional level.