Trustees and Advisors

Gareth Henderson is a business leader who has launched and grown multiple companies. He is founder and chairman of Core Facility Services in Elland.

As Chair of Trustees for Happy Days he has brought the professionalism and experience needed to transform a small charity into a robust, well managed and growing organisation with strong governance and accountability.

Kevin is a former Financial Director of Jacuzzi UK, where he had financial responsibility for 11 companies and had hands on involvement in HR, health and safety, payroll and IT.
He brings over 44 years of career experience to his role on the Happy Days board of trustees, where he helps the charity achieve a high level of accountability in all areas through process and procedure enhancement.

Holly was the MP for Halifax between 2015 and 2024. She served as a Shadow Minister for Immigration and National Security before becoming the Deputy Chief Whip of the Labour Party. Since standing down in 2024 with a young family, Holly now works part time as Senior Counsel at Arden Strategies. Locally she is an Associate Governor at Ravenscliffe special school, an honorary member of the Halifax Civic Trust, Chair of the Fairtrade Town group and a member of the West Yorkshire Police hate crime/use of force scrutiny panel.

Peter joined the trustee board following the merger of Happy Days and Calderdale SmartMove. He had been a trustee of SmartMove since 2018 and treasurer since 2019.

Peter retired from his career in banking, insurance and the Civil Service in 2018. As well as being involved with Happy Days/Smartmove, he is also a Trustee of Focus4Hope in Brighouse and a volunteer with St Augustine’s.

Cat has over 20 years of marketing experience working with brands including The Financial Times Monzo and Sky.

Her experience spans; growing and scaling teams, brand proposition and positioning, martech, performance marketing and media planning.

Chris started his career as a stonemason before training at Barclays Property holdings. He moved to a niche building surveying practice in Belgravia (ask him to bore you about Aled Jones’ loft) before becoming a Partner at Lucas Lee Chartered Building Surveyors.

Chris brings over 30 years of Estate and Project Management experience and works closely with several high street retailers and property investors giving bespoke advice in all things property and design. Chris sits on a PTA committee driving school sports facilities and a steering group advising on the regeneration of Huddersfield and Kirklees.

Away from professional work, Chris is a qualified yacht skipper and races a yacht for the Fire Service and is an FA football coach. He is passionate about his cars, is a competitive cyclist and reluctant marathon runner. A little-known fact is he has a bus licence and can often be found driving the school bus. He lives in the heart of the Pennines with his wife Vanessa, his teenage son, two English Springers and two rescue cats, in a house that will never be finished.

Andy is an experienced Technology and Business Transformation executive with a successful 30-year track record in Central Government, Management Consulting, Retail and Finance sectors.

Andy acts as a Special Advisor to the trustees and management team of Happydays focussing particularly on strategy and stakeholder management.