Thames Valley Forum Leadership Board
The Leadership Board is our most senior and influential forum. It convenes the senior leadership from across the region to address major topics of the day, engage with national policymakers and set the direction for Thames Valley Forum.
The Leadership Board is formed of contacts from Thames Valley Forum Patrons and invited guests representing key organisations in the region.
The Chair is currently being rotated, with Ian Howells, Senior Vice President, Honda Motor Europe chairing the Autumn 2021 Leadership Board meeting. The role of the Leadership Board is to:




Work programme Chairs
The work programme Chairs for 2021 are:
Name | Title | Organisation | Programme |
Adam Hale | Chairman / Venture Partner | Scale-Up Institute / Notion Capital | Tech |
Robert Van de Noort | Vice Chancellor | University of Reading | Environment |
Rob Allaway | Managing Director | DevComms | Built Environment |
Andrew Hunter | Director, Place, Planning & Regeneration | Bracknell Forest Council | Housing |
Director: Ian Binns

Thames Valley Forum’s Director is Ian Binns, who also founded the company. Ian grew up in the region and lives in West Berkshire with his young family. His career has been spent in both London and Thames Valley working for a range of membership organisations and professional services. Ian’s first career role was five years spent with the CBI to help them set up their Thames Valley region including a series of policy papers, committees and events. After some time in business development in professional services, Ian returned to the membership world to work in London for CIPD and then TheCityUK, representing financial and related professional services.
After three years in the City, Ian returned to the region for a brief spell at Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce before heading back to London to work for London Chamber of Commerce & Industry to head its Patron Membership team. Ian was inspired by seeing the work of many great purpose led organisations focused on London issues such as Centre for London, and New London Architecture and believing that the Thames Valley was in need of its own body to articulate the issues in the region and work with other stakeholder bodies to bring about improvements and enhancements to the area for the benefit of not only its local citizens, but the entire UK