Meet our Chief Executive Officer and Trustees

Susie Besant
Chief Executive Officer

Susie is the CEO of One-Eighty, and also co-founded the charity in 2011, following two years spent within Oxfordshire County Council, in the Youth Offending Service. Here, Susie carried out prevention and intervention work, in addition to conducting research around the links between young people's engagement in criminal activity following disengagement with education. As a result of this work, she and a colleague published the Raise The BAR programme - now a training tool delivered by the charity to support schools, local authority groups, and organisations wanting to run prevention programmes for groups of young people in a school setting. 

Susie gained a degree in Psychology and Early Childhood Studies in Oxfordshire, and continued her training in areas such as Counselling, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), and Charity Management. These have enabled Susie to lead a fun and professional, psychology-focused, and evidence-based team of skilled intervention staff to deliver high-quality and outcomes driven work with young people for nine years. Susie is passionate about supporting young people to have hope and turn their lives around, in addition to providing staff with a supportive and inspiring work environment to develop in, to enable them to think creatively about what techniques to use with young people and families. 

In addition to being responsible for the overall operations of One-Eighty, Susie's role enables her to work alongside a board of skilled and experienced Trustees to make strategic decisions for the benefit of young people, and seek opportunities to gain support and partnerships with other organisations also striving to offer vulnerable young people the support they need to thrive. Susie also loves swimming, playing board games, photography and modern art, and spending time being adventurous with her family. 

Tina Elder
Chair of Trustees

Tina is a retired management consultant who has worked with the leadership teams of major organisations, in the private, public and charity sectors in the UK and across the world. She believes strongly in the power of people and the importance of values.

Tina became a Trustee after meeting and working with Susie. She passionately believes in One-Eighty’s ability to make a difference to the lives of young people.

She is married with three children and loves spending time with her family doing everything from travelling to walking to watching sport together.

Jonathan Fisher
Trustee – Social Work and Safeguarding

Jonathan has been a Social Worker for more years than he would care to admit and has a range of experience in adult and children’s services. He was lecturing in social work at Oxford Brookes University until recently and is now retired. Jonathan has also had a spell working overseas with Malaysian Care as a trainer and consultant and is now thoroughly enjoying his new role as a Granddad. For leisure, Jonathan can be found in the garden or at his allotment and sometimes doing a bit of singing or acting with local amateur dramatic groups.

Hilary Johnson
Trustee – Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

Hilary became a trustee in 2019 and offers clinical supervision for One-Eighty staff.

Hilary has worked as a Child Psychiatrist for over 20 years and has particular expertise in helping children and young people who have intellectual disability, Autism, ADHD or sleep disorders.

In her spare time, Hilary enjoys being a beekeeper!

Alison Pierazzini
Trustee – Treasurer

Alison has been a One-Eighty trustee since 2016. A Chartered Accountant, Alison moved to Oxfordshire after a career in London and has recently started her own business. Alison very much supports One-Eighty’s commitment to helping young people become more confident about their futures by re-engaging them with education.

Andrew Souter
Trustee – HR and Legal

Biography coming soon