PRESS RELEASE : Trustees appointed to the UK Anti-Doping Agency [January 2024]
The press release issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 10 January 2024.
The Secretary of State has appointed Ama Agbeze and Nicola Shannon as Board Members of the UK Anti-Doping Agency for a term of 4 years.
Ama Agbeze
Appointed for a four year term commencing 30 October 2023.
Ama has a diverse and distinctive mix of talent and skill. Two decades as a professional athlete culminated in Ama captaining Team England to netball gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
As a dedicated advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Ama consults and serves as a keynote speaker, leveraging her influence to champion organisational change and cultural development, improving life opportunities in areas of deprivation, leadership and mental health. Her legal expertise as a solicitor, spanning family, commercial, charity, and banking disciplines, uniquely positions her to address the complex intersection of law, sports, and the pursuit of clean sport and maintaining a fair and level playing field. As a contributing co-founder to the Netball Players’ Association she is well versed in championing ‘the athlete voice’
Ama’s role as an ambassador, non-executive director, advisor and trustee for various charities and organisations underscores her commitment to promoting sport and physical activity and emphasising their positive impact on health outcomes, particularly for children and young people as well as focussing on safeguarding from an individual and sport integrity perspective.
Recently, an independent Board Member of the Birmingham Organising Committee for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Chairing the Athlete Advisory Committee, Ama continues to be a compelling force advocating for ethical sportspersonship and upholding the principles of integrity in sport.
Nicola Shannon
Appointed for a four year term commencing 30 October 2023.
Nicola Shannon KC is a barrister practising from chambers in London, specialising in Criminal and Regulatory Law. She also has a part-time judicial role, sitting as a Recorder in Crown Courts across London and the South East. Her practice focuses on Serious and Complex Crime and Fraud, including Homicide, Organised Crime and Human Trafficking and Serious Sexual Offences. Her work includes niche expertise in the presentation of allegations made by vulnerable witnesses and those with mental disabilities or learning and communication difficulties. She has led teams pioneering creative solutions to meet the challenges presented. She advises Prosecution agencies at an early stage of investigations and has extensive experience of the safeguarding issues involved.
She has a passion for mentoring young practitioners in chambers and is Senior Member of a Women in Criminal Law Judicial Mentoring Circle.
She is a champion of Wellbeing within the criminal justice system and co-founded ‘Kindness at the Bar’ in 2022, an initiative to research and promote kinder working cultures within the legal sector. She has been Wellbeing Director of the South-Eastern Circuit (the Bar’s regional representative body) since 2019 and is the current Chair of the Bar Council Wellbeing at the Bar Working Group.
Remuneration and Governance Code
| Trustees of the Imperial War Museum are not remunerated. This appointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Ama Agbeze and Nicola Shannon have not declared any significant political activity. |
