Our Trustees
The people behind the foundation
Matt Uberoi
Chair
Matt is Chair of the Paul Canoville Foundation. He has a strong background in charity and community leadership having served on the boards of several third-sector organisations, managed impactful community programmes and been an elected councillor in London.
June Canoville
Vice Chair
June is Vice Chair of the Paul Canoville Foundation. With over 20 years experience in Customer Service, June is an expert people manager, with specific sector experience within Logistics. Outside of work, June is a fitness enthusiast and whilst she has moved on from her
days of instructing, she regularly participates in fitness excursions both abroad and in the UK. June’s other personal interests include music, psychology, arts and crafts. June is Paul Canoville’s sister, hence why the mission of the Foundation is close to her heart.
Monica Shafaq
Monica is an inspirational leader with in-depth knowledge of the Charity, housing and football sectors. She has been Chief Executive of national health and wellbeing charity, The Kaleidoscope Plus Group since 2010.
monica@paulcanovilledfoundation.com
Monica is committed to promoting the role of women and Black and Minority Ethnic individuals in leadership roles; chairing the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisation’s national Black and Asian Leadership Special Interest Group and involved in a national group addressing Governance in the Third Sector. Monica holds a number of non-executive roles and currently sits on the boards of Birmingham County Football Association, Citizen Housing, West Bromwich Albion Womens’ Team and Kidderminster Harriers where sahe has lead responsibility for equality and diversity and mental health. Monica is also a member of the Premier League’s Equality and Diversity Panel and in February 2021, was appointed as one of the first women, and first woman of colour to the Professional Footballers Association Charity. Included on the Top BAME 50 under 50 Entrepreneurs of 2020 list for supporting BAME communities and highly commended for concept and innovation, she was also the winner of the ‘behind the scenes’ category (2020) Asian Sports List award for her work in promoting equality and mental health in football, and was a finalist in the Sports category of the Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2021. More recently, she was awarded the British Muslims 2022 Corporate Achievement of the Year award.
Alexia Russell
Alexia is a Marketing and Communications senior leader, currently Senior Director of Global Communications for a leading global technology company. As an expert within public relations and communications, Alexia has previous experience developing and leading the global PR and internal communications strategies, and managing large teams across multiple geographies.
Tracy Brown
Tracy is a disabled woman, deeply involved in voluntary work over the past 10 years; primarily in the arena of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She aims to help eradicate discrimination from football, and society, with mental health awareness another subject very close
to her heart. Originally from a finance then e-commerce management background Tracy is Chair of Chelsea Pride, the LGBTQ+ supporters group for Chelsea Football Club. She continues to work closely with Chelsea FC, football’s governing bodies and the Crown Prosecution Service on their ongoing campaigns to see homophobia, biphobia and transphobia kicked out of football, permanently; with education at the heart of this work. Tracy also continues her work with The Rainbow Wall, Pride In Football, Pride in Cricket and sits on the guidance councils for the Football Supporters Association and Cricket Supporters Association.