Karen Everett

Karen Everett is the Chief Executive Officer of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT), the umbrella body founded by members of the Sainsbury family that provides shared finance, administration and governance services to a group of around 17–20 independent grant-making trusts — including The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, established by Lord (David) Sainsbury in 1967. According to the SFCT timeline, she became CEO in 2019. She has a strong finance and resources background, having earlier served in a senior finance capacity within the group (a director of SFCT Management Limited since August 2015) before stepping up to lead the organisation.

She studied at the University of Exeter from 1981 to 1984 (mathematics). Her earlier career spanned professional services and the higher-education and charity sectors: public sources cite roles connected to Ernst & Young, Bournemouth University (and BU Innovations Limited / The Bournemouth University Foundation, where she held directorships until 2011), Southampton Solent University, The Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and arthritis charities (Arthritis UK / Arthritis Research UK). This combination of accountancy training and senior finance roles in mission-driven organisations is the through-line of her career.

Everett is also an active charity trustee and non-executive director. She is a director of Gatsby Africa (appointed January 2023), the SFCT-linked organisation building competitive, inclusive markets in East Africa; Treasurer and trustee of the London Narrow Boat Project (since 2023); and a former director of The House of St Barnabas (the Soho members' club and homelessness charity, now in liquidation). She chaired the governors of Barton Peveril Sixth Form College (one of the largest sixth-form colleges in England) from 2018 to 2024. She was awarded an MBE (in the 2022 Birthday Honours) for services to charity.

Most recently, the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) — the UK membership body for grant-making trusts and foundations — announced in April 2025 that Everett would become Chair of its Board of Trustees, joining first as vice-chair and formally taking the chair at the ACF AGM in June 2025.

*(Reframed accurately as grant-making / philanthropic deployment — she does not make seed-stage equity "investments.")*

• Vehicle: Capital is deployed as charitable grants, not equity. SFCT and its constituent trusts collectively disburse £100m+ per year.
• What the family trusts fund: long-horizon, evidence-led philanthropy in areas chosen by individual settlor trusts — notably plant science and neuroscience research, education and technical skills, the arts, mental health, and climate (Gatsby Charitable Foundation), and economic development in East Africa through Gatsby Africa.
• Her remit specifically: as CEO she leads the finance, governance and shared-services platform that enables the trusts' giving, rather than originating thematic programmes herself. Her professional identity is that of a charity finance leader and board chair.
• What makes the trusts act: a preference for patient, large-scale, mission-driven commitments — Gatsby describes itself as having committed well over £1bn since 1967 and favours sustained engagement over short-term grants.