About Us

Business Problem, Business Solution, Charitable Outcome

ShareGift (Registered Charity no. 1052686) provides a charitable solution to the business problem of small shareholdings. Often unwanted because they are too small to sell, these shares can be transferred to ShareGift at no cost to the shareholder, aggregated and sold to benefit different registered charities. The result is a significant funding stream for the charitable sector which would not otherwise exist, along with substantial savings for companies in administrative costs. Since the charity was set up in 1996, over £43 million has been donated to more than 3,400 charities.

ShareGift works closely with shareholders, publicly listed companies, privately held companies, solicitors, stockbrokers, financial advisers and charities to create this pool of charitable funds. Click here for more information about how it works.

Our sister charity ShareGift Australia was launched in 2007.

Founders

Viscountess Mackintosh of Halifax FCIS

Claire Mackintosh had 16 years' experience in the City prior to setting up ShareGift, the concept of which she had devised during her early career in the 1980s. She first worked as a pension fund manager, subsequently becoming involved in establishing one of the earliest East European private equity funds. Later she specialised in the Korean stockmarket, working partly in Seoul. She served as ShareGift’s Chief Executive from the outset in 1996 until 2014, continuing at the Charity as Company Secretary until 2021, and remains involved with ShareGift as Founder.

Matthew Orr
Matthew Orr is a co-founder of ShareGift and was a Trustee from the Charity's launch in 1996 until 2012. He also co-founded Killik & Co, and was its Managing Partner and Chief Executive from 1989 to 2006.

Trustees

ShareGift's trustees donate their services and receive no payment for the work that they do.

Susan Swabey - Chairman

Susan Swabey served as Company Secretary of Smith & Nephew plc until 2022, with nearly 30 years' company secretarial experience in a wide range of companies including Prudential plc, Amersham plc and RMC Group plc. Her work has included Board support as well as advice on corporate transactions and governance, CSR and share plans.  

Julian Baddeley

Julian is a Company Secretary and Corporate Lawyer and leads the abrdn Secretariat team. Julian is a passionate governance professional, with extensive Board and C-suite experience in large FTSE100 organisations across global financial services, FMCG and 'magic circle' private practice. Julian's previous role was as Deputy Group Company Secretary at Aviva plc from 2015-2022. Prior to that he worked for Clifford Chance as a Corporate Finance Lawyer and at Friends Life and Cadbury plc in various Company Secretarial and legal roles.

Helen Baker

Helen is an experienced Chartered Governance Professional with a background in the secretariats of large listed international groups. She has been involved in many aspects of company secretarial work throughout her career, including supporting boards and committees, global entity management, share plans, and supporting projects such as M&A and JVs. She has a particular interest in process (re-)engineering and the use of technology to support and enable governance.

Gillian Budd

Gillian Budd is an experienced commercial and charity lawyer and has substantial experience in governance, legal and risk in the not for profit sector, working for the international children’s charities Save the Children UK and Plan International. Gillian is currently head of governance, legal and compliance for Teach First, the education charity, and has extensive experience as a past or present trustee and member of finance, audit, risk, nominations and chair succession committees in several charities.

Lee Davis

Lee is an experienced Company Secretary, specialising in shareholder governance for over 20 years. He has extensive experience in capital events such as dividends, rights issues, listings and various shareholder engagement programmes. Lee started his career in share registration working at Capita Registrars (now Link Group) and Computershare before moving into shareholder sevrices roles at Prudential and Standard Chartered. He is currently leading the shareholder governance team at HSBC.

Michael Kempe

Michael worked as part of the team that launched the Central Security Depository system (CREST) in 1996, before working extensively on the global harmonisation of asset servicing at Euroclear.  Michael then spent over 10 years at Capita Registrars (now Link Group) where he was COO. He is currently Head of Business Development at Proxymity.

He has extensive board experience having sat on and Chaired both regulated and non-regulated boards during his time at Capita and Link Group, as well as a number of European and Global Working Groups, Governmental and Trade Organisation Committees.

Paul Killik

Paul Killik is the Senior Executive Officer and a founding partner of Killik & Co. In the 1980s, he was responsible for opening the first share shop in Debenhams, when he ran the Private Client Department at Quilter Hilton Goodison.

Paul is a board member of the Wealth Management Association (WMA – the representative body for the investment community). He also chairs the London Stock Exchange/WMA Strategy group and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment.

Alan Scott

Alan Scott spent almost 30 years at BT where he held various positions, including Deputy Company Secretary and Director Corporate Governance Asia Pac based in Singapore. Following his retirement from BT in 2012, he spent a year as Company Secretary of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, after which he headed up ifsProShare on an interim basis, whilst identifying a successor in the role. He has wide experience in corporate governance, developing mass shareholder communications and employee share plans.