The WOW Foundation is thrilled that our brilliant Chair Sandie Okoro has been awarded an OBE for services to Diversity in International Finance and trustee Vanessa Ogden has been awarded a CBE for services to Education in the New Year's Honours list.

Sandie became WOW's inaugural Chair in June 2021. She is currently Group General Counsel at Standard Chartered, where she oversees the Legal, Group Corporate Secretariat and Shared Investigative Services functions and is a member of the Bank's Management Team.

Prior to this, Sandie served as General Counsel and Senior Vice President, and Vice President for Compliance, at the World Bank Group. Sandie is an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple and was named one of the Upstanding 100 Leading Ethnic Minority Executives (2016), Top 20 Global General Counsel (2019) by the Financial Times and was recognised as Britain's fifth most influential person of African and African Caribbean heritage by Powerlist (2018). Sandie is also a Governor at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Vanessa is the founding CEO of the Mulberry Schools Trust, a multi-academy trust in London, UK, committed to outstanding education in challenging contexts. Vanessa is also an NLE (National Leader in Education) and an Honorary Academic at UCL's Institute of Education.

Vanessa has published both academic and professional writing on education and she was recently co-opted by ministers to the Teaching School Hub Council. Vanessa is the Chair of the Fair Education Alliance and of the Unicorn Theatre. Vanessa has also established Global Girl Leading, building a global alliance of girls advocating for education for all girls across the world.

Congratulations Sandie and Vanessa! We are delighted to have seen you and your work recognised in this way and are so grateful for the expertise, wisdom and passion you bring to WOW.