Shop RNIB Donate now

UK’s leading sight loss charity, RNIB, appoints five new trustees

Posted Thursday, 9 July 2026 Categories:
A collage of five professional portraits of the new trustees. Top left is Nigel Fletcher speaking at a podium with a microphone, wearing glasses and a grey blazer, with purple lighting behind him. Top right is Andrew McCracken in a blue suit and red tie standing indoors with warm, blurred lights in the background. Bottom left, Barry Hoffman is wearing a dark suit with arms crossed against a plain light backdrop. Bottom centre is Graham Colbert wearing glasses and a blue sweater, softly lit. Bottom right: Zayna Ali is in a brown tweed jacket and white shirt against a white background.

The five new trustees. Clockwise from top left, Nigel Fletcher, Andrew McCracken, Zayna Ali, Graham Colbert and Barry Hoffman

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) has appointed five new trustees to its board. The new additions bring a wealth of experience and will play a crucial role in making major decisions that affect the charity and its subsidiaries.

The five new trustees are: Director of External Affairs at Asthma + Lung UK, Andrew McCracken; finance expert Graham Colbert; Barry Hoffman - a former Chief People Officer at a FTSE company; Motability Foundation CEO, Nigel Fletcher and risk and finance expert Zayna Ali.

Anna Tylor, RNIB’s Chair of Trustees, said: “Trustees play an absolutely vital role in decision making at RNIB and these new appointments bring a wealth of experience across a wide variety of specialisms to the board. This will help ensure we have the expertise we need to thrive in the sector and to continue to drive forward with our mission to make our world a better place for blind and partially sighted people.”

Andrew McCracken:

Andrew McCracken joins as a general member of the Board. He has nearly two decades of experience in health sector communications and policymaking. Before joining lung charity Asthma + Lung UK, he led external affairs for The King’s Fund. Andrew has previously held communications and influencing roles at the charity coalition National Voices, at London South Bank University and The Royal College of  Physicians. Andrew has lived experience of sight loss, having been diagnosed in his early 20s with a form of inherited macular degeneration.

Graham Colbert:

Graham Colbert takes over from Liz Walker as RNIB’s Treasurer. Graham is a Chemistry graduate from the University of Exeter and qualified as a Charted Accountant with Spicer and Pegler (now Deloitte).

He initially joined the pharmaceutical industry working in financial, supply chain and commercial roles. More recently he served as the Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer of Genomics England where he helped deliver the groundbreaking 100,000 Genome Programme on behalf of the UK Government. He has been a non-executive director in the NHS and at a large pension fund, as well as a trustee of several charities including Asthma + Lung UK, Arthritis UK and the British Lung Foundation.

Barry Hoffman

Barry Hoffman joins RNIB as its Lead Safeguarding Trustee and Chair of the People, Culture and Safeguarding Committee. Having recently retired from an executive career as an experienced FTSE Chief People Officer, Barry has a wide track record in governance, people, culture and change management, both in the UK and globally. He has served as CPO at Land Securities PLC (now Landsec), Group HR Director at Computacenter Plc, and Head of HR at Charteris PLC and the Legal Services Commission. Barry has also held a number of non-executive roles, including trustee positions at Sightsavers and Stonewater and is currently an independent member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' People Committee. Barry has lived experience of sight loss and personal experience of the barriers blind and partially sighted people can face.

Nigel Fletcher

Nigel Fletcher joins RNIB as a member of the Board. He is Chief Executive Officer of the pioneering Motability Foundation, where he leads the charity’s work to improve access to life-changing transport for disabled people. He has previously served as Executive Director for Business Improvement at Pets at Home, Principal at Capgemini Invent and Programme Director at Tesco. He has lived with a vision impairment since birth, so has a deep understanding of the barriers that disabled people can face in accessing transport, opportunities and everyday independence.

Zayna Ali:

Zayna Ali joins the Board of Trustees as Chair of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee after serving as a member of RNIB’s non-executive Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee since 2024. Zayna is a chartered accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales (ICAEW).

She began her professional career in financial regulation, working at the Bank of England before moving to the private sector, where her last executive role was Chief Risk Officer for Birmingham Bank.

Currently she is a Board member of Loughborough Building Society and sits on their Audit and Compliance committee, as well as their Risk Committee and Remuneration Committee.

Following these appointments, and the end of terms for four of RNIB’s existing Trustees in September 2026, RNIB will have 10 trustees – 50 per cent of whom have lived experience of sight loss.

Learn more about RNIB’s governance and leadership: How we are governed and structured here at RNIB