The Age Connects Wales Board
Meet our board members
Emma Wootten
Emma Wootten is the Chief Executive Officer of Age Connects Torfaen, bringing with her over 14 years of experience within the organisation. Emma’s leadership journey has been rooted in a deep commitment to improving the lives of older people across Torfaen and surrounding areas.
Starting her career at Age Connects Torfaen in front-line services, Emma has worked across a range of roles including dementia support, community development, and strategic service delivery. Her passion for person-centred care and inclusive community support has shaped her vision for the future of the charity.
Appointed as CEO in 2025, Emma is focused on strengthening partnerships, championing innovation, and ensuring the voices of older people and carers are at the heart of everything Age Connects does. She is committed to transparency, fairness, and collaboration across the workforce and wider sector.
Prior to working for Age Connects Torfaen, Emma qualified as a solicitor and worked in community development with local Housing Associations.
Outside of work, Emma is a strong supporter of volunteering, and is part of a the volunteer coaching team at RUNNewport.
Daisy Cole
Daisy Cole is the CEO of Age Connects Morgannwg. She has spent over 20 years working alongside older people, carers, and diverse communities across Wales, ensuring their voices shape the changes that matter most. Daisy has held senior roles in older people’s charities and at the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales.
Working with the Commissioner, Daisy led the UK’s largest independent review of older people’s care homes and championed national improvements in dignity, rights, and access to support.
Rooted in her own experience as an unpaid carer, Daisy understands the importance of clear, trusted information delivered with compassion at the right time. She believes that knowledge is power, and that access to supportive advice and advocacy enables people to make confident, informed decisions about their lives.
Daisy was drawn to Age Connects Morgannwg because of its deep community presence, positive and dedicated team, and commitment to standing alongside older people in what matters most to them. Her ambition is simple yet powerful: for every older person to feel respected, connected, and empowered to influence the decisions and services that support their wellbeing and independence.
Outside of work, Daisy is happiest in or near water as a keen outdoor swimmer. She enjoys pilates, sings in a Welsh folk choir, and loves exploring the outdoors with her dachshund, Joop, who makes friends wherever he goes.
Karen Crane
Karen is the Chief Executive Officer of Age Connects North East Wales. She started her career working in the finance department of a large high street retail company but after a couple of years decided to change direction and look for a more customer focused role. She moved to the Department of Work and Pensions, where she stayed for over 25 years.
During this period Karen had a number of roles initially starting as an Admin Officer but then progressing to several executive positions, including Manager, Training Officer, Management Training Consultant and becoming an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Karen moved into the voluntary sector in 2007, she had become disgruntled with the contradictions of DWP policy and quickly realised that her skills could be best used in a charitable organisation. Karen started at Age Connects Torfaen as a volunteer, quickly followed by paid employment as a Befriending Officer, then Project Manager, Charitable Services Manager and finally in 2014 she was delighted to become CEO.
Maxine Johnson
Maxine Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer for Age Connects Cardiff and the Vale after joining the organisation in February 2024.
Maxine leads on all of the vital services and support Age Connects Cardiff and the Vale offer to older people in need. Maxine is passionate about reducing loneliness and isolation amongst older people and understands how this can affect people’s mental and physical health, reducing quality of life dramatically.
Maxine is committed to continuing and developing the amazing work that Age Connects Cardiff and the Vale has achieved over all these years and building on this success moving forward. She wants the charity to be able to respond to the increased demands of an aging population providing the services people need when they are needed most.
Prior to this appointment, Maxine had been working as Head of Wales at Cruse Bereavement Support and for the last three years was involved in the provision of compassionate and professional support to people who are grieving. She has 20 years of working in the third sector including a Team Leader position at Barnardo’s, where she oversaw the delivery of services for children and families affected by abuse, neglect, and trauma.
Dean Richards
Dean is the Chief Executive Officer of Age Connects Neath Port Talbot, a local charity providing a range of services throughout Neath Port Talbot and some areas of Swansea.
He has a background in information, advice, health promotion and integrated health and social care services, and through a combination of continued professional development and a real interest in service development, has gained extensive knowledge of practices and issues surrounding older people.
Dean started his career in the third sector in 2006 as a Development Officer working on projects around health promotion, healthy living, early intervention and prevention provisions, social rehabilitation, income maximisation and several projects around integrating minority groups into service provision across the region. After holding several roles within the organisation, Dean was appointed Chief Officer in 2012.
Dean is a strong believer in partnership working and adopting collaborative approaches. With demographic trends and statistics indicating a pressing need for services for older people, Dean’s involvement as the Older Person’s Representative in key local and regional stakeholder/steering groups such as Swansea Bay University Health Board’s Stakeholder Reference Group and Neath Port Talbot’s Voluntary Sector Liaison Forum, provides a platform to ensure that the voices, needs and aspirations of older people are heard and incorporated into local and regional strategic plans. Dean also created and chaired a regional Loneliness and Isolation Prevention Partnership.
During his time in this role, Dean has overcome significant organisational challenges and has created a more accessible and diverse organisation which is more resilient, proactive and financially stable. He has developed Age Connects NPT’s first social enterprise which is completely self-sustaining and continues to provide healthy profits to support the ongoing work of the Charity.
Dean is extremely proud of the development and implementation of Age Connects NPT’s COVID19 Response Service which involved a complete service restructure and significantly increasing outputs to support the most vulnerable. The immediate response involved recruiting over 150 volunteers into the organisation’s delivery team and becoming the main referral partner for front line COVID19 response services in the region.
