The Age Connects Wales Board
Meet our board members
Angela Reed
Angela Reed is the Chief Executive of Age Connects Torfaen and has held this role for the past 34 years. She has considerable experience at an executive level across the charity sector and has managed many successful projects including the renovation of “Widdershins Centre” in 2004; the first ‘Wellbeing Centre for Older People in South East Wales’.
Angela is an active member of the third sector community, with a keen focus on inclusion, partnership working as well as driving social change. Earlier in her career, Angela was instrumental in securing the first Voluntary Council in Torfaen, a movement which enabled Torfaen to have their own community empowerment network.
Overall, Angela has a wealth of experience in fundraising, program development, and member-focused roles within the non-profit sector which she brings to the board of Age Connects Wales.
Angela has a strong background in finance in both the public and commercial sectors. Angela started the first social enterprise in Torfaen, which continues to provide a sustainable income, helping the development of service delivery.
Angela has wide-ranging non-executive experience in charities and social enterprises and has led and participated in several projects on behalf of Welsh Government, Local Authority, including, a member of Gwent Dementia Board, Lloyds Foundation South East Wales Forum, and the Happily Independent network.
Rachel Rowlands
Rachel is the Chief Executive Officer of Age Connects Morgannwg, a charity who support older people living in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil. A position she has held since 2005. Rachel brings to the board of Age Connects Wales a strong track record of success in the sector.
Rachel began her third sector career in 1995, when she joined the Care & Repair movement; first as an employee of a local agency, then as a board member of Care & Repair Cymru until she stood down as chair in 2018.
In 2014, Rachel led Age Connects Morgannwg to deliver a Community Asset Transfer Project that has transformed a former council-owned older people’s day centre in Aberdare into a vibrant community hub. The project, called Cynon Linc, attracted £2.6m of investment from a range of sources, which allows the hub to offer meeting spaces, soft play area, a GP practice, a restaurant, and busy events programme.
In 2017, she was elected as the National Third Sector Representative to the Cwm Taf Morgannwg Regional Partnership Board (CTM RPB), becoming chair in May 2018 was re-elected as chair for a third year in May 2020. In her capacity as the chair of the CTM RPB, Rachel became Protect Workstream Lead of the region’s COVID-19 Test Trace Protect Programme.
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 of Age Connects Torfaen for Age Connects Cardiff and the Vale after joining the organisation in February 2024.
As charity CEO, 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.
Alison Price
Alison Price has been with ACNWC for over eight years, beginning her journey as the Deputy CEO, where she managed an energy project. For the past six-plus years, Alison has served as the CEO of the charity. Throughout her time with the organisation, she has navigated significant changes and challenges.
Through these changes the mission has remained constant: providing essential services that support older people and their families living and working in Denbighshire and Conwy. Alison is proud to lead an organisation that places people at the centre of its services, ensuring that the needs of the community are always a top priority.
Under Alison’s leadership, ACNWC employs a diverse team of staff, volunteers, and trustees who bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the organisation. This collaborative approach has strengthened ACNWC’s ability to deliver high-quality services that make a real difference in the lives of older people.
Alison's career spans various roles, including teacher, money advisor, training officer, development officer, and project manager for both revenue and capital build projects. She has also served as a director for a children's and young people’s charity. Her extensive experience in the public and voluntary sectors has equipped her with the skills to foster partnerships across different sectors, ensuring a holistic approach to the services delivered by ACNWC.
Some of Alison’s key achievements include successfully delivering a £3.8 million capital build project on time and within budget and developing an interactive heritage centre that gained widespread recognition. Alison has also been nominated for the prestigious Guardian Cultural and Heritage Award for "Most Inspiring New Visitor Centre" – the only nomination from Wales.
During her tenure with ACNWC, Alison has forged valuable partnerships with several organisations to strengthen the services delivered, including: Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, supporting the delivery of Community Navigator services across Conwy. Older people's forums in collaboration with Denbighshire and Conwy local authorities, promoting age-friendly practices and providing information and advice services in partnership with Citizens Advice.
One of Alison’s notable accomplishments is the development of newsletters during the COVID-19 lockdowns, ensuring that older people continued to have access to vital information. This initiative now reaches over 4,000 readers and offers them opportunities to contribute by sharing photographs, poems, and stories, as well as raising concerns or issues. Another career highlight for Alison was nominating Ted, one of ACNWC’s oldest workers, for a national award. Attending the ceremony at the Houses of Parliament in London and witnessing Ted accept his award remains a memorable and proud moment.
In the past year alone, ACNWC, under Alison’s leadership, has provided direct assistance to over 4,000 people, helping them maintain their independence and well-being. Alison continues to be a passionate advocate for older people and remains dedicated to leading ACNWC in its mission to support the community.
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.
