KAruna
Our Trustees
All Karuna Trustees are members of the Triratna Buddhist Order
Peter White / Chair
Satyaghosha
Peter is an Independent Director with Chief Executive experience across multiple sectors, including media, finance, healthcare and technology.
Over two decades working with the BBC, Peter oversaw and directed operations of multiple large-scale, nationwide projects, including several in collaboration with the UK Government. He has built management teams, provided governance frameworks and financial strategies for budgets in the hundreds of millions and run outreach programmes involving thousands of statutory bodies, charities and community organisations.
His expertise has contributed to other Trustee boards and he has also worked with the NHS.
Currently, Peter is a Trustee Director of the Eaga Trust, which promotes employee well-being and ownership in the workplace.
Carolyn Milosevic MBE
akasharani
Originally trained as an educator, Carolyn’s long career in the international, charity and public sectors has given her a deep insight into educational and cultural opportunities all over the globe, particularly for the underprivileged.
With twenty years working with the British Council as Country Director, Carolyn took her strategic and leadership expertise around the world, from Argentina to Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mexico. She has led large teams and worked alongside governments around the world to deliver education and cultural programmes, such as supporting communications technology for young women in Kenya and Jordan and a broad range of cultural relations, arts and education programmes in Mexico.
She has been a member of more than half a dozen boards and professional bodies throughout her career. In 2010, she became the first foreign national to receive the Medal of Honour for Services to Education from the Government of Kazakhstan and in 2017, she was awarded an MBE for services to cultural relations, specifically for her work in Mexico.
Carolyn is currently Global Director of Inclusion and Culture at AVEVA.
Sundeep Grewal
aryarakshita
Sundeep has worked across the voluntary, public and cooperative sectors for many years. Trained as an Ecologist, her early career focused on enabling and encouraging people of colour, often under-represented in the environmental field, to come together and discover the mental, physical and social benefits of nature and green spaces.
She has experience working alongside many charities and not-for-profit organisations, developing and assessing grant applications for the Big Lottery Fund. Working in the cooperative sector for over ten years, she headed up a project developing tools and resources for Directors and Trustees on good governance and democratic decision-making across third sector organisations. From there, she then went on to deliver a programme of organisational change on membership development, growing the visibility of co-operative businesses and promoting the benefits of effective and collaborative decision-making behaviours, systems and processes.
More recently she has dedicated her energy and time to working in Buddhist team-based livelihoods, having worked at the Manchester Buddhist Centre as Programme Manager and within the Triratna European Chair’s Assembly’s Development Team with a special emphasis on increasing racial diversity.
Rachel Green
Karunatara
Rachel has worked across the voluntary, public and retail sectors for many years, largely in sales, client-liaison and fundraising. Trained as a Textile Designer, her early career focused on designing and selling cloth to both the UK high street and internationally. She was Design Director for a company which partnered with Indian yarn and cloth manufacturers, working closely with those suppliers to create commercial men’s and womenswear fabrics.
Rachel took her love of the arts to Manchester International Festival, a fast-moving and creative arts setting delivering a very high-end biennial festival for the people of Manchester. She learnt fundraising on the job, becoming director of the team who brought on board both corporate sponsors and individual donors.
More recently she has taken her fundraising experience and energy into three charitable, team-based right livelihoods. Beginning with Breathworks, offering mindfulness teacher training and courses to help alleviate suffering for people with stress and long-term health conditions. Then as Assistant Mitra Convenor at the Manchester Buddhist Centre encouraging women on their spiritual journey, and lastly Future Dharma / India Dharma Trust, linking donors to projects sharing Buddhism around the globe.
Dishir Thakkar
jnanavaca
Jñānavāca has over 27 years’ experience in Buddhist teaching and charitable governance within the Triratna Buddhist Community.
He was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1999 at the Hsuan Tsang Retreat Centre in India, and has lived for many years at Samaggavasa, a men’s community above the London Buddhist Centre (LBC), where he has also taught the Dharma since 1997.
From 2009 to 2018 he served as Chair of the London Buddhist Centre, overseeing its programmes, finances and leadership teams, including the redevelopment of the Vajrasana Retreat Centre. During this period he also sat on the European Chairs’ Assembly Executive for eight years, and held trusteeships with Windhorse Trust and Dharmachakra, as well as chairing Bodywise and founding Future Dharma.
Since 2020 he has served as a Public Preceptor in the Triratna Buddhist Order, helping to lead ordination training for men across the UK and mainland Europe and supporting the training of Private Preceptors. He has served as a Deputy Chair to Ratnadharini within the College of Public Preceptors, leading international ordination retreats at Guhyaloka, and was a member of the College’s Ethics Kula. He currently sits on the board of the Adhisthana Trust and is President of the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.
Earlier in his career, Jñānavāca spent ten years at Marks & Spencer, progressing from programmer to Application Systems Architect, which underpins his analytical and systems-thinking approach to governance.
