BMS World Mission's Board of Trustees
Our members offer experience, knowledge and expertise
Meet our current Board of Trustees
Drawn from a wide sector of the Baptist community, with a breadth of wisdom and skillsets, our trustees are responsible for BMS' vision, mission and strategy.
Board members are elected via the BMS Council and serve for a maximum period of nine years (three years, then re-election up to two times).
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Marc Owen
Chair of Trustees
Born in Swansea, Marc came to faith in Jesus as a teenager and trained for ministry at Bristol Baptist College. He served as Pastor of Priory Street Baptist Church, Corsham and Milton Baptist Church, Weston-Super-Mare before accepting a call to return to Wales to serve as ‘Church Life Secretary’ for the Baptist Union of Wales. In September 2012, he accepted the call to become Pastor of Moriah Baptist Church, Risca. He continues to serve as a Pastor at Moriah and as Ministry Coordinator for the Baptist Union of Wales, as well as serving on a variety of boards. Marc is married to Sarah, and they have two grown-up children and one granddaughter.
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Ruth Elliot
Honorary Treasurer
After completing a Geography degree at Durham University, Ruth trained as an accountant with Deloitte and has subsequently held several finance and corporate services roles in the public sector. She is currently Chief Financial Officer & Director of Corporate Services at the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Ruth is a member of the BMS Finance and Audit Committee. She is also Chair of a multi-academy trust. Ruth attends Didcot Baptist Church and regularly plays in the worship group.
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Marion Carson
Vice-Chair of Trustees
Marion Carson was born and educated in Ayrshire, Scotland. After working for the NHS as a psychiatric nurse, she moved to the Church of Scotland’s Board of Social Responsibility where she worked as Officer in Charge of a community-based rehabilitation unit for people with mental health problems. She left this to pursue a PhD in New Testament Studies, after which she worked for many years as lecturer in New Testament and Pastoral Care at International Christian College in Glasgow. She served for several years on the Missions Board of her home church, Queen’s Park Baptist Church in Glasgow, and is a former member of Global Connections Member Care Forum. Marion serves as Chaplain to Glasgow City Mission and is a Senior Research Fellow at International Baptist Theological Study Centre, Amsterdam. She is the author of The Pastoral Care of People with Mental Health Problems (SPCK 2007) and Human Trafficking, the Bible and the Church (Cascade 2016). Marion is married to Douglas, who is a chartered engineer.
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Tony Agbonasevbaefe
Trustee
Tony was born in Benin City, Nigeria and became a Christian at the age of 17. He is a researcher and academic with many years of teaching experience in both Nigeria and the UK. He also has over seven years industry experience working in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector, initially in Quality Assurance and later in logistics. He has a PhD in Marketing from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Business School at Anglia Ruskin University, London. He has written several publications on Leadership and Governance. He is a public speaker on societal change, global issues, and an on-air media personality in several national and international media. Tony is married and is a member of Perry Rise Baptist Church London.
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Simeon Baker
Trustee
Simeon is the Director of Mission for the Baptist Union of Wales (BUW) with responsibility for encouraging and enabling the local church to respond to the challenges and opportunities of mission within Wales. He works closely with BMS and has helped to develop projects such as the Action Wales Team gap-year programme. Prior to this role, Simeon was the Senior Minister at Bethel Baptist Church in Whitchurch, Cardiff (1998-2012) and Assistant Minister at Ruislip Baptist Church (1991-1998). He has experience as an Association Trustee (SWBA), Moderator of the Grants Committee (BUGB) and chair of the Mission Board (BUW). He has visited Nepal and worked with youth camps in Poland. Simeon is a Welsh speaker and works with both Welsh and English-speaking churches. He is married to Janet and has one daughter.
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Lynn Cadman
Trustee
Lynn has over 18 years’ experience working in the charity sector – in regulation, external consultancy and leading an in-house team. She worked for seven years at the Charity Commission, where she provided guidance for charities, legal consents (including for BMS), and led investigations. Lynn then worked as a freelance Charity and Governance Consultant, as well as the head of a new department at the Royal British Legion. Lynn now works part-time for the not-for-profit Christian law firm, Edward Connor Solicitors, alongside her freelance work. In 2021 Lynn also completed an MSc in Voluntary Sector Management at Bayes Business School.
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Peter Grant
Trustee
Peter grew up in Birmingham and came to know the Lord when he was aged 18. He has been married to Stella for 39 years and they have two grown up children. Peter has worked on International Development for most of the past 40 years, including spells as International Director for both the Department for International Development and for Tearfund and more recently as a consultant. Peter lived for two years in Malawi, where he met Stella, and three and a half years in Bangladesh, when their children were young. In 2010, Peter co-founded Restored, a Christian charity working to end violence against women. Peter has experience as a trustee with Turkic Belt Ministries and as a Council member for the Evangelical Alliance. He was a church leader in Bonneville Baptist Church (Clapham Park) and Bedford Hill Baptist Church for a total of more than fifteen years and he is currently on the leadership team and a trustee of Streatham Baptist Church.
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Richard Gray
Trustee
Richard spent 30 years in the legal and finance sectors in London and Asia and was General Counsel of HSBC Holdings plc until August 2021. He also has significant governance expertise. He is a trustee/ director of three Christian charities (one focussed on the UK and two internationally) and two charities in the sports sector. He also works with a school in Kolkata as it seeks to finance and build a new campus. Richard spent his early childhood in South India (hence his love of cricket) and lived and worked for 11 years in Hong Kong and Singapore. He also spent a year studying at the Cornhill training course (run by the Proclamation Trust) and now leads a weekly Bible study at his church. Richard is married with three children and currently lives in Guildford.
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Sarah King
Trustee
Sarah King has worked with cathedrals for almost 30 years. She currently works as the Executive Director of the Association of English Cathedrals, a charity which supports the work of the English Anglican cathedrals. Previously she was the chief operating officer at Southwark Cathedral from 1996 to 2005. Prior to moving into the charity sector, Sarah worked for Lloyd’s of London, Thomas Cook, in banking operations for HSBC, and as a management consultant for Deloitte Haskins and Sells, the firm with which she qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1983. Sarah is a member of Chatsworth Baptist Church in South London. Her voluntary roles include membership of the Finance and Administration Committee of the Church Urban Fund and Vice Chair and Chair designate of Eltham College, a local independent school with a Christian foundation. She was a governor at Spurgeon’s College from 2010 and Chair of Governors from 2012 until 2022.
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Ronas Marule
Trustee
Ronas has over 38 years experience in ministry that includes pastoral, youth, missions and not-for-profit. He also serves on several boards of not-for-profit organisations. In 2015 Ronas completed his honours degree in Theology with the University of Northwest in South Africa. He also completed training with the Africa Board of Fellowship which deals with Governance in Micro-Finance. Ronas now works with the Growth Resourcing Group and is part of the International Leadership, leading Africa. His main duties are mentoring and training church leaders and not-for-profit, to lead better.
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Matthew Norris-Silva
Trustee
Having become a Christian in his mid-teens after a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit, Matthew is Senior Key Relationships Executive at the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), where he leads the philanthropy program. He believes passionately that working in philanthropy is about empowering people with the opportunity to effect change on issues that resonate with them. For him, his role is a ministry and passion. Prior to joining IFES, he obtained postgraduate degrees from the University of Cambridge and University of Reading, including a PhD in Philosophy (specialising in theology proper). He began his fundraising career with an Oxfordshire-based healthcare charity, Play2Give, of which he is now Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees. Outside of fundraising, Matthew is a Research Fellow of the Bios Centre, an esteemed bioethics research institute based in London. He now lives in Swindon with his wife, Tatiana. He routinely shares his expertise at conferences and conventions, both academic and fundraising, with a view of advancing the Kingdom of God.
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Kang-San Tan
Trustee
Kang-San Tan is General Director of BMS World Mission. Kang-San regularly speaks at mission conferences and church events around the world. Previously, he also served as Head of Mission Studies at Redcliffe College and Director for Mission Research for OMF. He completed his doctoral studies in Missiology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, USA. He also has a PhD in Theology of Religions from Aberdeen University. Publications: Humble Confidence: A Model for Interfaith Apologetics (IVP, 2022, co-author with Benno van Toren); The Soul of Mission: Perspectives on Leadership, Spirituality and Mission in East Asia (Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka SUFES, 2007, Tan, KangSan. Ed.); Understanding Asian Mission Movements (Kuala Lumpur: Pustaka SUFES/ AsiaCMS, 2013, Tan, Kang-San, Jonathan Ingleby, Simon Cozens, Eds.); Contextualisation and Mission Training: Engaging Asia’s Religious Worlds (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2013, Tan, Kang-San, Jonathan Ingleby, and Tan Loun Ling, Eds.)
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Aidan Melville
Trustee
Aidan has worked in communications, fundraising and marketing for nearly twenty years. He started his career at BMS coordinating news and prayer letters from overseas mission personnel and producing the Baptist Assemblies in England, Wales and Scotland. He has since worked in higher education, local government and the charity sectors, and is a chartered manager and member of the Chartered Management Institute. Currently Aidan is the communications lead for Migration Yorkshire, an organisation that helps local authorities to support refugees and people seeking asylum and wider community integration. Aidan is a member at St Timothy’s Church Crookes in Sheffield and is also on their preaching and leadership team. He’s married to Siobhan and has two children, Eithne and Robin.
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Tejdor Singh Tiewsoh
Trustee
Tejdor has over 25 years’ experience working in Christian Ministries – Field Ministry, Leadership roles and Board member. After having given his life to the Lord Jesus in March 1989, he went on to study Theology at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India. He served with a number of Christian organisations within India, latterly as Regional Director of South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS). Tejdor has served as a founding Board member of a mission organisation committed to training missionaries for cross-cultural mission. He is also serving as a Chairman of another mission organisation committed to reach the indigenous people groups in India.
