Unlock appoints new interim CEO and Strategic Policy Advisor

Unlock is pleased to announce the appointment of Justina Forristal as its new Joint Interim CEO, and Jenny Earle as a Strategic Policy Advisor. 

Due to a health condition, the current interim CEO Dr Jo Easton is having to reduce her workload for a couple of months, and Justina and Jenny have been bought in to cover this.

Jo will remain as Joint Interim CEO alongside Justina, providing additional resource for team leadership, planning and management, finance and governance. 

Jenny will be a Strategic Policy Advisor, providing advice, support and policy knowledge to continue to drive our policy and advocacy work forwards. 

Unlock is currently recruiting for a permanent CEO. The recruitment is being handled by Green Park and we are aiming to appoint in the new year. 

Justina Forristal – Joint Interim CEO

Justina Forristal has over 25 years’ fundraising and management experience in the charity and social enterprise sectors.  She has raised more than £5million from trusts and foundations in a range of directly employed and consultancy roles, primarily supporting charities and social enterprises addressing social disadvantage.  Justina was the Trust Fundraising Manager at Teenage Cancer Trust for five years and has helped more than ten charities to develop and implement fundraising strategies and business plans. 

Her management experience includes leading a neighbourhood community centre in Camden, where she raised £1million to extend the building to create sustainable rental income; leading a social prescribing programme across eight organisations; and creating an income maximisation programme for people facing multiple and complex social barriers.  She is currently the non-executive director of thinkFOUND, a sustainable furniture company offering training and employment opportunities to young people who are not in education, training or employment. 

Jenny Earle – Strategic Policy Advisor

Over the course of her long career Jenny Earle has provided policy advice and advocacy for a number of equality, human rights and social justice organisations. After a stint as senior lawyer with the then newly-formed Equality and Human Rights Commission she joined the Prison Reform Trust in 2012. There she developed and led a UK-wide advocacy programme on reducing women’s imprisonment, overseen by an expert advisory group and supported by a wide range of partners (Transforming Lives programme) In 2018 Jenny was awarded an Honorary degree for public service by The Open University. 

Since leaving the Prison Reform Trust in 2020 Jenny has been active in the Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison Initiative and has provided support and mentoring to a number of projects dedicated to reducing the impacts on individuals and families of contact with the criminal justice system. 

Jenny is delighted to have this opportunity to work with Unlock, having long been an admirer of its work to reform the criminal records system that can unnecessarily blight so many lives.