Julie Kent MBE - Current High Sheriff

Julie grew up in Gloucester and went to Denmark Road High School for Girls followed by studying Jazz & Light Music at Leeds College of Music. She performed all over the world as a saxophone player and singer until she settled back in Gloucestershire marrying Bernard in 1990.

Sadly they lost their first and only child, at the time, to cancer when Emily was three years old which resulted in them forming the Emily Kent Trust for children with cancer in the County and the Paediatric Oncology Unit at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital is called the Emily Kent Unit.

They were later blessed with a son and daughter and moved into a boarding house at Dean Close School in 2001 and closed the charity. Julie taught flute, clarinet and saxophone, organised weekend activities and ran the community action for many years.

She became the Vice Chair of the Pied Piper Appeal in 2014, chaired Cheltenham Open Door from 2019 including navigating the charity through the pandemic providing a service for the guests and later an important move to bigger premises.

In 2018 Julie was named as one of the fifty greatest women in Gloucestershire followed by the award of Most Outstanding Woman in the Charitable Sector in the West. Julie was awarded an MBE for services to charity and founding the Emily Kent Trust in 2020.

Since retiring from Dean Close in 2020 Julie oversaw the fundraising at Pied Piper during the pandemic and in 2023 raised £500,000 in one year to fund a psychologist for children with cancer and their families on the Emily Kent Unit.

She has been the Warden of the Honourable Company in the last year and in her spare time enjoys looking after her granddaughter and playing her sax at small functions.

Julie is keen to visit many charities across the County in the year ahead.