The chief executive of a leading children’s charity is "looking under the bonnet" to see how it can ambitiously expand to help even more youngsters with brain injuries.

Dalton Leong, from Epsom, took over as the boss of The Children’s Trust (TCT), in Tadworth, in April 2013.

He took up the role after 21 years in banking and financial services, in the corporate and retail sectors, training and project management.

A founding trustee of the Shooting Stars Children’s Hospice, in Cheam, who was involved in instigating its merger with Chase Hospice Care, Mr Leong was previously managing director of charities and communities at Global, the UK’s largest commercial radio group and the charities it worked with including Help a Capital Child.

He said he has a "commercial brain and a charitable heart" - a valuable mix he believes he brings to the role.

"When I took over, the charity was already in a really good place. I am proud of how far we have gotten," Mr Leong told the Epsom Guardian during a visit to TCT.

"We are now thinking about how to implement a fundamental step-change through our expansion plans.

"How do we build on what we have achieved?"

Last month, TCT launched a three-year strategy it hopes will enable it to reach 2,500 children living with brain injury across the UK every year by 2017.

This will involve it redeveloping its base at Tadworth Court and increasing the number of charity-funded partnerships it has with the NHS and placing more of its specialists in communities across the country.

To achieve the expansion, TCT will need to raise £10m a year by 2017, on top of the annual £19m statutory funding it receives.

Admitting it will be a challenge, Mr Leong said he is looking thoroughly at how the charity can fundraise effectively.

He said: "Sometimes less is more. I am looking under the bonnet to ensure we have quality rather than quantity.

"The devil is in the detail. We want to raise money but we want to raise our profits."

Mr Leong said TCT is very proud to have Tadworth Court as its base and the expansion aims to build on its successes and take its expertise out to the country.

He said: "I feel like I joined a sleeping giant.

"People have traditionally seen us as a small regional charity.

"I want to maintain that, but we need to make sure we pack a bigger punch on a national basis.

"Brain injury is a journey for life.

"I would be wrong not to have at the heart of our objectives to support as many children with brain injury as we can."

"I have always had a charitable heart - the idea of giving back and being inspired by people I work with," Mr Leong added.

"The spirit and strength of the children and the families is really inspirational and always helps me as a person because it puts so much into perspective."

For more information about The Children's Trust visit www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk.

To read The Children’s Trust strategy, Childhood Brain Injury: Our Big Ambitions, click here.

To donate click here.