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Her Excellency Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari is the Minister of Public Health for the State of Qatar and is also the Managing Director of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), the main national provider of hospital care. She has been Managing Director of HMC since 2007 and has led the Corporation in transforming into an integrated academic health system that has achieved numerous international accreditations and awards.

H.E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari is a member of the Board of Sidra Medical and Research Center, the Joint Commission International (JCI) Middle East Advisory Council, the Association of Academic Health Centers International (AAHCI) Steering Committee and the Institute of Global Health Innovation, and Advisory Board Member of the World innovation Summit for Health (WISH). She is Chairperson of the Qatar Bio-Bank Board.

She holds a PhD in healthcare management from Brunel University in the UK and has received several awards in recognition of her achievements.

Dr Faleh Mohamed Hussain Ali is Assistant Secretary General for Policy Affairs at the Supreme Council of Health, Qatar’s highest health authority. He is also Acting Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Company, Qatar’s public agency responsible for the implementation and administration of a new national health insurance scheme.

Dr Faleh has a strong academic interest. He is Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and nearing completion of his Doctorate of Philosophy at Imperial College London. He serves on several academic and scientific groups at Qatar University, Qatar Foundation, and Imperial College London. His main research interests include health financing, and health reform impact assessments.

Dr Faleh has held several health management and clinical posts in Qatar. After working as an orthopaedic surgeon and emergency physician, he served as hospital chief executive officer in the public sector.

John Appleby joined the Nuffield Trust as Director of Research and Chief Economist in 2016 following his position at the King’s Fund as Chief Economist, and senior lectureships in health economics at the Universities of East Anglia and Birmingham. After his Masters in Health Economics at the University of York in 1980, he worked in the NHS for seven years in Birmingham and London. For five years he worked for the National Association of Health Authorities (now the NHS Confederation) as manager of the Association’s Central Policy Unit.

John’s research includes a major study of NHS performance since 2002 with Sir Derek Wanless, published by the King’s Fund; an analysis of the public’s attitudes to the NHS (the British Social Attitudes survey); and an analysis of future prospects for NHS funding written in partnership with the Institute for Fiscal Studies.  

John has also acted as an adviser to the UK Government and Parliament in various capacities, for example, carrying out a review for ministers of the future funding needs of Northern Ireland’s health service; as a task force member for the Marmot Commission on health inequalities; and as a special adviser to the House of Commons Health Select Committee.

Sir Sabaratnam is Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, St George’s University of London. He has held this position since 2013 after he retired from his position as Professor and Head of O&G in the same institution from 2001 to 2013. He is also Foundation Professor of O&G, St George’s Medical School, University of Nicosia from 2014 and Visiting Professor, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London from 2012.

He was past President of the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (2012 - 2015); the British Medical Association (2013-2014); and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) of the UK (2007-2010).

He was appointed a Knight Bachelor by her Majesty the Queen of the UK in her Birthday Honours List in June 2009 in recognition of his services to medicine and healthcare.

Dr Bennett served as the Chief Executive of Monitor, the economic regulator of the National Health Service (NHS) in England, for just under six years and was also Chairman during three of those years. In this role, Dr Bennett’s responsibilities included regulating competition in the health sector, alongside the Competition and Markets Authority, setting prices for NHS services, alongside NHS England, and overseeing the 153 NHS foundation trusts with annual revenues of £46 billion.

Prior to joining Monitor, Dr Bennett worked for Prime Minister Tony Blair, as Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit. This followed an eighteen-year career with McKinsey & Company, where he was a senior partner.

For the past two years, Dr Bennett has served in multiple non-executive or advisory roles. Currently, he is Chairman of Viapath Group LLP and Executive Chairman of Four Eyes Insight Ltd.

Dr Boufford is Professor Emeritus of Public Service, Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Clinical Professor of Paediatrics at New York University School of Medicine. She is Co-Director of the National Program Office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program.

She served as Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University from June 1997 to November 2002. Prior to that, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from November 1993 to January 1997, and as Acting Assistant Secretary from January 1997 to May 1997. While at HHS, she served as the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization from 1994–1997.

Dame Glynis Breakwell is a psychologist whose research focuses on the psychology of risk perception, communication and management; leadership; and identity processes. Her work has included studies of policy responses to BSE, HIV/AIDS, pandemic influenza, health and safety failures at work, and bioterrorism.

In 2014, the UK Science Council named her one of the 100 leading practising scientists in the UK. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012 for her contributions to higher education.

From 2001 to 2018, Dame Glynis was President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bath and is an Emeritus Professor there. She has been a Director of Universities UK, the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (Chairing the Research Panel) and Council member of the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Chairing the Research Committee). From 2016-2019 Dame Glynis was appointed the Senior Non-Executive Director of NHS Improvement in the UK.

Alison Buttenheim is the Silverstein Chair in Global Women’s Health and Scientific Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Her research addresses persistent behavior change challenges in public and global health. Using the techniques and frameworks of behavioral economics, Professor Buttenheim designs, test, and scales innovative interventions to prevent and mitigate infectious diseases. She is a recognized global expert in the area of vaccine acceptance, with a particular focus on COVID-19 vaccines.

Professor Buttenheim also helped launch and serves as the Behavioural Design Lead for Indlela, a first-of-its kind nudge unit supporting innovations in HIV service delivery in South Africa. She co-chaired the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Consensus Committee on Behavioral Economics: Policy Impact and Future Directions, which recently released its consensus report.

Dame Ruth has over 30 years of experience in healthcare with 20 as a chief executive in the NHS covering acute hospitals, mental health and community services and health authorities.

She has worked in senior positions at a local, regional and national level covering operational, strategic and policy roles. Over the last seven years, Ruth has been responsible for the NHS in London as Chief Executive of NHS London. In this capacity, she has overseen an extensive programme of performance improvement and strategic change.

Prior to joining NHS London, Ruth worked as an independent consultant with public and private sector clients including Department of Health, Monitor, Health Authorities, NHS Trusts and Glaxo as well as the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. In 2011, Ruth was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire for her achievements in healthcare.

Dr Will Cavendish is currently Global Head of Digital Services at Arup, an employee-owned company whose mission is to shape a better world through improving the built environment. Previously he was Applied Strategy Lead at DeepMind, responsible for understanding the ground-breaking developments taking place in Artificial Intelligence and working with key partners to apply them for public good in areas such as health and energy.

Before that he was a senior civil servant, including roles as Director General for Innovation, Growth and Technology at the Department of Health; Director General, International Energy and Climate Change at DECC; and head of the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit, working directly to David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

When in government, he also led the creation of the world's first network of What Works Centres, set up to provide proper evidence on effective uses of public money, and pioneered the use of transparency and crowdsourcing in policy making. Dr Cavendish has also served as a World Bank economist; has lectured at Oxford University and Imperial; has a doctorate in economics; and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath by the Queen in 2015.

Karl Claxton is a Professor in the Department of Economics and Related Studies at the University of York. He is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

He was a Harkness Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and from 1999 until 2007 he held an adjunct appointment at Harvard as an Assistant Professor of Health and Decision Sciences. His research interests encompass the economic evaluation of health care technologies.

He has served as a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Appraisal Committee since 1999. He has represented the committee at several appeals and was an expert witness for the Institute during the judicial review in 2007. He is a member of the National Decision Support Unit and continues to contribute to the development of guidance for the appraisal of health technologies. He is a previous co-editor of the Journal of Health Economics. He received a PhD in Economics, a MSc in Health Economics and a BA in Economics all from the University of York.

Professor Tumani Corrah is director of the Africa Research Excellence Fund and the UK Medical Research Council’s Foundation director of Africa Research Development. He is the first Emeritus Director of the MRC Unit, The Gambia. These positions provide Professor Corrah with the ideal platform from which to work with partners to enhance research excellence by supporting emerging and talented African researchers. Professor Corrah’s new role plays to his personal passion for growing a new generation of outstanding, African research leaders working on health challenges in Africa for Africa.

In 2014 Professor Corrah was appointed as the first Emeritus Director of the MRC Unit, The Gambia and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the progress of clinical research in The Gambia and in West Africa as a whole.

Sir Andrew Dillon joined the NHS in 1975 and has held a number of senior management positions, including General Manager of the Royal Free Hospital and Chief Executive of St George's Healthcare NHS Trust. He joined the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as its founding Chief Executive in 1999 and held the position until 2020. In 2015, Sir Andrew was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

He has been a member of the Council of the NHS Trust Federation and has contributed to national policy on the allocation of research and development funding in the NHS. He has also been member of the UK Department of Health's International Panel and its Health Industries Task Force. He now works as an independent advisor, working with organisations that share an ambition to improve outcomes for patients by creating evidence-based and fiscally sustainable relationships between health systems and the life sciences industry.

Ian is the Director of the NHS Group, a government initiative within the UK Department of Health, which advises Ministers on their stewardship of the NHS. Ian is also Head of Policy Profession where he leads on improving the quality of policy making across the Department of Health.

He was previously the Chief Policy Adviser on Health to the Prime Minister at No 10 Downing Street. Previous posts within the Department of Health were Director of the Policy Unit, Deputy Director for NHS Performance and Head of Primary Medical Care.

Stephen James Dorrell is a former British Conservative politician. He served as the Member of Parliament for Loughborough between 1979 to 1997 and then for Charnwood from 1997 to 2015.

Stephen served as Chairman of the House of Commons Health Select Committee from 2010 to 2014.

In the 1990s he was a full member of Prime Minister John Major's Cabinet for almost three years, while serving as both Secretary of State for National Heritage and then Secretary of State for Health until the 1997 general election. He was also a Patron of the Tory Reform Group.

He left Parliament in 2014 and is currently Chair of the NHS Confederation and of the European Movement.  He is also Chairman of Laing Buisson Ltd, a healthcare market intelligence company, and of its sister company Public Policy Projects Ltd which provides public policy advice. 

Philip Dunne has been Member of Parliament for the Ludlow Constituency since May 2005. He spent nine-and-a-half years on the Conservative Front Bench, appointed an Opposition Whip in 2008, then a Government Whip in 2010 before becoming Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in September 2012. He then became Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence in May 2015, where he was responsible for Defence Procurement. Under Prime Minister Theresa May, Philip was appointed Minister of State for Health at the Department of Health in July 2016 and was reappointed following the General Election in June 2017 until January 2018.

At the Department of Health, Philip supported the Secretary of State with ministerial responsibility for hospitals, workforce, financial performance, special measures, patient safety and maternity, and since June 2017, procurement. He sat on the Department of Health Board and had oversight responsibility for NHS Improvement, the Care Quality Commission, Health Education England and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Rachel Dunscombe is the Director of Salford Royal Group and in 2017 was appointed as the first CEO of the NHS Digital Academy. She was previously CIO at Bolton FT and is currently Chair of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society UK Advisory Board. Rachel is working on new research studies to follow the Salford Lung Study and is a member of the KLAS Research Advisory Board. As part of her role at Salford she is delivering the Global Digital Exemplar and two NHS Vanguards.

She is also a board member for the ISD network, the north-west professional network for informatics, and a member of US organisation Chime, the professional body for CIOs.

Dr Mike Durkin is the National Director of Patient Safety at NHS England. Prior to joining NHS England Mike was the Medical Director of the South of England Strategic Health Authority since 2006. He is the National Clinical Director for Venous Thrombo-Embolism and leads the national VTE Prevention Programme.

He qualified at The Middlesex Hospital and has held research and teaching appointments in London and Bristol. He was appointed to the faculty at Yale University School of Medicine where he was also an Attending Anaesthesiologist. He was Medical Director of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Trust from 1993 to 2002 where he has a consultant post in Anaesthesia. He was appointed as Medical Director and Director of Clinical Quality for Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority in 2002.

Professor Leonard Fass has 49 years of experience in medical technology in both R&D and marketing roles mainly in the field of diagnostic imaging.

He was a member of the Executive Board of the UK Bioengineering Society and on several university advisory boards. He has served as a reviewer for multiple national and international research funding agencies. For many years he served on the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD on Healthcare Policy.

Sir Robert Francis QC is a barrister specialising in medical law, particularly in the areas of clinical negligence, medical and mental health treatment, capacity issues, and professional discipline. He has appeared on behalf of interested parties in inquiries about a number of NHS scandals, including the Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry, which led to the Human Tissue Act 2004, and the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry, which resulted in cardiac surgeons in the UK publishing more data on the performance of doctors and hospitals. Sir Robert has also chaired independent inquiries, including the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry and the Freedom to Speak Up Review.

Sir Robert has been a non-executive board member of the Care Quality Commission since June 2014. He has been the President of the Patients Association since November 2013 and is a trustee of the Point of Care Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Research Centre. Sir Robert was knighted in the 2014 Birthday Honours and has been elected to Honorary Fellowships of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Surgeons (England), and the Royal College of Pathologists.

Peter Goldsbrough is a senior leader experienced in the private and public sectors. Peter was a Managing Director at The Boston Consulting Group and is now a Senior Advisor to the firm. He is a Non-Executive Director of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and sits on the advisory board of the Education Endowment Foundation. He has previously served on the board of NHS London. He has many years’ experience working with healthcare, pharmaceutical and academic organisations as well as substantial financial management expertise.

Peter advises senior leaders of major organisations in a variety of industrial and service sectors on strategic direction and operational performance. He has specialised in the leadership of large-scale operational and organisational change. His geographic experience covers the UK, Europe, the US, Asia and Australasia. He was educated at Cambridge University and the Harvard Business School.

Dr Paul Goldsmith is a neurologist with a background in industry and policy.  He has founded and helped build both drug and digital health companies, latterly with a data and AI focus. He trained in Cambridge and Oxford, then undertook a PhD to show how developmental biology could be used to understand complex human diseases. This carries through to his current approach of applying an evolutionary lens to understand the challenges of society and illness, fuelled by the mismatch between our evolved state and modern life. 

His NHS experience includes roles with Strategic Clinical Networks, Urgent and Emergency Care Vanguard and currently the NHS Senate and as a Non-Executive Director of the UK Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.  He was previously NED at the MDU and MDU Investments.

He has authored a variety of policy papers, covering both health and regeneration of left behind areas.

Professor Griffiths has demonstrated significant impact within her profession and work practice as a leader in the field of public health. Professor Griffiths joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong as Professor of Public Health and Director of the School of Public Health in 2005. She became the Chairman of the Department of Community and Family Medicine in 2006. She qualified as a doctor and held a variety of service posts with academic links at international, national, regional and local level within the UK.

Professor Griffiths was Chair of the Association for Public Health, co-founded the UK Public Health Association, and was President of the UK Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians from 2001-2004 having held a wide number of professional positions.

She co-chaired the Hong Kong Government’s expert committee into the SARS epidemic in 2003 as well as the monitoring committee. Since coming to Hong Kong, she has worked with HKSAR Government, public health professional organisations and colleagues across the healthcare and academic systems. Her interests are in developing health policy through public health approaches and in developing public health capacity to promote the public’s health. In 2000, she received an OBE for services to public health and was made Justice of the Peace by the HKSAR Government in 2010 for her contribution to health in Hong Kong.

Dr David Halpern is the Chief Executive of the Behavioural Insights Team and Board Director. He has led the team since its inception in 2010. Prior to that, Dr Halpern was the founding Director of the Institute for Government and between 2001 and 2007 was the Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. Before entering government, Dr Halpern held tenure at Cambridge and posts at Oxford and Harvard.

Dr Halpern has written several books and papers on areas relating to behavioural insights and wellbeing, including Social Capital (2005), the Hidden Wealth of Nations (2010), and co-author of the MINDSPACE report. David has recently written a book about the team entitled Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference.

He is one of the 56 individuals named by the UK government as contributing to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, focusing on behavioural changes such as increased handwashing.

Dr Felicity Harvey CBE was appointed Director General, Public and International Health in April 2012, retiring in June 2016. Previous roles include Director of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit; Head of Medicines, Pharmacy and Industry Group at the Department of Health; Director of Prison Health at HM Prison Service; Head of Quality Management, NHS Executive and Private Secretary to the Chief Medical Officer.

Dr Harvey qualified in medicine in 1980, specialising in medical microbiology. She was seconded to Henley Management College to study for an international MBA. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and was appointed CBE in 2008.

Dr Harvey currently holds non-executive directorships for Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Mediclinic International PLC. She is also a Trustee for Royal Trinity Hospice and a member of the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme.

Felicity qualified in medicine in 1980, specialising in medical microbiology. She was seconded to Henley Management College to study for an international MBA. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and was appointed CBE in 2008.

Felicity currently holds non-executive directorships for Guys & St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust and Mediclinic International PLC. She is also a Trustee for Royal Trinity Hospice and a member of the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme.

Dr Axel Heitmueller has been involved with Imperial College Health Partners since its conception in 2011 as an Interim Director and joined the Partnership full-time in August 2013 as Director of Strategy and Commerce. As of September 2016 Dr Heitmueller was appointed as Managing Director.

Prior to joining the Partnership,  Dr Heitmueller was Executive Director of Strategy and Business Development at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He brings a broad range of experience from academia and central government where he was Deputy Director and Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit in the Cabinet Office and No.10 Downing Street.

Dr Adam Hill is a dual-qualified Clinician and Mechanical Engineer, with a career built at the interface of academia, industry and health systems. In recent years, he has founded a successful applied research centre, enveloping an R&D programme with expertise in the optimisation of novel products and systems; provided strategic advice to global life science companies on behalf of the British Government; and led the medical function in a multinational, publicly listed health IT brand.

Recently appointed as the Chief Medical Officer of McLaren Applied Technologies, Dr Hill is focused on applying the company’s deep technical expertise to developing human-centric, data-driven solutions to challenging problems that inhibit the realisation of high-quality health outcomes for all.

Dr Hill graduated from Imperial College London as a medical doctor with gold medal; during this time, he also earned a PhD in Engineering and attended the Business School. Having subsequently graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he received his postgraduate clinical training from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and professional engineering qualification from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers while in the British Army. In addition, Dr Hill has built a portfolio of over 100 publications, in addition to 12 academic awards and patents.

Phil Hope is a partner in Hope Consultancy and Training that works with health and social care organisations to navigate and work with the changing geography of power in the health and care landscape; and to develop excellent and sustainable services for older people.

Phil is a former Member of Parliament (1997-2010) and served in several ministerial roles with responsibilities for local government, skills, charities, social enterprise and social finance. As Minister of State for Care Services his work included development of the White Paper ‘Building a National Care Service’, the National Dementia Strategy, the National Mental Health Strategy ‘New Horizons’, and the National Autism Strategy.

Since leaving Parliament Phil’s work has included developing personalised care services for older people that integrate NHS, social and voluntary sector services around the needs of individuals; developing the national malnutrition task force; and chairing the Imperial College London report ‘Creating Sustainable Health and Care Systems in Ageing Societies’.

Former barrister, banker and Chief Executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Sir Thomas is the Non-Executive Chair of Cause4 - a social business creating pioneering programmes and fundraising solutions for the charitable sector - and the Chair of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Sir Thomas has been author of a number of independent reviews including The Philanthropy Review, a Review of End-of-Life Care for Adults and Children and the 2013 ‘Who Will Care?’ report commissioned by Essex County Council on health and social care strategy in Essex.

He also authored ‘Dying Healed: Transforming End-of-Life Care Through Innovation’ for the 2013 World Innovation Summit for Health.

Trustee of The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The King’s Fund, Sir Thomas is also Chairman of the End-of-Life Care Implementation Advisory Board.

Awarded a Knighthood in 2012 and a Beacon Fellowship for Philanthropy Advocacy in 2013, Sir Thomas’s passions are philanthropy, innovation, patient-centred healthcare and choral music.

Tim Kelsey is an entrepreneur and leading advocate for a popular knowledge revolution in government and public services and an internationally regarded thought leader in data transparency and digital technology, particularly in health.

Tim is a senior leader and manager in both public and private sectors. He was founding CEO of Dr Foster, one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK, and now is a main board director of the NHS, one of the world’s largest organisations, where he designs and implements retail digital and information services.

Edward Kiely is a general paediatric surgeon with over 40 years of experience in the specialty in the UK and in Australia. His primary interests are in neonatal, oncological and minimally invasive surgery. He has also taken part in 27 operations to separate conjoined twins.

He is also committed to mentoring and teaching the next generation of paediatric surgeons. His areas of interest are neonatal, minimally invasive and oncology surgery. He has written over twenty-five chapters in paediatric surgical textbooks and published almost two hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Educated in chemistry at Imperial College London, Professor Stephen Matlin worked in academia for over 20 years in medicinal, biological and analytical chemistry. He was Professor of Biological Chemistry at City University London and Warwick University. Professor Matlin has served as Kelvin Lecturer of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Honorary President of the British Association for International and Comparative Education, Vice-President of the Royal Institution, Chair of the Commonwealth Association of Science, Technology and Mathematics Educators and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University. He was a co-founder and co-chair of Global Health Europe.

He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, Secretary and Head of Strategic Development for the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development, Senior Fellow in the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva and a member of the Advisory Council of the RISE Institute (Institute for Reconstruction and International Security through Education).

Arlene McCarthy has extensive experience in policy and of working at a CEO and Executive level providing advice on government public policy and external affairs.

She served 4 terms as a Member of European Parliament and was the first UK woman to be elected President of the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee.

Since 2014, she has been a Director at AMC Strategy, advising CEOs and Senior Managers from a strategic and regulatory angle. She has wide-ranging experience supporting large international corporates in their philanthropic and collaborative efforts. 

Sir David was appointed Chief Executive of NHS England, formerly known as the NHS Commissioning Board, in October 2011. Up until April 2013, when NHS England took on its full powers, Sir David was also Chief Executive of the NHS in England, a role he had held since September 2006. Sir David’s career in the NHS spans over 30 years.

He started in the service as a management trainee, having graduated from the University of the West of England. He has held senior leadership positions in acute and mental health services, and at four regional health authorities. He was awarded a CBE in 2004 and was knighted in 2010, both for his services to the NHS.

After an early career in academia, Baroness Lindsay Northover was created a life peer in 2000 and has since been heavily involved in the House of Lords. From 2000 to 2002, she served as the Liberal Democrats Health Spokesperson in the House of Lords, and from 2002 to 2010 as the main frontbench Liberal Democrats Spokesperson on International Development.

In 2010, Baroness Northover was appointed Baroness-in-Waiting (Government Whip) and Spokesperson on International Development, Health, Justice and Women and Equalities, and later covered Education, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (instead of Justice and Health). More recently, Baroness Northover served as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for International Development from November 2014 to May 2015. She is now the Liberal Democrat Principal Parliamentary Spokesperson on International Development.

Lord James O'Shaughnessy served as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Health between 2016 and 2018. In that role, he represented the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) in the House of Lords across all health and social care issues.

His policy responsibilities included NHS innovation; life sciences and research; tech, digital and data transformation; NHS land and estates; and preparing the DHSC to leave the European Union. James is a Conservative Life Peer, a former Director of Policy in No.10 Downing Street, and founder of the Floreat Education Academy Trust. 

Sir John Oldham qualified at Manchester Medical School in 1978 and worked in various teaching hospitals, culminating as a GP trainee in inner city Manchester. He joined Manor House Surgery, Glossop in 1983, and becoming senior partner in 1988. In 1992, he gained an MBA with Distinction from Manchester Business School.

He is a keynote speaker at many international conferences on quality and safety and has also presented at the World economic Forum in Davos. He has written books and numerous articles on quality improvement and large system change, and has been a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. He was National Clinical Lead for Quality and Productivity at the Department of Health and for six years was a member of the National Quality Board, setting the strategic direction for quality and safety in the NHS. He was Chair of Primary Care at the Global Health Forum, and Chair of Independent Commission on Whole Person Care whose report One Person One Team One System was widely praised.

He has recently assisted Norwegian ministers in Health strategy, Primary Care redesign in Sweden and a Maternity review in the NHS. In 2000, he received the OBE for services to patients and in 2003 was awarded a knighthood for services to the NHS.

Dr Colin Price is the Executive Vice President and Global Managing Partner of the Leadership Consulting Practice and based in Heidrick & Struggles’ London office. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Dr Price served as chairman of Co Company, an organisational development consulting firm acquired by Heidrick & Struggles in 2015.

He previously led the worldwide organisation practice at McKinsey & Co. for many years. Dr Price has consulted with many of the world’s largest organisations and published on important business challenges of organisation health and performance for 25 years.

His body of work around building organisational health, purpose, culture, leadership, and capabilities has defined this arena of study and practice. Dr Price has published widely, and is author and co-author of seven books, including Beyond Performance: How Great Organisations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage, with Scott Keller of McKinsey & Co.

Professor Julia Riley is a consultant in Palliative Medicine at The Royal Marsden and the Royal Brompton Hospital, and a senior research fellow at Imperial College London. She is also clinical lead for Coordinate My Care, a clinical service offering urgent care plans to patients, which is underpinned by digital technology, sharing the plans with all the urgent care services in real time.

Professor Riley has two main research interests. The first is in the inter-individual variation in patients’ response to opioids. The second is the development of models of end-of-life care that involve a seamless transition between the acute and the community sector, improve quality of life, decrease the number of unnecessary hospital admissions and increase the number of patients being cared for and dying in their preferred place.

In June 2004, Janet Royall was created Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, of Blaisdon in the County of Gloucestershire. In the House of Lords, she became government spokesperson for Health, International Development and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

In January 2008 Baroness Royall was appointed Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords, following the resignation of Lord Grocott. She was appointed a Privy Counsellor later in the year. In October 2008, she was promoted to the cabinet by Gordon Brown, who made her Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. In June 2009, Royall was succeeded as Lord President by Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Richard Satava, MD, FACS, is Professor Emeritus of Surgery, University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. Prior academic positions include Professor of Surgery at Yale University and a military appointment as Professor of Surgery (USUHS) in the Army Medical Corps. Upon completion of military career and government service he had continued clinical medicine at Yale University and University of Washington. He has served on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Committee on Health, Food and Safety and was awarded the Smithsonian Laureate in Healthcare.

Dr Satava was the surgeon on the project that developed the first surgical robot, which later became the da Vinci surgical robot. Now Dr Satava has added being continuously active in surgical education and surgical research, with more than 200 publications and book chapters in diverse areas of advanced surgical technology. Current research is focused on advanced technologies to formulate the architecture for the next generation of clinical medicine and surgery, education and training.

Nick Seddon is Senior Vice President and Head of Product at Optum, a leading healthcare company. Nick is responsible for product strategy, portfolio management, and growth investments – as well as an increasing focus on applying genomics to clinical practice.

Before joining Optum, Nick served as Special Advisor for Health and Life Sciences for the British Prime Minister David Cameron. In this role, he was a leader in developing and implementing strategies to ensure the long-term sustainability of the UK’s National Health Service. During the UK’s G8 presidency, Nick worked with the Prime Minister and other international stakeholders to bring the fight against dementia to the forefront of the global policy agenda.

Prior to his position at 10 Downing Street, Nick was Deputy Director of Reform, a leading think tank focusing on public services and the economy. Previously, he worked at Circle Health, then the UK’s fastest-growing healthcare company, and has authored many publications in national newspapers and journals, as well as a number of books and reports, and appeared frequently on television and radio. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge. In July 2016 he was awarded an MBE by the Queen.

Dr Richard Smith is Chair of the board of ICDDR,B (formerly International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh), an Adjunct Professor at Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, and Chair of the board of Patients Know Best (a company that gathers all patients’ medical and social care records and puts them under the control of the patients), an adviser to F1000Research, which is reinventing the publishing of science, and a manic blogger.

Previously he was Editor of the British Medical Journal and Chief Executive of the BMJ Publishing Group and a television doctor on BBC Breakfast Time and TV-AM.

Professor Suggs is an Associate Professor of Social Marketing and Head of the BeCHANGE Research Group in the Institute for Public Communication, Faculty of Communication Sciences, at the University of Lugano in Switzerland. She is also Director of the USI Sustainability Incubator. She received a BBA in Marketing at the University of North Texas, an MSc and PhD in Health Studies at Texas Woman’s University, and a post-doctoral fellowship at McMaster University.

Her research focuses on behaviour change communication through information and communication technologies. Professor Suggs examines the determinants of behaviour and tests innovative digital communication strategies, delivered through ICT, and the influence on health behaviours.

Prior to joining the faculty in Lugano, she was Assistant Professor of Health Communication, Department of Marketing Communication, at Emerson College and Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Professor Suggs is also Associate Editor of Global Health Communication and on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Health Communication.

Professor Matthew Swindells has worked his whole career in healthcare. He currently runs his own consultancy business, MJS Healthcare Consulting, and is working with a number of global organisations to develop their long-term healthcare strategies, as well as continuing to support NHS organisations with digitally enabled system transformation.

Prior to this, he was Deputy Chief Executive of NHS England. Before joining NHS England, Professor Swindells was a Senior Vice President with the world’s largest dedicated healthcare IT company, Cerner, based in the USA. Starting his career in the NHS as a graduate trainee, Professor Swindells moved on to many operational roles, including Chief Operating Officer for a large general hospital, which won the Acute Hospital of the Year.

Professor Swindells has spent two periods in government, one as the head of the health advisory team in the Cabinet Officer, directly advising Tony Blair as Prime Minister, and then as the Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary of State for Health. Professor Swindells also writes for the Health Service Journal, is a member of the University Council at Hull University, a Visiting Professor at Surrey University, and a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Population Health Management.

Dr Paul Thompson is the Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art, the world’s oldest art school in continuous operation, and the only art and design university in the UK operating exclusively at postgraduate level. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, the RCA was ranked the world’s number one art and design university in the QS World University Rankings.

Prior to 2009, Dr Thompson was Director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York from 2001-2009. He was Director of the Design Museum in London from 1993-2001 and was educated at the Universities of Bristol and East Anglia. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, a Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum and is on the Ashmolean Museum Board of Visitors.

William completed his DPhil at Oxford, focussing on obesity. He previously completed an MPhil in Public Policy from Cambridge. He also has deep health policy experience in Government, as the former senior health policy adviser to the Prime Minister, a position he held during the Covid-19 pandemic, where he was closely associated with many aspects of the response, including helping broker the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine partnership, setting up the testing programme and the vaccine roll-out. He also led the Prime Minister's obesity policies, including restriction junk food promotions in supermarkets, adding calorie labels to menus and designing laws to restrict junk food adverts. 

Prior to this role, William worked for Prof Sir John Bell, writing the 2017 Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. This included designing programmes, such as "Our Future Health", which aims to be one of the largest cohort studies in the world, recruiting 5m people to try to spot, prevent and treat diseases earlier.

In his free time, William was a keen rower, rowing for both Oxford and Cambridge in the boat race, winning for Oxford in 2017, and is a team GB Gold Medalist. 

Sir Andrew Witty became Chief Executive Officer of GlaxoSmithKline plc on 21 May 2008. He is a member of the Board and Corporate Executive Team. Sir Andrew joined Glaxo in 1985 and has held a variety of Sales and Marketing roles in the UK and abroad including working in the company’s International New Products groups, both in the respiratory and HIV/infectious disease fields. In 2003 he was appointed President of GSK Europe and joined GSK’s Corporate Executive Team.

Sir Andrew has served in numerous advisory roles to governments around the world including South Africa, Singapore, Guangzhou China and the UK, where he was a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group from 2010 - 2015.  He was awarded a Knighthood for services to the economy and to the UK pharmaceutical industry in the 2012 New Year Honours List. In 2014, he was appointed to be a Business Ambassador for the UK Government and in 2015, he became a member of the China-Britain Business Council Advisory Council.

Sir Andrew is Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, a position he took up on 1 January 2013. Sir Andrew has a Joint Honours BA in Economics from the University of Nottingham. 

Dr Suzette Woodward 

Dr Suzette Woodward is a National Director of Sign up to Safety working for the Department of Health and Social Care in England. She specialised in paediatric intensive care nursing before moving into patient safety roles which have led her to be the Board Director of the National Patient Safety Agency and NHS Resolution.

She has a master’s in clinical risk from UCL and a doctorate in patient safety. Dr Woodward has over 20 years of experience of patient safety policy at a national level and has led many large-scale change programmes and campaigns. Her current focus is delivering the current policy agenda to spread a just culture across the NHS and beyond.