Professor William Pope
Chair
Professor William Pope has a wealth of experience, leadership and expertise gained from senior roles within industry, the NHS and academia, including at chairman and chief executive level. He has significant experience of working with world-leading companies and organisations including BAE Systems, the BBC, BIS, BP, British Nuclear Fuels, Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, Huawei, IBM, the NHS, Shell and Unilever, and was Chief Executive Officer of the UK’s largest integrated health, safety and environmental business for 10 years. He has been one of the UK’s leaders in managing and developing environmental technology companies over the last 35 years, and is a four times winner of the “Technology Fast 50” awards for the fastest growing companies.
Amongst other appointments he was previously director & Chairman of the East of England Regional Development Agency (2006-2012) and Northamptonshire & Milton Keynes Primary Care Trusts (2006-2013), and is now Chairman of the Board at Y&H Academic Health Science Partners (2014-date), a Board member (and now Chairman) at University Campus Suffolk (2014-date), Chairman of Healthwatch Northamptonshire (2013-17) and is a Board member (now Vice Chairman) of East Midlands Pathology (2012-date).
Will was educated at St. Mary’s College, the University of Plymouth – where he was awarded the honour of “Best Student” by Prince Charles (1976) – and Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London; he has a 1st class honours degree in Environmental Science (1976), and is a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv 2004). He is a Fellow of the Institution of Environmental Sciences.
Susan Hills
Lay Member
After a successful career in the world of information science and project management at the British Library, Susan moved into the NHS as Chair and subsequently Non-Executive Director of Primary Care Trusts in Northamptonshire. She volunteered with Healthwatch Northamptonshire so that she could continue to help join up and improve the health and social care services provided locally.
Susan has worked in the voluntary sector with the Citizens Advice Bureau, Northamptonshire Network 50+, and other organisations for some years. She believes that the voluntary sector can provide a lot to help an individual have a more fulfilled, active and enjoyable life, and wants to further the work of the health professionals with the third sector.
Susan is also a lay member with the Employments Tribunals service. She enjoys hill walking, going to the theatre and gardening.
Dr Stephen O’Brien
University of Northampton
Dr Stephen O’Brien has worked in the Higher Education sector since 1986 in numerous roles supporting health and social care education. An adult and mental health nurse by professional background he is currently the Dean of faculty for Health and Society at the University of Northampton. Prior to this and over the past 12 years he has worked as Director of academic programmes at Robert Gordon University in Scotland where he developed a number of national programmes for children and young people practitioners and developed a passion for flexible learning and teaching methodologies. For the past five years he was head of the School of Health at Coventry University where he was instrumental in curriculum transformation to address changing health and social care services requirements. In addition he advanced a number of international education partnerships in China, Hong Kong, USA, Sri Lanka, Greece and Scandinavia. Since taking up post at Northampton in July 2016 he has served as a director of First for Wellbeing and Connected Together CIC and is a member of the Local Workforce Action Board shaping the future workforce and educational needs of health and social care staff as part of the Northamptonshire Healthcare Partnership developments. He also serves on the Social Prescribing Implementation Board for the county and is a member of the Council of Deans for Health (UK). His research interests centre on pedagogy and educational partnership development.
Kate Holt
Chief Executive Officer
Kate has both Institute of Management and Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications. She has had a diverse working background, most recently in banking commercial services. Prior to this Kate was the Business Manager for the Peer Clearing House at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and Chief Officer of Huntingdon Community Health Council, monitoring the NHS on behalf of the public.