Leadership and Governance

Mickey is currently the Global Solutions Lead for Service Delivery in the Health Nutrition and Population Global Practice of the World Bank. He leads its work around the organisation, management and quality of health services.

Previous to this he was the Chief of Health and Associate Director of Programs at UNICEF’s New York Headquarters, leading the agency’s work on maternal, newborn and child health, immunisation, pediatric HIV/AIDS, and health systems strengthening, policy and research.

Mickey is qualified as a medical doctor with an additional degree in medical sociology from the University of Southampton, Master's in Public Health (Primary Health in Developing Countries) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1997 and a PhD from Faculty of Medicine, University of Uppsala, Sweden.Mickey has published over 200 international peer-reviewed papers and contributed to numerous book chapters concerned with international child health and nutrition.

Simon has been an academic for 30 years. He has been Head of the School of Medicine Pharmacy and Health at Durham and now leads one of the University's Colleges as well, holding a Chair in Sociology.

Simon's teaching, research and writing focuses on a range of health-related issues including the practice of educating healthcare professionals in the social basis and context of medicine and health, gender, sex, sexuality and health and health education with a focus on young people. He continues to teach, supervise and advise in academic, policy and charitable contexts.

Until most recently, Lesley spent the last decade as Clinical Lead for Digital Health & Care with the Scottish Governments and for NHS Education Scotland’s Digitally Enabled Workforce programme.

Lesley has had a lifelong interest in informatics and particularly its criticality in driving improvement and has held a number of related national and organisational executive positions. She has and continues to work with various organisations at a UK and global level developing digital initiatives including establishing standards for digital practice, competencies, strategy and workforce development about which she has widely published.

Lesley is a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, the Winston Churchill Trust and the British Computer Society. Lesley is also an experienced non-executive/Trustee including past Chair of the Board of Bield, one of the largest Housing Association in Scotland. In 2018, she was named Scottish Digital Impact Leader and Digital Health’s UK Digital Team Leader of the year and awarded an OBE in 2020 for her services to healthcare.

Paul was appointed as Chief Executive of Public Health Scotland in March 2023. He is focussed on the delivery of Public Health Scotland’s purpose - improving life expectancy and tackling health inequalities. Public Health Scotland works across the domains of public health, with a remit that includes health protection, health improvement and healthcare. 

Prior to this role, Paul spent eight years as a Director General and member of the Executive Team in the Scottish Government. His responsibilities covered many areas of social policy that impact on health including education, justice, social security, child poverty and public service reform.

Kevin was appointed as the first Director of NHS Scotland Academy, Learning and Innovation in NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in 2023. Prior to this, he was the founding director of NHS Scotland Academy, a national joint venture established in 2021 between NES and NHS Golden Jubilee.

In 2023, Kevin was appointed as a visiting professor within Strathclyde Business School at the University of Strathclyde in recognition of his experience in leadership and management in public services.

Kevin has been a member of the Scottish Funding Council’s Skills, Enhancement, Access and Learning (SEAL) Committee since 2023. 

Prior to joining the NHS in 2021, Kevin was previously Chief Operating Officer and Chief Education Officer, at Stirling Council, and has over 30 years of experience working in the public sector. He has been an associate assessor with Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education and professional associate with Education Scotland, where he has been involved in inspections of schools and education authorities. 

Kevin has written a number of books, chapters in books, and professional development articles for professionals working across a wide range of education, health and social services roles.

Donald has worked for many years in the health and social care sectors across the United Kingdom. A particular professional focus has been issues related to dementia, bereavement, palliative care and individual human rights.

He is the CEO of Scottish Care, the representative body for care providers in the independent sector in Scotland, namely private, charitable, and employee-owned care organisations which includes care home and home care organisations.

He serves on several Scottish, UK and international charities and boards related to health and social care including at present as a Director of the Global Ageing Network. A weekly blogger, podcaster and public speaker he is an active campaigner for older person rights.

Widely known for her research at the intersection of science and society, Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study located in Princeton, New Jersey, and there leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab.

Alondra's research takes an innovative approach to the social sciences in generative dialogue with other fields. She connects these dimensions in a range of publications including Genetics and the Unsettled Past and The Social Life of DNA, as well as articles in Science, PLOS: Computational Biology, PLOS: Medicine, Genetics in Medicine, and the American Journal of Public Health.

She served as deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director and principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). At OSTP, Alondra spearheaded the development of the "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights." She was also an inaugural member of the White House Cancer Cabinet, strengthened evidence-based policymaking, and galvanised a multisector strategy to expand opportunity in the STEM fields, among other accomplishments.

In recognition of Alondra's public service tenure, Nature included her in the list of "Ten People Who Shaped Science." In 2023, she was named to the inaugural TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was also appointed to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on AI. In 2024, she was appointed to the U.S. National Science Board. Previously, she was a professor at Yale University and at Columbia University, where she established the Division of Social Science, serving as its first dean. As president of the Social Science Research Council, an independent international nonprofit organisation, she developed innovative programs connecting foundational research to pressing social challenges.

A distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Alondra advises on public policy at national and international levels. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the recipient of honorary degrees from Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the City University of New York.

As Director of the Wolfson Institute of Population Health (WIPH), Fiona is responsible for the strategic leadership of the Institute’s research and education. She also co-leads the WIPH’s Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Unit, with the objective to deliver world-class research focussing on the cancer pathway, from prevention, screening, early detection and diagnostics to pre-treatment care; also focussing on translating genetics advances into primary care.

Fiona has won research grants totalling more than £35m in the UK and AU$8m in Australia, and published over 220 peer-reviewed articles. She co-leads the CanTest Collaborative, Cancer Research UK’s first Catalyst award, aiming to accelerate progress towards improving cancer outcomes by focussing on the transformative implementation in primary care of tests to support early detection of cancer. Fiona is also co-investigator on the £5m NIHR Policy Research Unit in Cancer Awareness, Screening and Early Diagnosis.

Current UK research leadership roles include membership of Cancer Research UK’s Early Detection and Diagnosis and Clinical Academic Committees. She has an honorary post at the University of Cambridge’s Primary Care Unit in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and continues to supervise students and completing studies. Fiona's international work is marked by an honorary academic role at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she contributes to parallel programmes of work on improving outcomes for cancer patients. She also co-leads research in South Africa and Zimbabwe with a NIHR Global Research Group ‘Advancing Early Diagnosis of Cancer across Southern Africa, and contributes to research in Europe and the US. Her educational and capacity building work is marked by the setting up and delivery of the CanTest International School in Cancer Detection Research in Primary Care.