Meet the board

Sue has worked in the NHS for more than 30 years as chief executive in London, Cumbria, the North East and Liverpool. She has led hospital and community trusts, with a particular focus on improving organisations and leading them through significant change. Sue has previously worked in the northern region, leading hospital and community services in Northumberland and North Tyneside from 1990 to 2005, resulting in the creation of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in 1998. She also ran NHS Cumbria for seven years from 2006 to 2013 and received a CBE for services to the NHS in 2000.

Robert joined the trust in 2020 from Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, where he served as chief operating officer for ten successful years. Robert holds a postgraduate diploma in Health Service Management from the University of Birmingham and a bachelor’s degree in Applied Biochemistry from the University of Liverpool and worked in pharmaceutical research prior to joining the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme. He subsequently held NHS management positions in Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire, prior to moving to Harrogate in 2010.

Chris is a qualified accountant with over 20 years’ experience in NHS financial management, including 13 years at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Most recently, Chris served as the executive director of finance at Northumberland County Council.

Dr Hilary Lloyd was appointed chief nurse in 2021. Hilary qualified in 1989 and has held a number of nursing posts including acute health care, education and research. Most recently she served as the director of nursing, midwifery and quality at Gateshead NHS Foundation Trust.

Mike is a consultant cardiologist and was appointed chief medical officer in 2021. Most recently, he served as director of cardiovascular services at Auckland District Health Board. Prior to this Mike worked as a cardiologist at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust from 1996 to 2018 where he also held medical leadership roles.

Derek has 40 years’ experience in the NHS and previously served as president of the Royal College of Physicians. He was awarded an OBE in 2018 for services to unscheduled care and quality improvement.

Ali has a long history of public service, having begun her NHS career as a nurse in the early 1980s. She has held a variety of clinical, managerial and academic positions, leading and evaluating service improvement, major service and organisational change. Before her retirement from a full-time senior leadership role in 2018, Ali was the chief executive officer for NHS Darlington and NHS Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees Clinical Commissioning Groups and chair of the North East Leadership Academy.
Ali is passionate about leadership development and system working and committed to the delivery of high quality, personalised and effective care both within a hospital and community environment. She has a long-standing interest in harnessing the potential of patient, carer and public involvement, having undertaken a Fulbright Fellowship at the Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota in 2001, which focused on patient and public engagement in the co-design of services.

Ada has had a lengthy career in local government, in regeneration roles in London Councils, and until 2018 as chief executive of Darlington Borough Council. In this role she has worked across the Tees Valley with a particular interest in health inequalities. Ada is a governor and chair designate of Teesside University, and a trustee of a community arts centre.

With roots firmly in the North East, David has enjoyed over 20 years in technology leadership and advisory roles around the world. His most recent role as a senior executive partner at research and advisory company Gartner sees him act as strategic advisory to multiple public and private companies in the UK. Prior to this David performed several CIO roles in different industries and served as a non-executive director at Newcastle Building Society and the Nation Union of Students. Married with two children and living in County Durham, David joined the board in January 2021.

Mark is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and an experienced human resource professional having worked at a senior level in a number of multi-national organisations. Mark's previous roles included EMEA employee relations director for Cummins, HR director for DS Smith and HR business partner at Nuffield Hospitals. A former serving police officer at Cleveland Police and commended for standing up for equality and integrity in policing. He is a self employed consultant providing HR consultancy and mediation services to a range of clients.

While Miriam is proud of her Australian heritage she has lived and worked happily in the North East for over 35 years. Throughout her career in the NHS (1988 to 2014) and local government (2014 to 2020) she has held senior roles in health improvement and public health. Miriam is a registered specialist in public health and during her post as director of Public Health for Darlington she was also vice chair of the north east branch of the Association of Directors of Public Health. More recently Miriam has supported the North East Public Health Specialty Training Programme (HEE), as head of School of Public Health.
Miriam continues to coach, mentor and appraise specialists in public health. Her focus is on health inequalities and the challenge of why health appears to be for some, not all.

Ken is a chartered accountant with considerable experience of the chemical and power generation sectors, both in the UK and abroad.
He was previously audit chair of NHS North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group, has several charitable roles, and is passionate about helping to provide communities with the best possible public services.

Rudy is a retired consultant endocrinologist working at South Tees from 1990 until 2016. He was appointed Professor of clinical medicine at Newcastle University in 2000 and was the sub dean for Medical Education on Teesside for over 15 years. He has held senior positions in Diabetes UK (the national charity for people with Diabetes) and the Royal College of Physicians. He has also served on the Council of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes as well as many research committees in the UK, Europe and the USA. He was dean of clinical affairs for the Newcastle University Medical School in Malaysia (NUMed) from 2016 - 18, and acted as a consultant in medical education at The James Cook University Hospital from 2019 to 2022.

Alyson is a chartered accountant and has extensive experience in procurement, commercial, assurance, governance and finance in the NHS, the Department for Health and the Department for Education (DfE). At one stage she was director of NHS Commercial Development. She is currently the finance director of a property company that is an arm's length body of the DfE.