Our speakers
We are delighted to announce our speakers for this year's conference.
Keynote speakers
Dame Sandra Dawson
Dame Sandra Dawson is KPMG Professor Emeritus of Management Studies at Judge Business School in the University of Cambridge where she has held former offices as a deputy vice-chancellor, Master of Sidney Sussex College (1999–2009) and Director of Judge Business School (1995–2006).
Her research focuses on leadership, knowledge sharing, organizational change, and health policy. She serves as a board member of TSB, Winton Capital Group, the SSRC in the USA, the Institute for Government, and the American University of Sharjah. Previous board memberships include the Financial Services Authority, Oxfam, Barclays Bank, and the British prime minister’s Council for Science and Technology.
She was a member of an advisory group for Aga Khan University on the establishment of a management school to serve the needs of emerging economies and a member of the UK-India Round Table.
Lord Nigel Crisp
Lord Crisp is an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords where he co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health.
He spends much of his time working on global health, particularly in Africa. He was previously Chief Executive of the NHS in England and Permanent Secretary of the UK Department of Health between 2000 and 2006.
Lord Crisp has written extensively on health. His book Turning the world upside down describes what high income countries can learn from middle and low income countries and takes further the ideas about partnership and mutual learning developed in Global Health Partnerships. He described his time as Chief Executive of the NHS in 24 Hours to Save the NHS – the Chief Executive’s account of reform 2000 – 2006.
His most recent books include African Health Leaders, edited with Francis Omaswa, and, just published, One World Health.
More information at nigelcrisp.com, @lordnigelcrisp.
Nathalie Cecutti
Nathalie is head of future horizons for the sustainable development unit at the Ministry of Environment, Energy and the Sea in France. She is the ministry’s state architect and urban expert for public futures and specialises in living spaces, buildings, cities and landscapes.
She has developed methodologies for engaging with people in discussions about future lifestyles and public programmes.
She qualified as an architect at Nancy University and obtained a Certificate in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston. She is a European expert for the 2020 Horizon programme
Nathalie has co-authored a series of booklets including Thinking differently – lifestyles of 2030; Weak signals and Future lifestyle observatory, and has contributed to the evolution of discussion about future sustainable cities and places in France and Europe.
She is a keen artist and loves Italian opera.
Prof Carol Brayne
Professor Carol Brayne CBE is a Professor of Public Health Medicine, the Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Carol's research focuses on the public health of ageing through longitudinal studies of older people following changes over time in cognition, dementia natural history and associated features with a public health perspective. She has successfully worked to engage with policymakers, the public and patients in the scientific understanding of dementia, which can positively impact the lives of the world’s poorest 3 billion people. Her interest in equity, global systems and sustainability was sparked from an early age: she founded Friends of the Earth at The University of London Union as a medical student.
Carol believes biomedical science needs to have a greater orientation towards social and global sustainability, including equity as a core value. How can we can orientate our research excellence to provide globally relevant, substantial and viable contributions that help the global population to work towards a more sustainable future, one which allows more people to experience the best possible health and well-being?
Graeme Chisholm
Graeme joined the Tropical health and Education Trust (THET) in September 2011. Graeme leads on influencing UK policy on international volunteering co-authoring HMG’s Engaging in Global Health, develops resources for the health partnership community such as THET’s principles of partnership and authors policy report’s the latest of which In Our Mutual Interest, addresses the latest developments in UK international development policy.
Prior to working with THET, Graeme worked with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in recruitment, fundraising, partnerships and latterly in their policy unit as programme development adviser for Health
Dr Brian Fisher
Dr Brian Fisher MBE is Vice-Chair of the New NHS Alliance, which works cross-sector and with the NHS to raise the profile of health creation. The movement encourages statutory services in creating the conditions for communities and individuals and gain the 3Cs: control, confidence and contact with others.
Brian is also Clinical and Strategy Director of Evergreen Life, a software company that, through the NHS, offers people in England the ability to access their GP records and do many other online services, improving the efficiency and safety of healthcare – and shifting the balance of power between users and the health system.
Dr David Pencheon
David Pencheon is a UK trained doctor and is currently Director of the Sustainable Development Unit [SDU] for NHS England and Public Health England on behalf of the health and care system in England.
The SDU develops organisations, people, tools, and policy to help the NHS and Public Health system in England fulfil their potential as leading sustainable and low carbon organisations.
The unit helps shape policy, disseminates the best evaluated practice on sustainable development, promotes an appropriate health related response to climate change, and develops programmes of organisational and personal development in these areas for NHS, public health, and social care organisations and teams.
David Pencheon was previously Director of a Public Health Observatory in Cambridge from 2001 to 2007. He has worked as a clinical doctor in the NHS, a joint Director of Public Health, a Public Health Training Programme Director in the East of England, with the NHS R&D programme, and in rural China in the early 1990s with Save the Children Fund (UK).
His main interests and areas of research and publication are: sustainable development; large scale transformational change; health and climate change; leadership; strategy development; underpinning policy and practice with good information and evidence; training and professional development, organisational development, behaviour change, social value, innovation, health informatics and decision support for health professionals, patients and public.
Professor Arthur Hibble
Professor Arthur Hibble is a Visiting Professor at Anglia Ruskin University’s Post-graduate Medical Institute and the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education.
Arthur was a family doctor for 28 years and intimately involved in the delivery, development and evaluation of clinical postgraduate education at local, national and international levels. He was also one of the curriculum writers for the UK foundation course, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) curriculum and was the clinical lead for the UK GP ePortfolio for GP training. More recently he has been working in the field of inter-professional education and working.
After retirement, he became Postgraduate Dean for the East of England Multi-professional deanery and has been an active proponent for an integrated primary care educational structure that reflects the reality of good family medicine.
His current interests are in exploring and researching ways of learning and practising global health. He was part of a team that has run a Global Health Fellowship Pilot programme, administered by Hughes Hall, where he is a Senior Member. This is generating work in the areas of Social determinants of health, Capabilities Approach, Accountability Systems in health and education in areas of deprivation in any country of any income level.
Arthur has a personal interest in the development of sustainable health and education systems in a Maasai Community in Kenya.
Halima Khan
Halima is Executive Director at Nesta, a global innovation foundation which backs new ideas to tackle the big challenges of our time. Halima leads Nesta’s Health Lab which seeks to create a people-powered and data-driven health system that makes the most of resources around the system: from people’s own motivation and citizen-generated data, as well as the knowledge and commitment of health professionals. Health Lab uses a mix of funding, research, networks, experiments and wider influence, working with innovators across public services, civil society and business.
Halima has been a Trustee of Diabetes UK and member of the Council of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Her publications include “Health as a Social Movement: The Power of People in Movements” and “NHS in 2030: a people-powered and knowledge-powered health system”. Prior to joining Nesta, Halima worked at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office and has also worked in local government. In 2015, Halima was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Health Sciences from Anglia Ruskin University.
Malcolm Lowe-Lauri
Malcolm Lowe-Lauri is the Executive Director of Cambridge University Health Partners. He was previously the Executive Director of Health, Ageing and Human Services for KPMG Australia. He spent over thirty years working for the NHS, during which time he held Chief Executive Officer roles at University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust, and King's College Hospital London.
Malcolm recently became a Fellow in Health Management in the Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise based at Judge Business School. He has also been a commissioner for NHS Research and Development Programmes, and was a member of the NIHR Advisory Board for 6 years. He holds an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Birkbeck University of London, and a BA in Modern History from the University of Oxford, as well as a certificate in Health Economics from the University of Aberdeen, and a Diploma in Health Service Management from the Institute of Healthcare Management. He is an Honorary Fellow of Kings College London, and was awarded a CBE in 2009
Professor Emeritus of Leadership at the University of Exeter and visiting Professor at several prominent universities, Jonathan’s current research projects include a comparison of leadership development in health services around the world; leadership of agricultural reform in Colombia; the management of malaria elimination programs in southern Africa; and multi-sector partnerships in UK flood defence schemes.
Jonathan is lead faculty of the forward.institute, co-founder of the One Planet MBA and Coachingourselves.com, and previously worked as a community mediator.
Dr Cassandra Thiel
Dr Cassandra Thiel is an Assistant Professor at New York University in the School of Medicine, the Wagner School of Public Service, and the Tandon School of Engineering.
Her research utilises life cycle assessment and principles of industrial ecology to analyse and improve the environmental performance of infrastructure systems, hospital design, healthcare practice, and medical technologies. As a 2014-2015 Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellow, Dr Thiel calculated the environmental footprint of cataract surgery at Aravind Eye Care System in southern India, finding that Aravind’s carbon footprint for phacoemulsification was 5% of the same surgery done in the United Kingdom.
She received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and BS from Michigan Technological University, both in Civil Engineering. Her graduate training was supported by the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and an NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT).
Dr Nick Watts
Nick is the Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change, an independent and multi-disciplinary research collaboration between academic centres around the world. It is based at University College London’s Institute for Global Health, and is a continuation of the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change. The Countdown tracks and drives progress towards a world which is responding to climate change in a way that protects and promotes public health.
Nick is a medical doctor having qualified from the University of Western Australia, and trained in population health (UWA) and public policy (University College London). He regularly consults with the World Health Organization’s Dept. of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, where he provides technical expertise on a range of policy issues, and supports the WHO’s engagement with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Nick also works as the Director of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, which brings together the UK’s major health institutions, including the BMA, The Lancet, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Nursing, General Practitioners. The Alliance aims to support the health profession and engage government in accelerating a transition towards a healthier climate.
Susannah Robinson
Susannah Robinson works on digital health policy. She is a consultant at the World Health Organization, looking at how to integrate mobile health services for chronic diseases into national health systems. She also leads a collaboration with the UK on digital services for public health.
Susannah's background is in technology for international development. She holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Sebastian Manhart
Sebastian is the Director of Business Development at Simprints, a non-profit tech start-up backed by USAID, DFID, GIF, and the Gates Foundation focused on providing biometric identification in the world´s harshest settings. His main task at Simprints is to drive the company towards financial sustainability by developing innovative business models and managing Simprints' client pipeline consisting of NGOs, businesses, and governments around the world.
Sebastian’s academic background is in development economics with degrees from the University College London and the University of Cambridge.