OUR BOARD

Chair

Simon’s day job is Director of Strategy & Development at St Oswald’s Hospice. Simon is also the joint project lead for the Northern Palliative Care Education Partnership, Vice Chair of the Northern Palliative Care Research Group as well as an advisor to NHS England. He is an original member of the Plexus North East leaders group, a network of senior public, private and voluntary sector leaders committed to improving the regions health, wealth and wellbeing.

Safeguarding & Welfare Lead Trustee

Adam is Director of Sport at John Spence Community High School. After graduating from Liverpool John Moore’s University, Adam has spent the last 18 years teaching in North Tyneside. He works closely within the local community and neighbouring primary schools as well as being involved in the North East Partnership SCITT. Adam is seconded to the Youth Sport Trust for a number of days a year to support the charity as a Development Coach. Adam enjoys coaching and has been awarded Northumberland Cricket Coach of the Year as well as Rugby Football Leagues Teacher of the Year. Currently supporting sporting mad sons, he does still find the time to participate himself in golf and more recently Ultra events.

Anoop is the Managing Director of Aspire Wellbeing Limited, a care provider that offers mental health and learning disabilities in the North East and Cumbria.

After graduating from Newcastle University in 2000 with a MEng in Microelectronics and Software Engineering, Anoop moved into the healthcare industry. Since 2007, Aspire has expanded and he now manages a range of healthcare services including supported living, residential care, pharmacy and property. Aspire currently manage over 20 care settings and employs 320 staff members to provide high quality support for over 100 service users.

Vice Chair / Senior Independent Trustee

Debbie’s day job is Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs for Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, covering mental health and disability services to the North East and North Cumbria. She has worked for the NHS for over 20 years and has played a key role in delivering major organisational change, supporting the planning and delivery of NHS services including NHS mergers/acquisitions. Debbie has worked in some of the largest NHS Trusts in the country from the North East to the South West.

Graeme’s background is within Marketing, after studying business and specialising in marketing at University, he embarked on a career in which he now has over 25 years of professional experience across the full marketing spectrum.

The vast majority of this time has been spent with Greggs where he led the marketing team as Head of Customer & Marketing for the last 8 years; seeing the brand win a number of high profile awards for the quality of its marketing and growing significantly to become recognised as one of the most loved brands within the UK.

Joanne’s day job is Assistant Director People Strategy and Change at Homes England. This role enables Joanne to contribute to her particular areas of interest of large-scale change projects, engagement and learning and organisation development.

With over Joanne 20 years’ experience in HR and originally starting her career in finance, Joanne has worked both in the private and public sectors; ranging from technology to Higher Education.

Katy is Director of Sport at Newcastle University, having moved there in 2022 from her role of Head of Sport at Northumbria University.

Prior to moving into the HE sector, she worked within the sport sector for the Rugby Football Union and Women’s Sport Foundation, supporting the development of women’s sport within the South West and North East regions.

Matthew has worked for Ward Hadaway for 10 years, advising on company and commercial law and in April of 2017 he was admitted as a Partner of the firm. He provides advice to a number of international group companies and listed businesses within the region, along with not for profit and charitable organisations, this work often involves advice on corporate governance requirements and best practice.

Audit Committee Chair

Nic is the Group Treasurer of Newcastle Building Society and a Committee Member at the Bank of England.

She is a graduate of Nottingham Law School (1995) who moved into the world of Treasury in 1997. AMCT qualified having been highlighted as being a “One to Watch” in 2014 by the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

Steven has worked in Further Education for over 20 years and has a background in sport and exercise; after lecturing at Sunderland and Northumberland College Steven moved to New College Durham in 2007. After completing his MSc in Applied Sport & Exercise Science in 2011, Steven moved into management. In that time Steven has managed a range of FE and HE provision including Podiatry, Social Work, Counselling, Accounting, Management, Sport, Housing, Human Resources Management and more recently Access to HE and International.

In 2023, Steven moved to Durham University Business School as the Deputy Faculty Manager.