Our trustees
Dr Damien Marmion (Chair)
Dr Damien Marmion is a healthcare leader with over 30 years of experience in global health services. He earned his medical degree in 1991 and has since held a wide range of roles across various healthcare sectors.
Damien spent 21 years with Bupa, where he led the Asian businesses in Hong Kong and initiated a health insurance startup in India. He also served as the CEO of UK Insurance at Bupa. In 2015, he joined AXA as CEO of Global Healthcare, managing businesses across 30 countries. During this time, he developed an interest in digital healthcare, which led him to establish his own advisory company in 2017.
Beyond executive roles, Damien has contributed as a Non-Executive Director (NED) and Board Chair for various organisations, most recently the Medical Protection Society, Changing Health, and Benenden Healthcare Society.
Mr Owen Watson (Treasurer)
Owen is a Chartered Accountant and currently Head of Customer and Retail Finance for a national operator in the tourism and leisure industry. He has over a decade of post-qualified experience including with Barclays Bank, Severn Trent Water and Goodyear Tires. He currently serves as Senior Independent Director of a disability sports charity and has done so since 2018, including chairing the Governance, Audit and Renumeration Committees.
Dr Kate Brown
Kate is Director of Learn English at Home, an ambitious local charity supporting vulnerable ethnic minority adults in Kingston and Richmond. She has worked in third sector leadership since 2010, before that teaching in secondary schools in the UK and abroad.
Mr Ben Butler
Ben is a communications professional with 20 years experience leading digital innovation and change projects. The constant in his career is the belief that technological innovation, built on consumer insights and data, married with impactful communications have the potential to dramatically improve health outcomes. After a decade leading the Drinkaware Trust's Digital, Communications and Marketing functions, Ben is now Executive Director for External Affairs at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, passionately driving forward the College's mission to improve the health of women and girls around the globe.
Mr Stephen Fenwick
Stephen qualified in medicine from Nottingham University in 1995, subsequently training in hepatobiliary and liver transplant surgery. For his Doctorate he studied the role of COX-2 in the development of colorectal cancer liver metastases. In 2008 he was appointed Consultant Hepatobiliary Surgeon at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool, and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He is the Clinical Lead of the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, the Director of the Mersey and Cheshire Hepatobiliary Cancer Specialist Multi-disciplinary Team, and the Clinical Director of cancer services within his hospital. He is also associate Clinical Director for cancer within the North West Coast Strategic Clinical Network.
Mrs Husna Grimes
Husna is a senior commercial and privacy lawyer with 18 years of legal, compliance and regulatory experience, focused on using data responsibly to drive commercial growth in compliance with local and global privacy regulations. After leaving private practice in 2009 she joined Channel 4, the UK not-for-profit broadcaster, leading on all aspects of data protection compliance through their digital transformation. Husna set up her own privacy consultancy in 2017 where she acted as a trusted business advisor to CEOs, Founders and Boards across a wide range of sectors such as TV, Tech and Health and provided fractional DPO services for start-ups. Husna is currently VP Global Privacy at Permutive, a digital technology company, where she is responsible for privacy strategy and operations as well as establishing a framework for evaluating and complying with emerging privacy standards around the world. Husna also champions DEI programmes internally and within the Media and Privacy industry. She sits on the IAPP's Women Leading Privacy Advisory Board and volunteers as a mentor for Media For All, which aims to help diverse talent thrive in the UK media and advertising industry.
Ms Alison Hill
Alison trained in general nursing at Guy’s Hospital in London, then in oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital. She completed a master’s degree in Heath Studies which also included a Health Visiting qualification. She has worked in a number of acute centres both in and outside London, as well as primary care and hospice. Alison is currently the Director of Cancer and Palliative Care Nursing at Barts Health NHS Trust in East London.
Her particular areas of interest include cancer patient experience, the role of the Clinical Nurse Specialist and hospital palliative care.
Mr Tim Kerr
Tim has a background in the arts. He was the Director of Arts & Business NI, Head of Development at the Royal National Theatre, Chief Executive of Opera Northern Ireland and Head of Cultural Development, Ulster University.
He has been an active volunteer with us since 2018 and is currently the lead Patient Representative for the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, Belfast; a prominent member of the Northern Ireland Cancer Research Consumer Forum; and a panel member of the World Cancer Research Fund International. He has been involved on the Board of several charities and has a broad experience of governance responsibilities.
Mr Paul Latham
Paul is a member of the Executive Leadership Team at the Charity Commission, accountable for the Commission’s policy, trustee guidance and research and overseeing all its communications activity. He joined the Charity Commission from the Competition and Markets Authority, where he was Director of Communications & Strategy. Prior to that, he was Director of Communications at the Office of Fair Trading and also held senior communications roles at the CBI business group and the Strategic Rail Authority.
Dr Alastair McKinlay
Dr. Alastair McKinlay was brought up and educated in Edinburgh and graduated from the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1982. His postgraduate training was in Edinburgh, Birmingham and Aberdeen where he was appointed as a Consultant Gastroenterologist from 1992 until he retired in 2022.
Alastair was a general gastroenterologist and bowel cancer screening endoscopist, with specialist interests in nutrition, and in particular eating disorders. He still carries out bowel cancer screening on a part time basis.
He was Secretary and President of the Scottish Society of Gastroenterology and Co-chair of the Scottish Government’s National Nutritional Care Advisory Board. Alastair was appointed President-elect of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) in 2018, becoming President and Chair of the Board of Trustees from 2020 to 2022. During that time, he led the BSG through the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaw its advice on continuing services during the lockdowns.
Mr Duncan Rudkin
Duncan originally practiced as a commercial solicitor before moving to work in health regulation. He held a number of senior roles, including chief executive, in the UK's dental regulator, the General Dental Council. He has also led the General Pharmaceutical Council as its chief executive since its creation. During his career in health regulation, for a number of years Duncan chaired the steering group of the chief executives of the UK health professional regulatory bodies. He has previously served as a founding trustee of the College of General Dentistry, and as a trustee board member at St Catherine's Hospice.
Dr Diana Tait
Diana is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist based at the Royal Marsden Hospital since 1988. She has a specialist interest in Upper Gastrointestinal, Colorectal, Hepatobiliary, Anal and Breast cancers. Her main research interests focus around using new radiotherapy technologies to improve treatment delivery, reduce side effects and improve patient outcomes. She has a special interest in the late consequences of treatment and survivorship issues. She is presently Chair of the National Radiotherapy Awareness Programme (RAP), a cross-sector group seeking to raise public awareness of radiotherapy and its benefits to patients. Diana has an extensive research portfolio and is currently Principle Investigator on two clinical trials, one a rectal cancer study which involves intensive follow-up for patients who may be able to avoid surgery by adopting a "Watch and Wait" policy. The other is a rectal cancer study investigating the best time to perform surgery following pre-operative chemo-radiation.
Ms Angie Wiles
Angie Wiles is a highly experienced senior business leader and healthcare communications professional, business mentor and Executive Coach who enjoys the challenge of helping clients find and communicate their point of 'difference'. Angie worked for three of the UK's leading PR consultancies before establishing industry-leading communications and PR business, Virgo Health, building it into one of the most successful UK healthcare consultancies and growing it to a global stage. She is now the proud Founder and CEO of The Difference Collective, a unique communications and content 'non-agency' for the health sector. Here, a diverse range of talented, senior-level experts work together to offer our clients expertise in healthcare sector communications, content and consultancy.