Ajit Abraham
Principal, Staff College, Consultant HPB & Trauma Surgeon, Barts Health and Barts Health Executive Group Director for Inclusion and Equity

Mr Ajit ABRAHAM MBBS, MS, MA (Medical Ethics & Law), FRCS, FRCS (General Surgery) is a Consultant General, Trauma & HPB Surgeon at the Royal London Hospital, Barts Health.
At Barts Health, he has held a number of strategic leadership positions including Executive CAG Director for Surgery 2014-16, Chair of the Boards of Surgery & Cancer 2017-18, and Barts Health Deputy Chief Medical Officer 2016-18.

On surgical sabbatical 2018-19, he re-established and led the HPB surgical service at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Singapore delivering open and minimally invasive hepato-biliary and pancreatic surgical care to the local population.

Ajit has a special interest in clinical leadership, equity and inclusion, quality improvement, patient safety and education. He has an MA in Medical Ethics & Law from Keele University, UK, 2004. He was Health Foundation QI Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Harvard from 2011-12. He has been Principal of Staff College since 2016.

He is an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at Queen Mary University London and was appointed the Barts Health Undergraduate Dean in 2020. Ajit was appointed as the first Barts Health Executive Group Director for Inclusion and Equity in April 2022, having co-chaired the Barts Health Group Inclusion Board with Group CEO, Dame Alwen Williams.

He has a longstanding ‘Hatha Vinyasa’ Yoga and ‘Vipassana’ meditation practice.

Dr Yogen Amin

Yogi is a Consultant Neuroanaesthetist and Neurointensivist, and Head of Department at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Neurology, UCL. He is also the Senior Organisational Development Lead for Leadership and Engagement at UCLH. He is a member of the core programme design team and facilitator for the Staff College.  Yogi has had experience with high fidelity platform simulation, with an interest in behaviours and human factors for over 10 years. His other roles include School Governor and Executive Coach.   

Charlie Brown
CEO

Charlie has led the charity through its formative two years as Chief Operating Officer before taking up the role of Chief Executive in 2018. She works closely with the Charity’s Trustees and Faculty to ensure the Charity continues to deliver programmes of the highest quality for the healthcare leaders it serves. 

Charlie brings many years of NHS experience in clinical services, education and has supported the NHS Staff College since its inception. She is a passionate advocate of the importance of leadership and Staff College’s unique approach.

Charlie started her career as an apprentice luthier (guitar repairer), gradually working her way up to running the largest independent guitar repairs workshop in Europe and working for musicians and bands from all over the world.

Mr Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards is a Consultant Vascular and Trauma Surgeon based in London and the South East of England. He oversees a service improvement portfolio that includes the implementation and study of novel methods of integrating Serious Incident data in order to identify patterns and trends.

Mark graduated in Medicine from the University of London in 2003 and has worked within the NHS since. His practice as a Vascular and Trauma surgeon includes work in two specialist, tertiary care centres as well as several networked secondary care hospitals where his work interfaces with primary care.

During his training Mark undertook a two-year Safety and Leadership Fellowship linked to the work of the Staff College that saw the commencement of his work looking at the analysis of integrated Serious Incident data. This applied academic work, based upon complexity theory, has since been adopted by a number of healthcare bodies where it is being used to inform quality improvement processes.

Brigadier Ian Huntley OBE

Ian Huntley was commissioned into the Royal Marines on a university cadetship. His operational experience, mainly with 3 Commando Brigade, included tours in Northern Ireland, Northern Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was the Deputy Task Force Commander. He has held a number of command and staff appointments dealing with Counter Terrorism, Nuclear Security, and Targeting. He has also worked on policy and strategy in the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. For the last four years of his service, Ian was head of the MOD’s leadership centre, which was set up to improve the capacity of senior military officers and civil servants for strategic leadership.

Ian left the Royal Marines in 2016 and now works as an independent leadership, defence and security consultant, and an executive coach. He primarily helps to develop the leadership skills of individuals and organisations, and is currently working with the NHS, police, MOD and industry. He is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute, a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and an Honorary Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford. He enjoys most legal outdoor activities, as long as it’s not raining.

Captain David Lilley Royal Navy

David Lilley served in the Royal Navy for 29 years; a career which included command at sea, in the air and on land-based operations in Iraq. Subsequent roles included Aviation Policy and Strategic Planning in the Ministry of Defence and leading major Tri-Service Change Programmes. His broader experience also includes: Officer selection; Junior Officer leadership training and, as a Staff College Faculty Member, teaching at the Defence Academy. He was appointed a Gentleman Usher to HM The Queen in 2017.

Since 2011 he has worked as an Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant, working across a wide spectrum of Public and Commercial organisations. His clients have included Central and Local Government Departments, Start-up and Third-Sector Companies. NHS experience includes working with NHS Commissioning Groups, Foundation Trusts, Public Health England and NHS England and NHS Improvement and a GP Community Interest Company. He is a visiting lecturer in Medical Leadership at City, University of London and in Defence Leadership at the Civil Service College, also based in London. He is a Member of the Association of Project Management (MAPM) and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI).

John MackMersh

John is a member of the core faculty, designing and delivering leadership development programmes and Lead DS (Directing Staff) for the Senior Leadership Course – Leading Self. John has run his own leadership development business since 2002. Prior to this he held service improvement and leadership development roles in the railway sector and local government.

John has a reputation as a provocative, highly experiential facilitator with a firm grasp of theory which, nonetheless, does not stop him marvelling at how little we all know about how human beings do and don’t work well together! John also works at an individual level with Senior Clinicians and Managers within the NHS as an Executive Coach giving him a deep insight into the very real problems NHS leaders need to engage with.