Meet our board
Jo Farrar
Chief Executive Officer
Jo is an experienced public servant and chief executive whose early career was spent in the Home Office, undertaking work around public service reform. She has held a number of leadership roles across local government and the civil service. She joins NHSBT from the Ministry of Justice where she was the Second Permanent Secretary and before that Chief Executive HM Prison and Probation Service, responsible for delivering prison, probation and youth custody services in England and Wales. Jo has been the Chief Executive of two councils – firstly Bridgend in Wales and secondly Bath and North East Somerset. Jo has a PhD in public service reform.
Wendy Clark
Deputy Chief Executive
Wendy is an experienced digital technology leader and CIO with a track record of delivering transformation. Wendy has worked across the private and public sectors and multiple industries, including as Chair of The Board of Trustees at Breast Cancer UK. The initial part of Wendy’s career was in the private sector leading technology change for organisations such as BP, Thomson Reuters, Astra Zeneca and Bechtel before moving into roles in national security and the NHS.
Peter Wyman
Chair (Board Director)
Peter brings a wide breadth of skills and experience to the board having held a range of senior posts in the private, public and voluntary sectors. He was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP until 2010 and President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 2002 to 2003. In the health sector, he served as Chair of the Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust from 2011 to 2016, and Chair of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) from 2016 to 2022.
Non-executive members
Piers White
Board Director
Piers White has held a number of executive roles in financial services including Barclays UK and Flemings. He was awarded an MBE for public service in 2009.
Phil Huggon
Board Director
Phil is a Non-executive Director with several organisations mostly in health and education across the private, charitable and public sectors. His executive career has been in commercial, marketing and transformation roles with BP, MARS and Shell, both in the UK and across Europe. Phil now has various NED roles with the NHS, and currently is Chair of the NHS Transformation Unit, Vice Chair of Healthwatch England and NED with the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS FT.
Rachel Jones
Board Director
Rachel brings a breadth of skills and experience to the board, having held strategy; digital; transformation; data and technology executive posts in the private, public and charity sectors. Taking a commercial and customer focus in her current role as Chief Information Officer in central government – specialising in innovating operating models and continuous improvement. Previously an IBM and Deloitte management consultant, Rachel shaped and led global technical transformation programmes of scale in Financial Services, Sporting Events and Retail for brands such as London 2012 Olympics, RBS, Royal London, Swinton Insurance, Aviva, Barclays, Cooperative Bank and Lookers.
Professor Charles Craddock
Board Director
Charles is Professor of Haemato-oncology at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Programme at University Hospitals Birmingham. As well as extensive research interests, he has significant Board experience, including the UK Stem Cell Strategic Oversight Committee and Anthony Nolan. He was awarded the CBE for services to medicine and medical research in 2016.
Caroline Serfass
Board Director
Caroline brings significant business, technology and transformational leadership experience gained across a range of industries including pharmaceutical, medical devices, consumer electronics and IT services. She has been a non executive board member at NNIT since 2018.
Associate non-executive members
Stephanie Itimi
Associate Board Director
Stephanie has a wealth of experience in cybersecurity and has worked with the BBC World Service, the Home Office and many other national and international organisations. She is the founder of Seidea, a community interest company addressing underrepresentation of women from ethnic minority backgrounds in cybersecurity.
Bella Vuillermoz
Associate Board Director
Bella is an experienced senior leader with 25 years’ experience, having worked at two FTSE100 companies, Marks & Spencer and Sky, as well as in City consultancy. She brings broad business experience, having led strategy, communications, sustainability, Diversity and Inclusion, commercial and operational areas.
Nicola Yates OBE
Associate Board Director
Nicola is an experienced leader, mentor and coach with a proven successful track record of ambitious and visionary leadership. Nicola received an OBE for services to Women in Business and Workplace Equality. She is the Senior Vice President; Mid-size and Cluster Markets – Europe at GSK.
Directors
Anthony Clarkson
Director of Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation
A Registered Nurse with over 25 years' NHS experience Anthony is a transformational leader who has held a number of leadership roles including in Blood Donation, Tissue and Eye Service and ODT.
Dr Gail Miflin
Chief Medical Officer
Gail joined in 2010 and became a Director in 2016. Previously she was a Consultant Haematologist at hospitals and NHS Trusts, specialising in treating patients with red cell disorders.
Paul O'Brien
Director of Blood Supply
Paul joined us after a long career with Procter & Gamble in a variety of manufacturing and quality roles. He has worked in multiple countries across the globe where he has developed a wealth of supply chain and leadership experience.
Helen Gillan
Director of Quality
Helen is an experienced leader within NHSBT and was General Manager of Tissue and Eye Services for 12 years. She has a track record of delivering innovation and modernising services. She was previously an auditor for the British Standards Institute, assessing quality management systems across both the public and private sector.
Mark Chambers
Deputy Director of Donor Experience and Communications
Deborah McKenzie
Chief People Officer
Deborah joined us from Public Health England where she was Chief People Officer. She has experience developing and implementing leadership programmes for the Department of Health. As an associate partner with Accenture she led a number of large-scale change programmes. Deb was also Senior Responsible Officer on the Public Health Reform consultation, leading a transfer of 11,500 colleagues to the new UK Health Security Agency.
Carl Vincent
Chief Financial Officer
Carl joined our organisation in October 2022 from NHS Digital where he was Chief Financial Officer from 2013-2022, leading their finance and estates functions. Before this Carl worked at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for 17 years, where he worked as an economic adviser before training as a Chartered Global Management Accountant and transitioning to finance and commercial roles. Prior to his career in the DHSC Carl studied for a MSc in Health Economics, and before becoming a student he trained and worked as a Registered General Nurse.
Gerry Gogarty
Director of Plasma for Medicines
Experienced in transformation, strategy and operations, Gerry has held a number of leadership roles across manufacturing, collection, business transformation and marketing. Prior to joining NHSBT, Gerry led the commercialisation of several Local Government functions.
Rebecca Tinker
Interim Chief Digital & Information Officer
Rebecca joined as a Director in 2020, having previously spent her career working in strategy and transformation leadership roles for global brands in retail and leisure industries - specialising in digital and commercial change.
Denise Thiruchelvam
Director of Nursing
Denise has extensive experience in the fields of nursing, quality, risk, safeguarding and public health. Since 2019 she has been Chief Nurse, Director of Quality, Director of Infection Prevention and Control (DIPC) for CSH Surrey (Social Enterprise), as well as being Executive Lead for Quality and Assurance for North West Surrey Alliance for the past two years. Prior to this she worked nationally with the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) team and public health within NHS commissioning and local authority.