Chris Taylor
Director, Freestyle
Sue Brown
CEO
ARMA UK
Sue is the CEO of the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA), a role which she took up in February 2017. Sue has over 20 years’ experience of policy work in health and social care. Before joining ARMA, Sue was Head of Public Policy at deafblind charity Sense and Vice-Chair of the Care and Support Alliance and previously worked for Mind. Sue is a keen supporter of parkrun.
Sue is the CEO of the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA), a role which she took up in February 2017. Sue has over 20 years’ experience of policy work in health and social care. Before joining ARMA, Sue was Head of Public Policy at deafblind charity Sense and Vice-Chair of the Care and Support Alliance and previously worked for Mind. Sue is a keen supporter of parkrun.
Yvonne Harrison
Managing Director
Project `92
Yvonne was appointed as Managing Director of Project 92 in March 2018, after leading Greater Manchester Charity, GreaterSport, as their Chief Executive for four years. Having spent over fifteen years within the sport and physical activity landscape, Yvonne has a wealth of experience across the sector incorporating strategic development, relationship management, finance, business planning and communications. Yv ...
Yvonne was appointed as Managing Director of Project 92 in March 2018, after leading Greater Manchester Charity, GreaterSport, as their Chief Executive for four years. Having spent over fifteen years within the sport and physical activity landscape, Yvonne has a wealth of experience across the sector incorporating strategic development, relationship management, finance, business planning and communications. Yvonne has been a key driver to galvanize the Greater Manchester network to produce Greater Manchester Moving, the blueprint for physical activity and sport across the City Region, as Greater Manchester trailblazes with radical reform of the health and social care system through devolution and begins to implement Sport England’s local delivery pilot. Yvonne led GreaterSport to multiple awards, before leaving to embark on a new challenge, working with the ‘Class of 92’ across their sport and education portfolio, which includes the brand new University venture UA92 in Trafford. Yvonne joined the Board of Why Sports Media Group in 2017 following a positive working relationship with the Founders and recognising the contribution she could make through her experience and network. Yvonne is enjoying helping the social enterprise realise its objectives and ensuring customers of Why Sports experience great content, networking and cutting edge thinking through the series of conferences and panel debates delivered.
Mr Brett Pearson
Head of Sales and Marketing
EMD UK
Brett is a highly experienced, award-winning sales and marketing professional, with over 30 years’ experience in running media organisations in the UK, Middle Eastern and Asian markets. Previously part of the team that established ProActive, an organisation based in Abu Dhabi to encourage local Emiratis to become active, he returned to the UK. He is now responsible for positioning EMD UK as the ‘go-to’ o ...
Brett is a highly experienced, award-winning sales and marketing professional, with over 30 years’ experience in running media organisations in the UK, Middle Eastern and Asian markets. Previously part of the team that established ProActive, an organisation based in Abu Dhabi to encourage local Emiratis to become active, he returned to the UK. He is now responsible for positioning EMD UK as the ‘go-to’ organisation for all aspects of group exercise and to drive growth in group exercise by supporting organisations and instructors to deliver excellence and get our nation more active.
Mr Richard Tisdall
Managing Director
Tisdall Associates Limited
As Director of Tisdall Associates with Health Parks, Richard draws from experience and qualifications in Landscape Design, Public Health and the Environment.
He brings a unique perspective as to the value given to Parks and Green Spaces when used alongside Public Health initiatives and Social Prescribing.
With an understanding of the importance of evidence-based solutions, and the need to address avoidable medical a ...
As Director of Tisdall Associates with Health Parks, Richard draws from experience and qualifications in Landscape Design, Public Health and the Environment.
He brings a unique perspective as to the value given to Parks and Green Spaces when used alongside Public Health initiatives and Social Prescribing.
With an understanding of the importance of evidence-based solutions, and the need to address avoidable medical and mental conditions,
Richard has been at the forefront of innovative cross-cutting developments to optimise the use of Parks, Green Spaces
and the natural environment within the context of Primary Prevention, providing practical solutions to optimising the use of parks for health and wellbeing.
Carly Tutty-Johnson
Healthy Ageing & Dementia Programme Lead
Public Health England
Carly Tutty-Johnson is the Older Adults programme Manager within the Life Course team at Public Health England where she is leading a programme of work to develop the narrative around Productive Healthy Ageing. Carly has a social psychology degree and has dedicated her career to various national policy implementation and programme delivery roles to improve population health. Carly chairs Public Health England's Nation ...
Carly Tutty-Johnson is the Older Adults programme Manager within the Life Course team at Public Health England where she is leading a programme of work to develop the narrative around Productive Healthy Ageing. Carly has a social psychology degree and has dedicated her career to various national policy implementation and programme delivery roles to improve population health. Carly chairs Public Health England's National Ageing Well and Dementia network, bringing together local leads across the country and driving opportunities for collaboration and scaling up good practice. Carly has held several roles within PHE and prior to this, she worked across the Department of Health and the Centre for Mental Health to deliver the youth justice liaison and diversion programme, and the Healthy children, safer communities strategy (2009). Carly also has experience of regulation, having spent three years working as a Regulation Manager at the Human Tissue Authority.
James Sanderson
Director of Personalised Care
NHS England and Improvement
James Sanderson is the Director of Personalised Care at NHS England and Improvement, working within the Strategy and Innovation Directorate to oversee the strategy and delivery for a range of programmes that are helping to empower people to have greater choice and control over their care through the delivery of Universal Personalised Care. This includes the Personal Health Budgets programme, Social Prescribing, Shared Dec ...
James Sanderson is the Director of Personalised Care at NHS England and Improvement, working within the Strategy and Innovation Directorate to oversee the strategy and delivery for a range of programmes that are helping to empower people to have greater choice and control over their care through the delivery of Universal Personalised Care. This includes the Personal Health Budgets programme, Social Prescribing, Shared Decision Making, Personalised Care and Support Planning, Maternity Pioneers and developing and implementing new models of delivering patient choice.
James joined NHS England in November 2015 and was formerly Chief Executive and Accounting Officer for the Independent Living Fund (ILF). The ILF used to support disabled people across the whole of the UK to live independent lives through the provision of direct payments enabling the purchase of personal assistance support.
After graduating, James embarked on a career in the private sector before joining the ILF in 2002 to undertake a number of senior roles including Operations Director with responsibility for front line service delivery, and Business Development Director with responsibility for performance development, change management and information governance.
Irene Bisset
Chair
National Pride Uk Ltd
Irene co-founded National Pride UK and wants to ‘make a difference’ After a career in the Insurance industry and working in many roles for many years understanding the business perspective from the Client’s point of view, she has an invaluable quality in providing a bespoke and exemplary service to satisfy all parties to any project. Irene was the Insurance Consultant on the prestigious Forth Replacement ...
Irene co-founded National Pride UK and wants to ‘make a difference’ After a career in the Insurance industry and working in many roles for many years understanding the business perspective from the Client’s point of view, she has an invaluable quality in providing a bespoke and exemplary service to satisfy all parties to any project. Irene was the Insurance Consultant on the prestigious Forth Replacement Crossing in Scotland having worked for a bidding consortium through the tender process and then for the Client for the first four years of the construction project. Irene can provide technical input in terms of risk identification, mitigation and control in heavy engineering, infrastructure and projects across all sectors. As an approachable character, a good listener as well as being something of a diplomat, Irene was unanimously appointed Chairwoman of National Pride UK by her fellow co-founders and Directors.
Mark Williams
Director
Active Sit Stand Ltd
20 plus years as in health & safety across the public and private sector.
Champion of dynamic active seating and 3D ergonomics.
20 plus years as in health & safety across the public and private sector.
Champion of dynamic active seating and 3D ergonomics.
Mr Damian Stevenson
Insight and Partnerships Director
Swim England
Damian is the Insight and Partnerships Director at Swim England, with an overall responsibility for helping to make aquatics sustainable across an industry experiencing significant budget pressures.
Within his directorate are Facilities, Health and Wellbeing, Insight and Strategic Partnerships teams at Swim England focused on ensuring pools are relevant to their communities, customer-friendly and enjoyable places to be ...
Damian is the Insight and Partnerships Director at Swim England, with an overall responsibility for helping to make aquatics sustainable across an industry experiencing significant budget pressures.
Within his directorate are Facilities, Health and Wellbeing, Insight and Strategic Partnerships teams at Swim England focused on ensuring pools are relevant to their communities, customer-friendly and enjoyable places to be active in.
He has over 20 years’ experience in varying roles across both private and public sectors, encompassing the leisure, energy, higher education and automotive industries.
As you would expect, he is passionate about getting people of all ages to be more active through aquatic activity and putting a smile on their faces whilst they are doing it.
Mr Peter Owens
Founder & Chief Designer
Colour
Peter founded Colour in 2000 as a design studio intended to reshape the role of landscape architecture in the 21st Century. A chartered landscape architect, master planner and urban designer grounded by an environmental sciences first degree, with over 28 years' experience of high profile schemes within multi-disciplinary teams across Britain and the world. Peter drives the creative, social, environmental ...
Peter founded Colour in 2000 as a design studio intended to reshape the role of landscape architecture in the 21st Century. A chartered landscape architect, master planner and urban designer grounded by an environmental sciences first degree, with over 28 years' experience of high profile schemes within multi-disciplinary teams across Britain and the world. Peter drives the creative, social, environmental and commercial design agenda of the practice.
Creating good places that can profoundly enhance people's lives, economics and the environment is the heart of this approach. The challenge is to express the joy, spirit and wonder of every unique location. To do this requires a clear rationale and effective design process to generate the vision, robust concepts and expert delivery.
Personal career highlights to date include his first native urban forest back in 1990, the Newcastle Lord Mayor's Design Award for 55 Degrees North with Colour's first public realm scheme, contributing to the London 2012 Olympics, and writing the landscape and public realm strategy for a global tournament in Qatar 2022.
Colour was presented with the Landscape Institute Award for ‘best large scale development’ in November 2016 for the £400m 100+ phased Royal Stoke University Hospital.
Always interested in building new collaborations and working together with like-minded people and organisations.
Alison King
Principal Landscape Architect, BA (Hons) MALA CMLI
LUC
Alison is passionate about health and wellbeing for all and sees the landscape and public realm design as playing a pivotal role in addressing the UK’s health inequality crisis. She is a chartered landscape architect with 9 years’ experience. Alison has designed accessible natural play schemes in a range of sites, including city parks, urban public realm and schools. Alison understands the importance of high-q ...
Alison is passionate about health and wellbeing for all and sees the landscape and public realm design as playing a pivotal role in addressing the UK’s health inequality crisis. She is a chartered landscape architect with 9 years’ experience. Alison has designed accessible natural play schemes in a range of sites, including city parks, urban public realm and schools. Alison understands the importance of high-quality play provision and access to nature for an urban childhood. She has a background in social anthropology and documentary film-making, feeding her insistence on the importance of collaboration and co-design with stakeholders to deliver successfully activated healthy places.
Suzanne Gardner
National Partnership Lead Health & Inactivity
Sport England
Suzanne joined Sport England in May 2014 and is currently the National Partnership Lead for Health and Inactivity, providing strategic support for Sport England’s Inactivity agenda and leadership for several programmes of work including Moving Healthcare Professionals, working in partnership with Public Health England, The Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine and the RCGP.
She specialises in health, ...
Suzanne joined Sport England in May 2014 and is currently the National Partnership Lead for Health and Inactivity, providing strategic support for Sport England’s Inactivity agenda and leadership for several programmes of work including Moving Healthcare Professionals, working in partnership with Public Health England, The Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine and the RCGP.
She specialises in health, physical activity and sports development and brings a variety of expertise to her work with Sport England, having worked in a variety of roles at local, county, regional and national level in the public and charity sectors. As the West Midlands Physical Activity and Sport Co-ordinator for the Department of Health, she led a range of work including developing approaches to achieve a health legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and initiating the West Midlands Physical Activity Network. She went on to work for the British Horse Society leading their Access and Rights of Way Team before taking up a role with the Black Country BeActive Partnership focusing on economic, health and sports development.
Since working at Sport England she has led the development of the Get Healthy Get Active and Active Ageing programmes and has an interest in Return on Investment and improving the evidence base for physical activity and sport’s role in delivering health outcomes.
Chris Taylor
Director
Freestyle
Mark Fosh
Divisional Director
Howden Employee Benefits
Mark is an experienced client relationship Director with a demonstrated history of working in the employee benefits sector.
Strong Healthcare services professional skilled in negotiation, sales, customer relationship management, people management and Employee Wellness
After 6 years of successfully growing the Towergate Healthcare business, he joined Howden in April 2016
His key function now is to work alon ...
Mark is an experienced client relationship Director with a demonstrated history of working in the employee benefits sector.
Strong Healthcare services professional skilled in negotiation, sales, customer relationship management, people management and Employee Wellness
After 6 years of successfully growing the Towergate Healthcare business, he joined Howden in April 2016
His key function now is to work alongside the Howden UK regional offices to grow the UK employee benefits proposition
He also led on the employee benefits partnership with the Engineers Federation. He has spent 18 years helping organisations of all shapes and sizes stay competitive through their employee benefit programmes
With the knowledge that one size doesn't fit all, he adopts an approach which recognises the differing needs of employees to help them become engaged and motivated
Dr Zoe Williams
RCGP Clinical Champion Physical Activity and Public Health England Physical Activity Champion
Public Health England
Pritesh Kumar
Managing Director
Phytosciences GMBH
Dr Pritesh Kumar earned his PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology, with a focus in cannabinoid (cannabis) pharmacology, from the University of Louisville, Kentucky USA. Previously, Dr Kumar conducted pharmacological testing of FDA- approved drugs as potential ligands for the cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) and investigated the pharmacology of cannabinoids. Dr Kumar is the Senior Managing Director of PhytoScience ...
Dr Pritesh Kumar earned his PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology, with a focus in cannabinoid (cannabis) pharmacology, from the University of Louisville, Kentucky USA. Previously, Dr Kumar conducted pharmacological testing of FDA- approved drugs as potential ligands for the cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2) and investigated the pharmacology of cannabinoids. Dr Kumar is the Senior Managing Director of PhytoSciences GmbH, a swiss-based consulting firm comprised of 100+ scientists & analysts across the EU, India, Canada, Africa, and the USA.
The firm advises stakeholders in the areas of clinical trial solutions, novel drug delivery technology development, industrial-scale manufacturing, analytical testing, and commercial bioprocessing. Dr Kumar is currently Adjunct Faculty & Scientific Advisor for Addis Ababa University, School of Pharmacy (SoP) in Ethiopia. In this role, Dr Kumar facilitates advancements in graduate student education, promotes the interest of the SoP, and develops relationships between the SoP and the private sector.
Dr Kumar previously served as an Advisor to the WHO (World Health Organization) based in Geneva, Switzerland. In this role, Dr Kumar provided consultation services to the 40th Meeting of the Expert Committee on Drug Dependence regarding Cannabis Toxicology. Dr Kumar previously served as Chief Scientific Officer for PharmaCielo Ltd., a Canadian company with operations in Colombia, South America. Dr Kumar was responsible for the company’s R&D, global business product development strategy, and Phase I development of a state-of-the-art GMP pharmaceutical bioprocessing plant. He was previously the Chair of PharmaCielo’s Research Advisory Board and worked closely with the Medical Advisory Board, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, to coordinate clinical programs for cannabinoid-based therapeutics. He has received numerous honors and awards including Best Oral Presentation from the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) Conference in Vancouver and fellowships from Drug Discovery and Target in Boston and Integrated Programs in Biomedical Sciences (IPIBS) as well as travel awards from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and University of Louisville School of Medicine for his presentations in the U.S., Canada, Italy, and Germany.
Dr Kumar has been published in numerous scientific journals including the European Journal of Pharmacology, Pharmacology and Physiology, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science and Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.
Mrs Elaine McNish
Head of Health and Well-being
Swim England
Elaine Is Head of Health and Wellbeing at Swim England. Elaine has worked in the health, sport and fitness field for over 25 years. During this time she has worked in local authority leisure services, public health departments, and a national governing body of sport, the Sports Council for Wales, the Welsh Government and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Some of the key pieces of work she has carried out include; writing ...
Elaine Is Head of Health and Wellbeing at Swim England. Elaine has worked in the health, sport and fitness field for over 25 years. During this time she has worked in local authority leisure services, public health departments, and a national governing body of sport, the Sports Council for Wales, the Welsh Government and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Some of the key pieces of work she has carried out include; writing the Welsh Government physical activity action plan, Creating an Active Wales; developing and managing the Welsh National Exercise Referral Scheme; providing advice and support to voluntary groups making lottery applications; and working on the development of the joint UK Chief Medical Officers guidelines on physical activity. She has also created and delivered a range of courses for teachers, sports, fitness and health professionals and written a book on behavioural change for sport and fitness professionals.
Steve McFadyen
Programme Partnerships Officer – Sport & Leisure
Alzheimer’s Society
Steven has over 10 years' experience of working within the sector on a range of inclusive and accessible sports projects. Specialising in disability and inclusive sport, adapting activities to meet the needs of differing audiences has been a big part of his work. The ultimate aim is being able to use sport and physical activity as a way to have a positive impact on people's lives.
Now working at Alzheimer& ...
Steven has over 10 years' experience of working within the sector on a range of inclusive and accessible sports projects. Specialising in disability and inclusive sport, adapting activities to meet the needs of differing audiences has been a big part of his work. The ultimate aim is being able to use sport and physical activity as a way to have a positive impact on people's lives.
Now working at Alzheimer's Society, leading on a dementia-friendly sport and physical activity project, supporting organisations to become more dementia-friendly in a range of ways. Steven is working to advise leading physical activity providers on the support they can offer to enable more people affected by dementia to enjoy more active lives in their community.