Meet The Mentors

Valerie Todd CBE

Talent and Resources Director, Crossrail

Valerie Todd has been talent and resources director at Crossrail (Europe’s largest infrastructure project) since 2009.

Valerie started her working life in local government working for the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Havering and Newham.

Valerie joined Crossrail from Transport for London, where she was a managing director with a portfolio of responsibilities that included procurement, property, facilities management, human resources and equality and diversity.

She was the founding president of the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) London, which promotes gender equality in transporta former trustee/board member of London’s Transport Museum and a former governor/board member at the University of West London. She was a commissioner to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills from 2007-2016. She has recently been appointed a non-executive director of the Army’s executive Board.

She has been the Chair of Investors In People (the premier standard for people management) since 2010.

Valerie was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2014 for her services to skills, employment and promoting equality. Valerie is an Honorary Doctor of the University of Derby; her home town.

Megan Stowe

Greater European Region Procurement Corporate Strategic Procurement and International Supplier Diversity & Inclusion Program Director, Intel Corporation

Megan has been at Intel for 21 years working in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK during this time. She started in Sales and Marketing in Australia working in PR/events management and then moved to Hong Kong to start up their SMG site procurement in Asia During this time she covered a variety of roles including Sales & Marketing, travel, relocation, immigration & HR procurement areas. She has predominantly held global positions, setting global procurement and Supply chain strategies, performance metrics and managing global teams. She has worked and lived in Asia Pacific and EMEA. Currently, Megan looks across the indirect services/procurement supply chain working across the verticals (sales & marketing, HR, travel, IT, Logistics etc) in the EMEA Region working with her team on implementing global strategies locally and driving local strategies where needed. In addition to this, she manages the International Supplier diversity& Inclusion program which has a key focus on Women owned business in our supply chain. The key objective of this program is to ensure we are working with an inclusive supply chain. Through this program we are looking at and have achieved increased spending with diverse businesses in our supply chain globally at the tier 1 and 2 levels, while developing our pipeline of inclusive sourcing opportunities. Megan is a board member of the WeConnect International, Chair & Director of the European WeConnect Advisory board and works closely with WISE in many areas. Megan’s passion is to promote the education and empowerment of Women and girls around the STEM and business areas.

She is Irish/Australian/South African by nationality and grew up in Africa. She graduated from the University of Cape Town, South Africa with a MD Psychiatry/Sports medicine.

Alexis Roberts-McIntosh

R & D Head of Health Wellness, RB

Alexis Roberts-McIntosh is currently the R&D Head of Health Wellness at RB. She was formerly Vice President and Head of Global Franchise R&D at Johnson & Johnson (Consumer Sector) supporting iconic brands such as Scholl, Tylenol and Neutrogena.

She has over 20 years’ experience in the healthcare industry building & leading the delivery of breakthrough pharmaceutical and over-the-counter medicines, medical devices and innovative wellness/personal care products around the world. She has extensive leadership experience in the oral care sector delivering game-changing innovation for brands such as Sensodyne.

Joanna Nightingale

Head of Health Care Science, Clinical Education, Health Education England

. Prior to this Jo was Head Biomedical scientist Haemophilia & thrombosis centre East Kent Hospitals Leading the Pathology transformation project and previously worked as Scientific Director for NHS South of England (East), along with acting as Deputy Chief Scientific Officer during Fiona’s maternity leave. Jo is a member of the Leadership, Improvement and Advice Group at NHS England and lists her areas of interest as:

• Raising the profile and the value that health acre scientists can bring to the Organisation in improving patient safety and clinical outcomes
• Creating a workforce training structure within the region that develops staff from band 2 – 9
• Using innovative approaches to place diagnostic services closer to the patient to improve outcome and experience without detriment to quality of results

Areas of interest Scientific:

• Diagnostic improvement to the detection of platelet function disorders, cellular receptor quantification & molecular diagnosis (in partnership)
• Global assays of haemostasis to predict haemorrhage and optimise blood usage

Professor Sian Ellard

Professor of Human Molecular Genetics

based at the Research, Innovation, Learning and Development building, a joint enterprise with the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust. She came to Exeter in 1995 to set up a Molecular Genetics Laboratory and now co-leads Exeter’s world-leading genetic diabetes team, alongside Professor Andrew Hattersley. Among their achievements, they discovered that around half of patients with neonatal diabetes - which is diagnosed before the age of six months - can be spared a lifetime of injecting themselves with insulin up to five times a day. Instead they simply take tablets which results in more effective glucose control treatment. The team identified suitable patients for this treatment by making a rapid genetic diagnosis to find those whose diabetes is caused by changes in a potassium channel that regulates insulin secretion.

Sian was also awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, a prestigious national award for outstanding scientist

Dr Jagjit Sethi

Immediate Past President of British Audiological Association (BAA)

Jagjit has over 24-years’ experience across the scientific and technical fields of audiology. She originally started her career as a trainee Physiological Measurement Technician in Audiology at Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. She went on to complete her Masters in Audiology (MSc) followed by Doctorate of Audiology (DAud). Over the last 18-years she has led a variety of clinical audiology services in the NHS through transformational change, which in turn has cultivated her passion for service development and quality. Other occupations have also included working for the National School of Healthcare Science (NSHAC) as the Professional Lead for Neurosensory Sciences where her role was to support students, Training Officers and other key stakeholders of the Modernising Scientific Careers (MSC) programme. More recently Jagjit has been involved with informing organisational strategic plans through her role as Strategy Refresh Programme Lead

Throughout her career, Jagjit has been an active member of the Audiology profession some of these have included being the past Editor of BSA News, and more recently member of BAA International Development Committee (IDC) and Service Quality Committee (SQC). She has also worked with the Department of Health on integrating the Audiology Quality Rating Tool (QRT) to the Quality Enhancement Tool (QET), and clinical advisor for IQIPS Accreditation Clinical Advisory Group (ACAG).

Ruth Thomsen

Scientific Director NHS England (London Region)

Ruth Thomsen works as Scientific Lead for all 52 professional NHS Healthcare Scientists across London. Her current focus is on accreditation and quality, innovation spread and adoption of what scientists do best. Enabling 80% of all diagnostics in the NHS.

Ruth maintains a clinical role at Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust working in R&D and service improvement. She also chairs the London Scientific and Diagnostic Network and is a board member/trustee for Hearing Link /All Ears International. Ruth is a former President of the British Academy of Audiology.

Fiona Carragher

Deputy Chief Scientific Officer, NHS England

Fiona Carragher is the Deputy Chief Scientific Officer for England, supporting the head of profession for the 50,000 healthcare science workforce in the NHS and associated bodies – embracing more than 50 separate scientific specialisms.

Working closely with the head of profession, Fiona has a broad portfolio of policy responsibilities across NHS England and the wider NHS, providing professional leadership and expert clinical advice across the whole health and care system.

A significant part of Fiona’s role involves working across government, with the Department of Health, with the NHS, Public Health and Health Education England and other

external stakeholders to inform policy, influence legislation, deliver strategic change and introduce new and innovative ways of working. Fiona is a clinical biochemist by background, with a strong background in both public health and treatment & care, having been regional director of the Newborn blood spot screening programme and worked in multi-professional teams for two decades at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh and Kings College Hospital, London - with a focus on providing high quality, innovative laboratory services.