Governance

Charles became Board Chair for the Academy on 1 April 2016. A former soldier with active service in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, he later ran his own business strategy consultancy. He joined the board of an English acute Trust after treatment there following a serious motorcycle accident. He subsequently served as Chair for GMC fitness to practise panels and then became Chair of the UK’s second largest health system, NHS Lothian. During this time he was elected Chair of the Scotland Chairs. His other recent boards have included the Ministry of Defence, Scottish Government, and the Crown Office. He is a judicial member of the UK’s Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. He also chairs the Contact Group, which coordinates UK mental health provision for the armed forces and veterans.

Sarah Harkness has a background in corporate finance and investment banking, having spent fifteen years at NatWest Investment Bank and then four years as a Partner in Arthur Andersen. She has held a variety of Non-executive Director and Trustee roles in public and private companies primarily in the health and education sectors. Most recently she served as a non-executive director on the Board of NHS Improvement and as Pro-Chancellor and Chair of the Audit Committee of the University of Sheffield. She is currently a lay member of the Audit Committee of the University of Birmingham and a School Governor.

Miller McLean is a chartered banker and solicitor. He retired in April 2010 as Group General Counsel and Group Secretary of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc. He stood down as Chairman of Adam & Company on 11th July 2017 and resigned as a Director of Adam & Company Group plc and Adam Investments Limited effective from the same date.

Throughout his career, he developed skills in governance and strategic planning at Board level. A former President and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Bankers in Scotland, he received the Law Awards of Scotland Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He is a Trustee of National Museums Scotland, a member of the Court of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and a member of the Executive Committee of the David Livingstone Trust. He is a former Chairman of the Industry and Parliament Trust and of the Whitehall and Industry Group.

He is currently a member of Court of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and the Executive Committee of the David Livingston Trust.

Suzanne McCarthy held several senior positions during her executive career including Immigration Services Commissioner and Chief Executive of both the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Suzanne is currently Chairman of the Joint Audit Panel of the Mayor’s Office of Police and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service, Chairman of the Fire Standards Board, Chairman of Depaul UK, a charity concerned with youth homelessness, and Vice Chairman of the Valuation Tribunal Service.  She is also a member of several boards including the Advertising Standards Authority, the Fundraising Regulator, where she chairs the Code of Standards Committee, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives. In addition, she serves as the Independent Appointed Person for the Greater London Authority. Her previous Board appointments include the General Medical Council and the University of London. Before entering the public sector, Suzanne worked as a solicitor in private practice and was a lecturer in Law at the University of Manchester.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard is the immediate past Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (2016-2019) and a GP Principal in Lichfield, Staffordshire. She is Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (2020-2023).

Helen has a Chair in General Practice Education at the Medical School in the University of Birmingham where she has been an Academic GP for two decades. Her academic portfolio has included a wide range of research methods, running a clinical trials unit, running a postgrad MSc programme, mentoring Drs in difficulty and leading the Community Based Medicine programme.

Helen is the Chair of Trustees of the newly formed National Academy for Social Prescribing, a charity dedicated to advancing the cause and improving the evidence base around social prescribing. She also provides advice to academic bodies and sits on several working groups including the governments ‘Tackling Loneliness Network’ and the NHSE Net Zero group.

Helen has been awarded Honorary Fellowship from the Faculty of Public Health Medicine and honorary degrees from St Georges University of London and University of Buckinghamshire. She has had a high media profile with over 20,000 mentions in printed media and completed over 350 broadcast media interviews.

Helen graduated from University of London and is a partner in a dynamic large inclusive GP surgery in Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Independent Clinician Trustee

Professor Mahajan is the current president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

He qualified in anaesthesia in 1985 in India, came to the UK in 1988 and has since had 30 years’ experience in the NHS. During this time Ravi has been supporting the development of a culture that instinctively puts patient safety first in all considerations, a significant change seen in his time as a clinician. Serving as Council member at RCoA since 2007, in 2016 he became Vice-President and President in September 2018, alongside role as Professor of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at University Hospitals, Nottingham. Previously Ravi was Editor-in-Chief of the peer review journal and the British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA). In his career as an anaesthetist Ravi has developed and helped to develop Safe Anaesthesia Liaison Group, National Institute for Academic Anaesthesia, Health Services Research Centre and more recently the Centre for Perioperative Care.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard

Professor Jo Martin, President, Royal College of Pathologists

Dr Jeanette Dickson, President, Royal College of Radiologists

Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of Council, Royal College of General Practitioners