Health Tech Conference 2023 – Forging a Sustainable Path for ESG in Healthcare

An award winning commercial and technology lawyer specialising in the health and care sector, Charlotte advises health and care organisations on legal, commercial and strategic issues relating to commissioning, contracting and collaborating. Having worked on a range of health and social care projects from system and place based integration and provider collaboration to electronic patient record procurements and digital health platform development, Charlotte works in partnership with clients to help them to navigate complex issues in order to deliver the desired outcome.

Charlotte is an advocate for innovation and transformation in the sector and in addition to her legal role at Mills & Reeve she proudly chairs pro-Manchester’s healthcare committee and is co-vice chair of techUK’s Health and Social Care Council.

Andy is Head of Innovation for Bruntwood SciTech, the country’s leading developer of Innovation and Science ecosystems. Having worked for over 25 years in early stage translation of science, from Big Pharma to start-up medtech, Andy now works with a wide variety of companies at various stages of their development. Specialising in start-up and early stage ventures, Andy runs a range of programmes and has worked with over 250 companies in the past 10 years, supporting them to achieve early-stage funding and commercial success.

Gareth joined the Greater Manchester health and care system early in 2023 as Digital Innovation Director. He joined as part of a joint appointment between Health Innovation Manchester and NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care.

Gareth’s previous role was Deputy National Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) within the Transformation Directorate at NHS England, where he brought clinical leadership to national policy, strategy, systems liaison, and workforce development initiatives.

Gareth remains an active frontline consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia at Salford Royal, where he was also previously Clinical Director. Prior to his national role he was the Group Chief Clinical Information Officer at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.

Mark Duman MRPharmS brings over 30 years of clinician, management consultant and patient perspectives to the healthcare, life sciences and digital health sectors.  Working in the NHS, The King’s Fund, the BBC, and as a Founder of the Patient Information Forum, Mark endeavours to make healthcare more person-centric.

As the Chief Patient Officer for MD Healthcare, he works with organisations such as AstraZeneca, Diabetes UK, Google Health, Innovate UK, JnJ, Macmillan Cancer Support, Microsoft, Pfizer, Novartis & Siemens Healthineers to harness digital health, develop markets and improve patient engagement.

Erica is a Pharmacist with almost 20 years of experience in community, hospital and commissioning support. Having worked in York hospital previously, understands the infrastructure, needs of delivery and the various services that are provided to the public. Experienced in stakeholder management and the use of technology in transforming the delivery of health and care in building great user – centered digital experiences.

Led transformative projects including CROP (Campaign to reduce opioid prescribing) across 4 Yorkshire and Humber CCGs. Facilitated the extraction of data across Yorkshire and Humber practices to the West Yorkshire Research & Development team. QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity, and Prevention) lead for the reduction of analgesia to reduce opioid use across Yorkshire and Humber region.

Erica is the founder of tech startup Mirla Health – focusing on an innovative tech solution for women in menopause, an area that lacks social awareness in particular amongst younger women.

She is a proud mum to two energetic boys and lives in East Yorkshire with her family.

James is one of the co-founders of Decently – a Manchester based digital health tech startup on a mission to help clinicians make earlier sense of complex patient behaviors’ through innovative tech, big data and AI.

With almost a decade’s worth of experience in health tech – across industry, consultancy and the NHS – James has a strong track record of creating award-winning tech-for-good products that have made a significant social impact.

Prior to setting up Decently, he was MD of an award winning digital health startup focused on falls prevention & is an alumni of the NHS Digital Health Accelerator.

Oliver is Programme Manager at the University of Manchester, working on a liver research programme that covers the entire spectrum of liver disease from early risk factors through stages of liver fibrosis to end-stage disease and risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). He has worked at the University for over ten years and previously supported projects with a focus on the translation of stratified medicine and biomarker research into tests that can be implemented within the NHS.

Yousef has joined GC-BGH as an Innovation Specialist in Health and Life Sciences. He is a scientist with a PhD and an MBA, and an industrialist with significant business experience at senior level in start-ups, university spin-outs and SMEs in health, medical and life science-based companies. Yousef has the experience in developing innovative technologies, from ideas through development, to commercialisation, in order to improve patient care.  This pathway involves strategic and business planning, critically assessing and analysing gaps in the market, developing innovative products and services to fill these gaps, and successfully enter the market.

In Greater Manchester, Yousef has built a network of partners and stakeholders including the NHS, Innovate UK Edge, Department of International Trade, Health Innovation Manchester and other Academic Health Science Networks. His work with the universities has resulted in setting up a University of Manchester spin-out company, ViewItUK, at the National Drug Evidence Centre, with an innovative system for the management and analysis of complex health data. A £1.3 million contract with GambleAware to manage and analyse health data for their addiction treatment centres and support agencies was secured, which culminates in a yearly report, accessed by the relevant government departments.

A science nerd and geek from birth, after attaining a PhD in cell biology from the University of Manchester I left the lab coat behind and went to work for spin-out SMEs for eight years in business development roles. This involved doing everything from grant-writing to lead generation to networking. I then went to work for RTC North to deliver on the Enterprise Europe Network programme and Innovate to Succeed which evolved into the Innovate UK EDGE service. I now head up a team of fourteen Innovation and Growth Specialists in the North West helping SMEs to grow and scale through innovation. When not doing that, I enjoy gardening, running and creative writing

Bernadette, Evolution’s Public Sector Managing Director, leads national teams delivering interim digital talent to NHS organisations.

With extensive recruitment experience, she is an advocate for women in data and technology, founding the Her Plus Data Meet Up and serving as a mentor for Women in Recruitment. She also co-curates the Manchester Hub for One Health Tech.

Bernadette’s passion lies in supporting women realise their potential within their careers.

Vicky is a partner in the Mills & Reeve corporate team with a particular focus in the life sciences, health and technology sectors. She works with clients on a variety of corporate matters including: disposals and acquisitions, investments (equity and debt); corporate governance; shareholder and joint venture arrangements and corporate restructures and reorganisations. Recent highlights include advising a number of management teams in the life sciences and biotech space on equity investments and additional fund raisings as well as a strategic restructure. Client feedback and why you would speak to Vicky about corporate issues:   “extremely knowledgeable, approachable and above all a pleasure to deal with.”

Jess Jackson is an investment manager at Praetura Ventures and is responsible for identifying and managing investment opportunities for our EIS Growth Fund and the GMC Life Sciences Fund By Praetura. Jess boasts a wealth of experience working with startups across multiple sectors, including businesses with a social impact focus and is a well-known figure in the North’s investment scene. She is a founding member of Fund Her North – a collective which champions investment opportunities for women – and regularly gives talks around this subject and the early-stage investment market. Prior to joining Praetura Ventures, Jess managed fund deployment at GC Angels and HNWI Capital.

Jan has over 30 years’ experience of the development and commercialisation of innovative medial devices, IVD’s and consumer wellness products. Jan has previously held senior R&D positions at London International Group, Regent Medical, Molnlycke Healthcare, Convatec and SSL International. Jan then joined her first SME – Arcis Biotechnology as CSO and after 9 years left to start Agile Life Sciences where she is co-founder and CEO. Jan is very passionate about closing the research gender gap, Agile Life Sciences have developed MenoGuide, a vaginal microbiome test to accurately diagnose peri menopause . Our mission  is to empower and educate women during menopause ensuring they navigate this natural life transition with objective data and knowledge. Jan has  PhD from Reading University and an MBA from University of Bath.

Chris Maguire has been a journalist for more than 30 years, with more than half his career spent working as an editor within regional and national press. Since 2012 he has specialised in business and hosted more than 700 events. Alongside running his own PR company – iMeg Partnership – he is the Executive Editor of technology publications TechBlast and BusinessCloud.

Leontina Postelnicu is currently a Policy and Public Affairs Lead at Feebris, a leading British virtual care company. She is also a Vice Chair for the HIMSS Committee in the UK. Until recently, Leontina led the Health and Social Care programme at techUK for nearly four years, working with hundreds of healthtech suppliers operating in the UK. Leontina recently finished an MSc in Health Policy at Imperial College London, where she focused on procurement of innovation. Originally from Romania, she is a big fan of F1, tennis and yoga.

An experienced business leader, Jon Pickering has two decades of technology and telecoms expertise, gained in high-growth healthcare, infrastructure and software businesses. With a proven track record of shaping strategic growth, Jon is an energetic and inspiring tech leader with a passion for fuelling collaboration not only within his own organisation, but among the wider supply chain. He is acutely aware of the challenges and opportunities within the healthcare sector, and the advantages that digitisation can bring.

As Director of Consulting at Ethical I lead the delivery teams on projects and am responsible for the external facing brand and our propositions.

I have led an industry team of 400+ technologists focussing on health and social care user research, strategy and software development.

With a clinical, financial and technology background I have worked for almost 20 years on helping the health and social care system in the UK and overseas to be more responsive to patient needs and to reduce waste and frustrations of clinical and operational staff of the sector.

Glenn is a founder DIT Export Champion presently Chairman/Investor at Inovus www.inovus.org a multi-award-winning designer, manufacturer of surgical training technologies. Backed by Mercia, Norgine Ventures. Structured growth in the USA is the focus.

NED of MGS Technical Plastics based in Blackburn www.mgsplastics.co.uk . Committed to training, Glenn is a Board member of the WEC Academy in Darwen, www.wec-group.com/wecacademy

Previously Chairman/CEO of ATG Access www.atgaccess.com, a high growth manufacturer of Bollards on a global scale, backed by LDC in 2013 successfully exited in 2019 to Hill & Smith PLC. Also held the role as Chairman of Great Yarmouth based 3 Sun Group an offshore windfarm maintenance business backed by BGF, successfully exited in 2020 to Worley.

Top tip: Attitude, Commitment, Focus – meet people to the market.

Eve Koutidou is Estates & Facilities Officer and Sustainability Lead for the department of Research and Innovation at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. Eve has 16 years’ experience in the NHS, working in Facilities Management, Patient Experience and Quality, and P.F.I. teams, ensuring the provision and delivery of safe, high standard and sustainable facilities management services. Eve provides a key interface with Estates and Facilities, contractors and respective stakeholders by offering her expertise and support to the Research and Innovation teams across the Trust.

Jen Strong is Group Sustainability Manager at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest healthcare organisations in the country. Jen has 15 years’ experience in the sustainability sector, specialising in engagement and behaviour change, managing UNESCO award winning programmes within the higher education sector. Having joined the NHS in 2020, Jen coordinates the delivery of the MFT Green Plan working with a broad range of stakeholders to embed sustainability across the organisation, and integrate low carbon working across clinical and non-clinical practice.

Emma-Louise Fusari is the Founder of In-House Health. A Nurse for 21 years, Emma has acquired a vast wealth of knowledge and experience in the health sector, mainly through delivering public health programmes and chronic disease management initiatives.

Emma founded In-House Health to enable organisations to make a measurable impact on their people, performance and profits. Through clinically led, evidence-based and data-informed workplace health and wellbeing solutions In-House Health gets to the root cause of work-related ill health issues and provides actionable strategies and tangible results so that organisations can sustain a high-performance culture for innovation and growth.

Emma is a TalkTalk Northwest Women in Tech Award Winner (Tech for Good) and was recently named Innovator of the Year at Computing’s Women in Tech Excellence Awards for her pioneering HealthTech work.

Over 15 years, Jon has co-founded a series of successful startups with business partner Phil
Simmonds, using his expertise in behavioural science. Jon has achieved success time and time again with a simple understanding: by paying close attention to the way people work, we can react to the latest societal changes. At Diskette, he is using this understanding to develop software solutions that change things for the better. Their latest product, Leafyard, uses behavioural science to motivate people to take control of their mental health; it is now being used by companies across the globe to help improve employee wellbeing

I am a Registered Nutritional Therapist and Female Hormone Specialist, and my passion is in all aspects of women’s health and hormone related conditions. I am a mother to two young girls (two and four) and am very aware personally of how much of a role hormones play on overall female health and wellbeing.

I support businesses with delivering women’s health education, focussing predominantly on perimenopause awareness and cycle awareness, focussing on practical and implementable strategies to help women start to improve all aspects of their health, from diet and sleep, to stress management and putting in place better personal boundaries.

I also work one to one with women looking for hormone support, whether that be on their fertility journey, managing conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis, or as they enter perimenopause.

Andre Fialho has over 10 years of expertise in the intersection between AI and healthcare. He currently leads the product team at MySense.ai, supporting the launch of their AI-powered wellbeing analytics platform. Earlier, he co-founded Pact Care, a platform connecting patients to healthcare providers, and served as a Strategy and M&A Director at Philips Healthcare. Andre earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Instituto Superior Tecnico, with a thesis on AI-based decision support in intensive care units. Above all, Andre is driven to enhance healthcare using AI.