I have been working for the organisation since October 2015 as Director of Facilities, but also New Fair Havens Hospice Project Director with my focus on building the new facility in Prittlewell, which opened in March 2020. In August 2019, I was appointed as Chief Executive of Havens Hospices, a position I’m incredibly proud to hold.

I’m a former Vice Principal of Belfairs Academy and working in the public sector led me to realise that delivering projects that had a positive impact on people’s lives was my passion.

My daily work at the school contributed to improving the education for over 1300 students. Moving to the not-for-profit sector was an easy decision, and to do this in my hometown was very important.

My involvement in the delivery of the only secondary school in Southend to be completely rebuilt led to my interest in new Fair Havens and what an expanded and modernised hospice could offer the local community.

Throughout my time in leadership, identifying and understanding what makes an organisation successful has been important to me. Here at Havens Hospices, I want to use my experience to make a positive impact on families across Essex that need our help and I have a great sense of duty to use our donors’ money to deliver the best quality of care we can to as many people as we can.

Ultimately, we should be here to give better care to more people, through our actual hospices but also in the community. I’ll be working with our external healthcare partners to remove the isolation of hospice care and finding more opportunities to expand our care and funding models, as well as looking at ways to continue attracting qualified and passionate nursing staff to work for us.

I have promised to put the patients and families at the heart of every decision we make, listen to the ideas of our staff and volunteers and empower them to find solutions, and believe that we all have the potential to be even better at what we all do – regardless of where we work or volunteer within the organisation. We all have an important part to play.

In September 2021, I was honoured to accept the ‘Rising CEO’ award from Third Sector. However, Havens Hospices isn’t just about one person. We couldn’t have achieved so much in a short amount of time without the belief, dedication and perseverance of our staff and volunteers, especially during the pandemic.