Meet the team

Meet our Executive team, Board of Trustees and the President of Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

Executive team

David Ramsden, Chief Executive

David Ramsden joined Cystic Fibrosis Trust in 2016.  Following a period with Ernst & Young, he now has over 20 years’ experience of working in the charity sector, initially with the British Red Cross and then 10 years as Chief Executive of BBC Children in Need.

Dr Lucy Allen, Director of Research and Healthcare Data

Lucy Allen joined the Cystic Fibrosis Trust in late 2019. Lucy’s previous experience includes building and leading research collaborations with industry, other research charities and clinical academics across a wide range of disease areas such a respiratory, mental health, and cancer and nutrition for the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). She has also lead R&D projects for GE Healthcare developing radiopharmaceuticals for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Lucy also has a PhD in lung inflammation and infection.

Dr Keith Brownlee, Director of Medical Affairs

Keith joined as the Trust’s first ever Director of Impact in 2015, a role which subsequently became the Director of Policy, Programme & Support in 2018. As well as over 30 years of experience caring for children and families with cystic fibrosis, Keith has a special research interest in respiratory infections and management of airway clearance in people with cystic fibrosis. He also has a long-term interest in medical education and is a published author on paediatrics.

Keith’s previous experience includes the role of Consultant Paediatrician for children with respiratory conditions at Leeds Teaching Hospital. He currently works with Leeds Medical School, Leeds West CCG and is Chair of Leeds West CCG Asthma Group.

Clare Corbett, Director of External Affairs

Clare joined Cystic Fibrosis Trust as Director of External Affairs in January 2021. She has over twenty years experience leading high-profile advocacy, communications and programme activity and impact for organisations that include Mind, the National Autistic Society, Which? and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Clare has been a trustee for Working Families since 2019 and was previously a trustee for Toynbee Hall.

Vanessa Newton, Director of Fundraising

Vanessa has worked in the sector for over 20 years, developing and leading cross-team income growth strategies, and specialising in high-value programme development in health and mental health charities. She worked at the National AIDS Trust, before moving to Mind where she held a number of roles – including leading the Partnerships Fundraising team for seven years. Since 2021, she has worked as an independent consultant and interim Director for a range of charities, including UK Youth, Mental Health Innovations, Target Ovarian Cancer and Young Minds.

She holds the IOF certificate in Fundraising Management, and is a certified coach and member of the International Coaching Federation with an interest in leadership development.

Alex Fowles, Finance and Resources Director

Alex is a chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience working in senior finance roles across a variety of industries, including telecoms, recruitment, advertising and electric vehicles. For the past ten years, he has specialised in the charity sector, holding finance director roles at YoungMinds, Power to Change, The Young Foundation and Cruse Bereavement Support.  He is also on the management board of Community Owned Renewable Energy (CORE), a project financed by Big Society Capital and Power to Change to transfer the ownership of solar assets into community ownership whilst maximising the financial, environmental and social impact within the community.

Richard Hunt CBE, Chair of Trustees

Richard was appointed Chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust in July 2018, and was previously Chair of the London Ambulance Service from 2009–2016.

Richard is an executive coach and runs leadership development programmes, and is also currently Commanding Officer of the Engineer and Logistic Staff Corps RE(V), a group of senior industry advisors to the Ministry of Defence, whose role dates back more than 150 years. Richard’s private sector commercial background includes working as Chief Executive of Exel Europe (now DHL) and Chief Executive of the Aviation Division of Go Ahead Plc. A key figure in creating the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Richard served as UK Chairman and International President, and was made an International Honorary Fellow in 2010.

Richard trained as a British Airways pilot before settling on a commercial career, and was appointed CBE in 2004 for services to Logistics and Transport.

Joanna Barrett

Joanna is a member of the Engagement Committee and the People Committee.

Joanna is the Policy and Public Affairs Manager at NSPCC Scotland, where she has worked since 2011. Prior to that Joanna held policy and parliamentary roles at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and the National Autistic Society. Joanna has a degree in Scots Law, a diploma in Spanish law from the University of Deusto, Bilbao, and a post-graduate certificate in Public Policy. She has four young children, two of whom have cystic fibrosis.

Sean Collins

Sean is Chair of the Finance & Investment Committee and a member of the Engagement Committee.

Sean Collins had a forty-year career with the accountancy firm KPMG, both in the UK and internationally, acquiring deep and extensive experience of finance, audit and corporate governance. He is a Crown Representative at HM Government Cabinet Office, where he helps oversee efficient procurement of resources. He is also a Non-Executive Director at Jersey Telecom as well as being a member of the Conduct Committee at the Financial Reporting Council, which regulates the UK accountancy profession. For many years he has been a Governor and Chairman at More House School in Farnham, a school specialising in the education of boys with learning difficulties, and also spent ten years as an advisor to Oak Lodge, a school for the profoundly deaf. He is also a trustee of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, an educational charity, and has previously been Deputy Chairman of the Farnham Branch of Arthritis Research UK. He has a grandson who was diagnosed at birth with cystic fibrosis.

Dr Maya Desai

Maya is a member of the People Committee.

Maya has been a consultant respiratory paediatrician with an interest in cystic fibrosis at Birmingham Children’s Hospital since 2002. She was previously clinical lead of the Birmingham Paediatric CF Centre, which cares for 300 children and young people with CF as part of a large clinical network. She has worked with children and young people with cystic fibrosis since the early 1990s. During her training, her clinical research fellow post, investigating Burkholderia cepacia, was funded by the Trust.  She has a longstanding interest in newborn screening for cystic fibrosis, sitting on the clinical advisory board of the newborn screening programme for CF at NHSE, is on the executive committee of the UK Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Medical Association, and is co-chair of the Trust working group currently revising the national CF standards of care document. 

Sophie Pierce

Sophie is a member of the Engagement Committee.

Sophie has been a social worker since 2018 and specialises in working with children and families. Sophie began her career working in child protection and has recently moved to the fostering service. Whilst the social work profession is often challenging and fast paced, Sophie feels it is a privilege to work with the children and families that she does.  In her spare time, Sophie can be found hiking with her dogs and enjoying trips in her campervan.  Sophie lives with Cystic Fibrosis and is keen to promote how you can still live a full life whilst looking after your CF. Sophie is looking forward to being part of the CF Trust to bring together her social work background and her lived experience of CF.

Neil Priscott

Neil is a member of the Engagement Committee.

Neil has a background in marketing, communications and digital and is Chief Executive of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, one of the country’s 18 professional cricket teams. Based in Bristol, he is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Club and venue, which also hosts England men’s and women’s teams each year, together with a variety of annual large-scale concerts and events.

Neil’s career has predominantly been within sport, having previously spent 15 years at Lord’s Cricket Ground, starting in communications and finishing with seats on the MCC Executive Board and Committee as Head of Marcomms. Following an 18-month move into tourism as Head of Marketing for Visit Bath, he stepped back into cricket in mid-2019.

Neil has had a lifelong interest in and passion for fundraising on behalf of the Trust. He is the youngest sibling of four, but the only one not living with CF. He has undertaken numerous challenges to raise money for CF over the years – including cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End in 2021 with one of his brothers, Stuart (who, 50 at the time, was believed to be the oldest person living with CF to have completed the challenge). He has seen at first hand the challenges those living with CF face on a daily basis, and the wider implications on family life. He has been inspired by his family story which underpins his commitment to the charity.

Michelle Shore

Michelle is Deputy Chair, Chair of the People Committee, and a member of the Finance Committee.

Michelle qualified as a solicitor in 2004 and has since enjoyed practising exclusively in the area of employment law. After several years of working for regional and commercial law firms, Michelle set up a specialist law firm and headed up its employment department until 2018 when she became a consultant solicitor for the professional support team at Richard Nelson LLP, a national law firm, supporting professionals and professional organisations with regulatory matters and issues involving employment law. Michelle is currently taking time away from practice in order to study for a Masters degree. 

In terms of non legal roles, Michelle was a director of Doncaster Healthwatch until 2017 and was one of the team members who successfully converted the organisation into a Community Interest Company that tendered for and won the continuation of the local authority contract. Michelle enjoys spending her free time with her family, walking with her two Labradors and watching Harry Potter with her young, but very spirited daughter. As a person with CF, Michelle has always relied on Cystic Fibrosis Trust as a source of consistent and dependable information and is delighted to now be in a position to contribute.

Sonya Trivedy

Sonya is a member of the People Committee.

Sonya has worked in the UK voluntary sector for over 20 years. She has worked in both international development for organisations such as British Red Cross and Unicef and for domestic causes including HIV and sexual health, and domestic violence. Sonya is currently Executive Director of Income at Samaritans, the leading suicide prevention charity in the UK and Ireland. She is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s Standards Board. Sonya lives with her partner, with whom she has identical twin boys. Sonya’s goddaughter has cystic fibrosis. 

Jane Wainwright

Jane has had a long and varied career in across both the private and public sector. Her journey began in the British Army where she served 12 years in the intelligence field. After leaving the military Jane led the security and privacy aspects of the Home Office e-Borders programme, followed by the leadership of the security and privacy function for the London 2012 Olympic Games. After 2012, Jane joined the film and media company NBC Universal, responsible for security in EMEA before taking on the leadership of PwC’s UK’s core privacy and security practice, where she led the delivery of business transformation for numerous global organisations. After a number of years in the London office Jane moved to California and took an interim role with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, leading on the strategy design for a $120m technology transformation programme. Jane joined Facebook (now Meta) in 2021 and currently leads on matters related to European privacy regulation.

Jane holds a BA (Hons) in Criminology from the University of Leicester, an MBA from the University of Oxford and a PgCert in International Affairs from Kings College, London. Jane has been noted in numerous media articles on matters related to cyber security and privacy and is a previous winner of the Woman of the Year at the British Ex-Forces in Business Awards. 

Jane splits her time between London and California and has two adult children, one of whom has cystic fibrosis. She ran the New York Marathon for Cystic Fibrosis Trust and has organised a number of fundraising events over the last 18 years.

Professor Martin Walshaw

Prof Martin Walshaw has extensive experience in providing clinical care for adult people with cystic fibrosis from 1984 onwards. He has been Director of the Liverpool Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre since 1993 and was appointed to an Honorary Clinical Chair at Liverpool University in 2014. He chaired the British Thoracic Society Cystic Fibrosis Advisory Group until 2013 and the UK Cystic Fibrosis Trust Peer Review Oversight Board until 2016. He was chair of the NICE committee that developed guidelines for CF care in 2017. He has been a member of the UK Cystic Fibrosis Trust Clinical Advisory Group and many of the committees developing guidelines for CF care, including Standards of Clinical Care of Children and Adults, Antibiotic Treatment for Cystic Fibrosis, and Suggestions for Prevention and Infection Control in both Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia.

In addition, he has a national role in the training and education of junior doctors, piloting the PACES examination at RCPNorth and is Secretary of the Specialist Certificate in Respiratory Medicine Examination Board of the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians.

Tony Hunter OBE

Tony is a social worker by background in both community and hospital settings.  After periods with Barnardo’s and Price Waterhouse Health and Care Consultants, he became director of children’s and adults’ social services in two councils.  He was then CEO in two care delivery and improvement organisations before finishing full-time work in 2020.  

Since then, Tony has been chair and/or non-executive director of seven organisations, including two children’s trusts. He is currently on the board of an adults’ care local authority trading company and is a non-executive director of the Health and Care Jersey Advisory Board.

Tony’s surviving nephew with CF, Richard, aged 41, is an exceptional long-distance cyclist, generating great pride from family and friends.  

Dan Beever

Dan is a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham, currently undertaking a PhD as part of the Trust-funded MAGNIFY Strategic Research Centre. His work is focused on developing an online resource to support the communication of lung magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan results in CF. Dan has worked in health research and related roles for over 15 years and, as someone living with CF, is passionate about the role of lived experience in research.

Outside of work, Dan enjoys spending time with his young family and following sport of any kind, particularly football. He was previously a governor at a local primary school for eight years. He is thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute his personal and professional experience to the work of the Trust in support of a life unlimited for everyone with cystic fibrosis.

President of Cystic Fibrosis Trust

Dr Jim Littlewood (OBE) qualified in medicine at Leeds University in 1956, and has devoted his professional time entirely to cystic fibrosis since 1994. He was a member of the Research and Medical Advisory Committee from 1983 to 1988, and accepted an invitation to chair it from April 1995. In July 2003 Dr Littlewood was appointed Chairman of the Trust, retiring in 2011.

He was appointed Honorary President in December 2011. A fount of knowledge about cystic fibrosis, Jim is an invaluable resource and a great advocate and representative for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.