Board of Trustees

Professor Sanjay Agrawal is a Consultant in Respiratory and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Treating tobacco dependency effectively in the NHS has been a key focus as well as wider tobacco control measures. Dr Agrawal chairs the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group.

Somen is Director of Public Health (DPH) at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. He is also DPH lead for tobacco for the London Network. He has worked in Tower Hamlets for over ten years. He completed his public health training in Oxford where he gained experience working with the World Health Organisation, Department of Health, National Institute for Clinical Excellence, Public Health Observatories and the British Heart Foundation Academic Unit in Oxford University.

Kate Harrison is a Chartered Accountant and Fellow of the ICAEW. She has worked in charity finance since 2007 and is currently Head of Financial Accounting and Control at the British Heart Foundation.

Nicholas Hopkinson is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine at The National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College and an Honorary Consultant Chest Physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital. His research focuses on addressing exercise and activity limitation in COPD in areas including pulmonary physiology and lung volume reduction, skeletal muscle impairment and pulmonary rehabilitation. He has chaired the British Thoracic Society COPD Specialist Advisory Group and is Medical Director of Asthma + Lung UK.

Debbie is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. Her current role involves the development, implementation and evaluation of tobacco dependence treatment initiatives for people with a mental health condition and/ or substance use disorder who smoke.

Dr Helen Walters is Public Health Consultant Advisor for the NIHR and is based at Southampton University. She focuses on the funding of research that is relevant to Public Health practice, particularly in local government. Helen brings extensive experience of coal-face Public Health practice having led the Health Team for the Mayor of London, been Director of Public Health for the City of Westminster and a Consultant in Public Health in Portsmouth. She has been a GP partner and an elected member in her district council. Helen is the Tobacco lead for the UK Faculty of Public Health and a trustee of St Mungo’s.

Rachael Murray is a Professor of Population Health in the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham and specialises in tobacco control research in multiple health settings. Rachael is a member of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Tobacco Control and Smoking Cessation Committee.

Dr Anthony Laverty is a Senior Lecturer in the Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit in the Department of Primary Care & Public Health. His research focuses on evaluations of tobacco control policy, both in the UK and globally. Examples of his work include an assessment of the child health impacts of banning smoking in cars as well as a WHO report on the potential for tobacco control to enhance childhood development.

Jane has worked in the private sector, UK politics and the United Nations. She worked for the John Lewis Partnership for over 20 years before entering Parliament in 2010. As Public Health Minister Jane led on legislation including the ban on smoking in cars with children present and the introduction of plain packaging of tobacco. Jane joined the World Health Organization in 2017 and served for five years in the senior leadership team in Geneva, from 2019 as Executive Director, External Relations and Governance.

Leanne has been a Chartered Accountant for 20 years and is a Fellow of the ICAEW. She has worked in Accounting, Audit and Finance since 2001 within a number of different industries and is currently Head of Prime Video Accounting at Amazon, leading a global team across 5 locations. She specialises in Financial Automation, Project Management and Team Development.

Alex has worked in technology for 20 years, starting as a software engineer at lastminute.com, implementing new booking systems across package holidays and lifestyle products. She has since worked for Costa Coffee, QVC and ATG. As CTO of the British Heart Foundation, she has set an ambitious strategy to deliver world class retail and marketing systems, focusing on increasing life-saving research. In November 2022 she was recognised by Cranfield as one of their 'Women to Watch' and she recently completed an MBA at Warwick Business School.

Nick has significant experience of local government and Labour politics. He served as Leader of Newcastle City Council for more than a decade and worked with ASH and FRESH to create the Local Government Declaration on Tobacco Control. Nick has also served on Labour’s National Executive Committee and National Policy Forum. He now works with businesses, universities and health sector organisations to help them create and embed social value in their activities.