Joe Chambers (Chairman)
Senior Managing Director, Evercore
Joe Chambers qualified as a chartered accountant but has worked in investment banking for 20 years. He is a Senior Managing Director of Evercore and was previously a partner at Lexicon Partners. He is married with 3 children.
Anita Charlesworth
Director of Research and Economics at the Health Foundation
Before joining the Health Foundation in May 2014, Anita was Chief Economist at the Nuffield Trust for 4 years where she led the Trust’s work on health care financing and market mechanisms.
Anita was Chief Analyst and Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport from 2007 to 2010 and, prior to this, she was Director of Public Spending at the Treasury from 1998–2007, where she led the team working with Sir Derek Wanless on his reform of NHS funding in 2002.
Anita has a Masters in Health Economics from York University and has worked as an Economic Advisor in the Department of Health and for SmithKline Beecham pharmaceuticals in the UK and USA. Anita is Vice-Chair of the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust.
Sonji Clarke
Sonji Clarke is a consultant obstetrician and deputy head of the London School of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and an honorary senior lecturer at King’s College London. She has been a consultant for more than 10 years with special interests in perinatal mental health, substance misuse, and women who are pregnant with other complex social factors. She also has a special interest in Postgraduate and Undergraduate education, as well as an interest in multi-professional diverse leadership development.
Sonji is a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Higher Education Academy and has a Masters in Academic Practice. In 2018, she was honoured as one of the Top 70 NHS Women Leaders in London during the NHS 70 year celebrations by the London Women’s Leadership Network and was named as one of the top 50 BAME NHS leaders by HSJ in 2020.
Aedamar Comiskey
Aedamar was elected Linklaters’ Senior Partner and Chair in May 2021 and is the first female Senior Partner in the Firm’s 184-year history. She is recognised as a leading public and private M&A lawyer and is a trusted Board adviser to a number of the firm’s large international clients. Prior to her current role, she was the firm’s Global Head of Corporate.
In 2023, Financial News recognised her as one of the Fifty Most Influential Lawyers and amongst Europe’s Most Influential Female Lawyers and she is featured in City A.M.’s Power 100 Women List.
Aedamar is married with 3 teenage sons.
Vanora Hundley
Vanora is Professor of Midwifery at Bournemouth University. She is an internationally recognised midwifery researcher and has worked in the UK, Hungary and the USA. She is an adviser to the World Health Organization and serves on a number of international research groups.
Vanora’s research focuses on intrapartum care. She conducted one of the first randomised controlled trials of midwife-led care. More recent work has examined the role of labour practices and their impact on maternal and neonatal outcomes, both in low income and high income countries. She is a member of the International Early Labour Research Group.
Vanora is passionate about supporting clinicians and practitioners to develop expertise in research. She is a mentor in the NIHR Academy Mentoring Programme and Deputy Chair for the HEE/NIHR ICA Programme’s Doctoral Clinical & Practitioner Academic Fellowship (DCAF) Scheme Selection Committee.
David Logan (Honorary Treasurer)
Chief Operating Officer, Columbia Threadneedle Investments
David is Chief Operating Officer for Columbia Threadneedle Investments. He was appointed to this role in November 2021, having previously been Head of Distribution for BMO Asset Management since 2016 and between 2014-16 EMEA Chief Operating Officer of BMO Asset Management.
Prior to this, David was Chief Financial Officer of F&C Asset Management plc. Before becoming CFO of F&C in July 2006, David spent 17 years in the accounting profession, including four years as a partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP and three years as a partner at Andersen.
He holds a BA in Accounting and Economics and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland. He is married with two children.
Paul Rowlinson
Paul spent 30 years in media and advertising, working with some of the world’s most famous brands. He is now a business strategy consultant, working with up-and-coming companies in media and other sectors.
He began helping Tommy’s raise awareness and funds whilst COO at WPP’s Mindshare in 2013 and helped the successful launch of the London Landmarks Half Marathon in 2018.
He is married with 2 grown-up children. Paul, his son and his daughter have run LLHM several times.
Kate Smaje
After beginning her career in M&A at Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan, Kate joined McKinsey where she leads the Consumer Digital work in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Kate helps leading retailers and consumer-facing companies capture opportunities afforded by new platforms, rethink their consumer-engagement models, and improve their marketing and sales performance. Kate is married with children.
Robert Stirling
Robert Stirling is a partner in the corporate department at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where he focuses on transactions for insurers and asset management clients, as well as working on the regulatory issues involved in transactional work and the insurance sector generally. He advises on public and private acquisitions, private equity investments, portfolio and other risk transfers, share offerings and asset disposals.
Rob is married, with 3 sons, who he tries to keep up with.
Shema Tariq
Shema is a Clinical Research Fellow at UCL’s Institute for Global Health, and Honorary Consultant HIV Physician at Mortimer Market Centre.
Shema qualified in Medicine from Newcastle University in 1999. She has Masters in both Medical Anthropology and Epidemiology, and a PhD in Public Health. She is a former Fulbright Scholar and has held MRC, NIHR and Wellcome Trust fellowships. Shema’s research focuses on women living with HIV, and she has specific expertise in HIV and pregnancy, and co-production of research with people with lived experience of health conditions.
She is Chair of the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV’s Lay Public Research Panel, and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees at Positively UK (the UK's leading HIV peer support charity). She was Vice-Chair of the British HIV Association’s Pregnancy and HIV Guidelines Committee from 2016-2020.
Following the loss of her son Altair in pregnancy, Shema received care from a Tommy’s research centre and now has 2 young children.
Hayley Tatum
Chief People & Corporate Affairs Officer – Asda
Hayley has worked in retail all her working life, in luxury goods in airport retailing and then over 20 years with Tesco. Hayley worked her way up - from the checkouts to the boardroom and established herself in both Senior HR and Retail Operations Leadership roles.
Hayley is the longest serving Asda board member, where she is responsible for leading the People and Corporate Affairs strategies. She has responsibility for 145,000 colleagues, rising to 170,000 by the end of 2023 with recent acquisitions. She in an experienced NED Trustee and also chairs the RemCo for GroceryAid.
Hayley lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband, 2 children and 2 dogs. She also enjoys family holidays, gardening and personal fitness.
