Advisors

Professor Global Business School for Health at University College London

Professor at Sandra Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Mark Britnell is one of the foremost global experts on healthcare systems and has a pioneering and inspiring global vision for health in both the developed and developing world. In dedicating his entire professional life to healthcare, for 35 years he has delivered strategy, policy and operations to organisations in 81 countries on 425+ occasions. He has led organisations at local, regional, national, and international levels, on both the provider and payer sides, and in public and private sectors.

In 2023, he took his worldly experience to the education space, cultivating the brilliant minds of tomorrow as a professor at both the Global Business School for Health at University College London and the Sandra Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He also formed his own global healthcare practice and holds a number of advisory positions across the world.

In his 13 years at KPMG, Mark held various titles across the firm including KPMG International’s Global Head of Health between 2009 and 2020, Global Head of Infrastructure, Government and Healthcare between March 2018 and September 2020, and most recently Senior Partner and Vice Chairman at KPMG in the UK until December 2022. During this time, he delivered sustained growth, accounting for 22% of total global revenues, and managed 45,000 staff across 145 countries.

Mark is the award-winning author of two books of global acclaim exploring the successes and failures of the world’s healthcare systems. His first book, In Search of the Perfect Health System, puts 25 healthcare systems under the microscope, revealing the different ways jurisdictions respond to healthcare challenges. Sold in 109 countries, the book was recognized by the Chinese Medical Doctors’ Association as the best health book in 2017, and in the UK by the British Medical Association in 2016. His most recent book, Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare, examines how the healthcare worker shortage issue has and will continue to impact some of the world’s leading health systems, while boldly offering 10 concrete and actionable solutions to help navigate the continually growing deficit.

Prior to his work with KPMG, Mark spent twenty years working for the National Health Service. After joining the UK’s NHS fast-track Management Training Scheme in 1989, he held several senior operational and government posts before being appointed, aged 34, as Chief Executive of University Hospitals Birmingham, one of the highest performing hospitals in the UK. He masterminded Queen Elizabeth Hospital — the largest new hospital build in NHS history — and established the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. He was then named Chief Executive of NHS South Central which ran the NHS from Oxford to the Isle of Wight and led the successful financial turnaround of the region before joining the NHS Management Board as Director General at the Department of Health, where he designed, developed, and delivered “High Quality Care for All” with Lord Darzi. As Executive Director of Central Middlesex Hospital NHS Trust, he developed the first-ever Ambulatory Care & Diagnostic Centre in the UK.

His current roles include Chairman of the Global Impact Committee for Beamtree, Australia, senior advisor to HMG in the Middle East and Trustee of The King’s Fund, the oldest health charity think tank in the world, based in London. Previously, he was a Non-Executive Director at Dr Foster Intelligence, a trustee of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and a Board member of Prostate Cancer UK. He survived prostate cancer at the age of 42 and has donated all his book royalties to prostate cancer research.

Nigel Edwards is an independent health policy expert working as an advisor with WHO and a number of UK organisations including PPL and RAND Europe.

Nigel was Chief Executive at the Nuffield Trust from 2012 to 2023. He has a long career in health policy and working on innovation and change in healthcare delivery and in providing challenging analysis on health policy. He has a strong interest in using different disciplines to inform health policy.

He has worked for the King’s Fund, KPMG’s global health practice and the NHS Confederation where he was Director of Policy for 11 years. Prior to that he worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he remains an honorary visiting professor. He started his professional life as a graduate trainee in NHS management and worked at hospital and regional level following this.

Nigel works across a range of issues from new models of service delivery, primary care, local health strategy and on wider health care policy in the UK and internationally. Most recently this has included reviewing the strategies for developing a teaching hospital and a rural health system in Wales, supporting WHO Europe in developing its thinking on hospitals, developing a vision for community pharmacy and working on research about the role of District Hospitals in low income countries.

Samantha started her career as a general and paediatric nurse and has worked in a variety of operational management roles across the NHS including as a Chief Executive for two Trusts.

Sam worked nationally at NHS England leading the New Models of Care programme before moving to run primary care services as chief executive of the largest primary care provider in England. Throughout her career Sam has worked in both the public and private sector focused on delivering health services.

Sam was appointed as expert adviser to the Prime Minister for NHS transformation and social care in 2021 where she led on all elements of health and social care policy before taking up post as the interim Permanent Secretary and Chief Operating Officer for 10 Downing Street. Awarded an OBE for public service in October 2023 , Samantha now works independently.