Appointments made to Strategy, Culture & Education Directorate

Following a rigorous recruitment process, with the support of both internal and external stakeholders, the Trust has made several substantive appointments to the Directorate of Strategy, Culture and Education.

They are as follows:

Lauren Singleton, MCIPD – Deputy Director of Culture and Leadership Development

Lauren is a human resource professional with over ten years’ experience operating within complex, unionised, multi-site private sector business environments in a range of human resources generalist, specialist, and strategic roles. Lauren has considerable experience in managing medium to large scale projects, introducing leadership development, talent management and organisation development strategies. She’s been working with executives and senior management teams at a strategic level, to align leadership development delivery to enable the business plan to be delivered.

Alisdair Smithies PhD, Organisation Development in Healthcare and MEd – Deputy Director of Education & Professional Development

Alisdair has gained extensive experience during his twenty-year career, of developing and delivering education programmes at leading UK universities, fostering innovation, and driving technology-enhanced change in academic practices. He has worked with a wide range of organisations including the World Health Organisation, NHS England, NHS Digital, NIHR, HDR-UK, Health Education England and Department of Health and Social Care. During his career he has advised on best-practice approaches to develop and assess knowledge, and skills across the global healthcare workforce.

Craig Penfold MBA, – Head of Strategic Workforce Planning

Craig has supplemented his global technology and supply chain experience in multi-national organisations with two years programme delivery lead experience in the NHS. He has considerable experience of working with diverse teams in the formulation and delivery of strategic objectives. Some of Craig’s many talents is the ability to construct strategic narratives, analysing data and extract insights that facilitate data driven decision making for managers and executives. His work leading the vaccination programme in Hertfordshire has created a sound foundation for Craig to apply his transferable skills in EEAST with comfort and success.

Caroline Nwadu MSc, MCIPD– Head of Culture and Inclusivity

Caroline is a senior HR specialist and a functional transformational lead, within EEAST, with over 14 years’ wide-ranging NHS experience in both provider and commissioning organisations. She possesses extensive generalist HR experience, delivering numerous people related programmes and Equality Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives & strategies and has strong senior stakeholder management experience. She has delivered high level HR solutions to clients covering the entire spectrum of HRM including HR Transformational & Change management, Cultural Programmes, Project management and Training.

Tanya Dewsnap-van der Merwe – Head of Talent Management and Succession Planning

Tanya has considerable NHS and private sector experience, most recently holding the post of Head of Organisational Development & Learning at NHS Herts Valleys CCG. The mixed nature of her experience has shaped her into an effective and innovative leader that leads by example. Her experience encompasses implementation and accountability for the development, learning and talent management of all staff through the successful application of the NHS People Plan and the People Promise as well as system development work that encourages conversation, garners aspirations, and supports staff in being the best they can be.

Tuesday 16th August 2022