The Steering Group
Shera Chok – Co-Founder & Chair
Shera is a GP in East London, Non-Executive Director with the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust and is the former Chief Medical Officer at NHS Digital. She started the Shuri Network in 2019 as she is passionate about increasing diversity, innovation and safety and to encourage other women from minority ethnic groups to lead and engage with digital transformation. She was awarded the international Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship by the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin in 2023 to examine the German digital health strategy and help develop new insights and perspectives that will help health systems deliver more equitable and innovative care.
An experienced Medical Director and Chief Clinical Information Officer, Shera has also held national leadership roles with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. She has helped to develop and implement health policy as a national clinical advisor on new models of care and Integrated Care Systems with NHS England and advised ministers a member of the NHS Independent Reconfiguration Panel for seven years. She worked at Barts Health, the largest acute trust in the NHS at the time as Director of Primary Care from 2010-2016, helping to improve patient pathways across organisational boundaries. She is also a member of the Sciana Network for European health leaders and was the recipient of the Zenith Global Health Special Recognition Award in 2023.
Shera has volunteered as a clinician in countries including Sudan, Laos, Indonesia and Greece with NGOs working in war and disaster zones and with displaced populations. She studied at the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard School of Public Health on the NHS Executive Fast Track programme, focusing on quality improvement, community engagement and leading change. She has completed an M.B.A., M.A. in Inter-professional Education and a Nuffield Trust Fellowship on cross-organisational learning with Sunderland Athletic Football Club. @SheraChok
Di Bullman
Di is a workforce and organisational development specialist, with over 20 years’ experience in professionalism in digital health and care. She is currently interim Networks Manager at Digital Health. Previously she was the Lead for ‘Digital Skills for our Future Workforce’ within the Digital Academy at NHS England.
She has an MSc in Workforce Development and Performance Management and has worked in a wide range of workforce and organisational development roles, both locally and nationally in the NHS for over 30 years.
@Di.Bullman
Twitter @Di.Bullman
Jenny Chong
Jenny is a Non-Executive Director with Medway NHS Foundation Trust. She sits on boards and committees for The Design Museum, Imperial College London’s Venture Mentoring Service, the Egypt Exploration Society; and Orthopaedic Research UK. She is a deputy director and mentor on Imperial College’s Imperial Venture Mentoring Scheme and the Engineering Faculty’s Imperial Technology Experts Service; and an advisor to various start-ups in the FinTech, MedTech and social impact space.
Originally from Singapore, after graduating from the London School of Economics, Jenny embarked on a 20-year career in Investment Banking. Starting in Equities, she has worked across client relationship management, infrastructure, software engineering, program management, big data and AI. Her most recent role was as Credit Suisse’s Global Head of Electronic Communications Surveillance, running a global regulatory compliance platform that detects potential malicious behaviour; leveraging natural language processing and deep learning to cognitively learn human context; identify patterns to create behavioural models; and detect anomalous signals.
Jenny actively promotes education in STEM, gender equality, diversity and inclusion. She is also a recipient of the inaugural Tech Star award at the “Women in Banking and Finance Annual Awards for Achievement”.
Nadira Hussain, Chief Executive, Socitm
An established ICT and change management leader, NED and coach with 25+ years’ experience, Nadira has worked primarily in local government; leading the ICT and digital service, managing wider teams including business improvement, transformation and customer services. Nadira has implemented numerous complex change programmes across shared services to deliver new operating models, efficiencies and service improvement.
At Socitm, Nadira is keen to support members shape and deliver effective public services through improved use and adoption of technologies, data and digital solutions & practices. She continues to focus on the work she initiated as president of the society (15/16), building the leadership, skills and diversity of the sector’s workforce. Her passion is to tackle inequality, promote professionalism, improve personal development opportunities and champion women role models.
Her wider responsibilities include director for Federation for Informatics Professionals (FEDIP) advisory board, board member for the Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGPP), board member for the Solace in Business (SiB) Board. Her voluntary and charitable work include; steering group member for the Shuri Network, the Solace EDI forum and Diversity in Local Government Leadership (DLGL) forum, co-founder and co-chair of the Socitm/UKAuthority Women in Local Government ICT network and non-executive director for the #techmums board and Executive Committee member of the Major Cities of Europe (MCE) forum.
Twitter @nadirahussain44
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadira-hussain-63a08314/
www.socitm.net
Adjoa Nsiah-Jennings
Adjoa Nsiah-Jennings is the Digital Education Lead at Saint Francis Hospice – one of the largest adult Hospices in the UK. Providing palliative and end of life care services across the growing and diverse communities of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge, Brentwood, and West Essex.
An award-winning nurse, specialising in technology enhanced education. Adjoa is the first nurse from a Hospice to have completed both the Shuri Network Digital Fellowship and the NHS Digital Health Leadership Programme (PGDip) with FEDIP Advanced Practitioner status.
As a passionate advocate for digital inclusion and accessibility across health and education. Adjoa is committed to developing programmes and initiatives that transcend barriers of digital engagement. Empowering both staff and volunteers to embrace digital skills alongside the communities they serve.
In 2023, Adjoa became a Shuri Network Steering Group member. Leading on the Shuri Network Alumni Programme, she supports the Shuri Digital Fellows to continue to grow and thrive within their community and across the digital healthcare space.
Eddie Olla
Eddie is the Regional Director for Digital Transformation at NHS Midlands. He joined the National Health Service (NHS) in 1988 and has worked as a clinician in secondary and primary care sectors. Eddie moved into the IT sector utilising his clinical knowledge and skills which has proved valuable in helping organisations to improve patient experience and increase the quality of care.
As a non-practicing clinician and digital expert, Eddie is enthusiastic about innovative technologies and their application in Healthcare. Eddie believes that clinicians have a key role to play in the delivery of digital, interoperable electronic health records, artificial intelligence and population health
management.
Eddie is a graduate of the NHS Leadership Academy Executive Directors programme and is passionate about equality, diversity and inclusion to address healthcare inequalities for patients and championing equality for all staff.
Ayesha Rahim
Dr Ayesha Rahim is a Psychiatrist, and Chief Medical Information Officer at a Mental Health Trust in the south of England. She is also the Clinical Lead for Digital Mental Health at NHS England, and has worked in the NHS since 2003. She is a graduate of the first cohort of the NHS Digital Academy, and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics. Her interests include clinical engagement in digital transformation, User Centred Design, health inequalities, and workforce development.
Through her work she has led major digital transformation programmes such as the roll-out of electronic patient record systems in a secondary care context, and other digital innovation programmes such as the Global Digital Exemplar scheme.
She can be found on Twitter @AyeshaRahimCCIO.
Rush Miah
Rush is the Head of Business Intelligence at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.
She has over 14 years experience working with data, 8 of those within the NHS. Her knowledge in data in includes Data Architecture, Database Administration, Data Engineering, Data Analytics, Data Visualising and Storytelling.
Whilst working full time, Rush is also studying for an MSc in Health Data Science part time.
Rush was also selected for the FEDIP 35 under 35 Future Digital Leader bursary programme, cohort 1 (2022).
The Advisory Board
Andreas Haimböck-Tichy
Andreas is currently Managing Director, Healthcare UK at Accenture with a mission to help the NHS and health and care Industry to transform through the use of data, AI and other digital technologies. He has worked with organisations such as Alder Hey Hospital to improve children’s experience of receiving healthcare, with Versus Arthritis UK to improve patient pain management and with Royal Marsden to enhance employee experience using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics.
Andreas is a Non-Executive Director in the NHS and previous Chair of the Health and Social Care (HSC) Council, techUK
Dillan Yogendra
Dillan spent 10-years at HIMSS, where he served as the international managing editor for esteemed titles such as Healthcare IT News, MobiHealthNews, HIMSS Insights, and HIMSS TV. In this position, Dillan was responsible for managing all editorial and custom media content, as well as leading the EMEA news team during a period of remarkable audience growth.
Dillan’s journalistic training, combined with his deep passion for transforming healthcare, has equipped him with the skills to create innovative media campaigns for a diverse range of partners within the digital health ecosystem. As a result Dillan cultivated an extensive network of contacts and deep knowledge in the UK, Europe, and Middle East regions. Dillan’s dedication to driving meaningful change in the healthcare industry helps Silver Buck’s clients to connect more closely with the NHS and unlock their potential in global markets.
Hassan Chaudhury
Hassan is a founder, advisor, and lecturer with a global perspective on health data research, international expansion of digital health and medtech, and how to de-risk health innovation adoption.
He worked in NHS informatics and then became a founder of a startup in real world data that bootstrapped and expanded internationally before exit. He then spent 4 years until 2022 as the Global Digital Health Specialist for Healthcare UK, part of the UK Government, covering 96 countries, developing the national offer for digital health inward investment and for international trade, supporting innovators into and out of the UK.
He is now a founder at Vita, which designs accelerators and education programmes, and addresses why health innovation doesn’t always gain adoption. He is also a co-founder at Doftware and at Trade Aide, as well as a non-executive director at Opto Health. He mentors at some of the most prestigious accelerators in the country including the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA), the P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator at UCL, MedTech SuperConnector at Imperial College London, and KQ Labs at The Francis Crick Institute. He also advises a range of startups and organisations including the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (LIHE) at Kings College London.
He now lectures at the world’s first and only business school dedicated to health – UCL Global Business School for Health (GBSH) – where he lectures on the MBA Health, and is a module lead for ‘Startups’ on the MSc Digital Health & Entrepreneurship.
He is also currently a Vice-Chair of the HIMSS UK and Ireland community, a member of the All4Health&Care, Masala and AnalystX communities, and is Commercial Director at DATA-CAN; the HDRUK Hub for Cancer.
Carolyn Manuel-Barkin
With a Masters in Public Health and a Masters in Public Policy, Carolyn expected to spend her career in a small cubicle undertaking data analysis on Medicare finance reform for the United States government. But life had other ideas, and Carolyn moved to the UK where she has held roles in management consultancy, technology and financial services including Director of Delivery and Growth for Simplyhealth and Health Director for FutureGov. A strategy and business specialist with 25+ years of experience in health, she now works as an independent digital health consultant supporting health tech companies and the NHS.
Elizabeth Nyawade
I am currently an executive director at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust. I have over 20 years’ experience working as a professional in human resources and organisational development in the public, private, and third sectors.
My board level experience, past and current, has been in both public and third sectors. I am currently a Trustee at LHA London Charity. I also have past and current experience of sitting on Strategic Advisory Boards in private and public sector organisations.
I enjoy a presence on the social media platform X formerly Twitter (@liznyawade1), where I have connected with many professionals in my discipline. Together, we learn, share, and have some fun.
My strapline in life is ‘Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can be achieved.’ Napoleon Hill.