Our leadership

Wayne brings a wealth of Health and Social care experience, gained from his work at the Hospice over the last 20 years and his time in the wider NHS where he qualified as a Registered Nurse in 1997. He has worked in the NHS for over 30 years and was appointed as Chief Executive in 2019. His leadership style is built on openness, empowerment and a non-hierarchical approach.

He is passionate about ensuring that the care provided by Dorothy House reaches everyone who needs it. He believes that care should be delivered through collaboration, known for its clinical excellence and built on a foundation of outstanding research and education in palliative and end of life care.

Dorothy House Finance Director Tony De Jaeger has extensive experience of creating multi-cultural finance, legal and ERP system infrastructures. He has a track record of influencing and shaping strategic direction in business planning, acquisitions, restructuring and organic growth.

James has been working in the Third Sector for over 20 years and is passionate about ensuring the work of Dorothy House reaches everyone who needs it. He has lived in Bath since 2008 and has two young children.

Liza has been a human resources professional for over 30 years and has held a range of HR and leadership roles in the Senior Civil Service before joining Dorothy House in August 2021. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and a Chichester University accredited Advanced Practitioner in Organisation Design and Development. She is passionate about her work and enjoys supporting businesses to move forward. She strives to continually professionally develop herself and takes pride in developing others to their full potential.

Penny is an accomplished executive leader and is recognised for her compassionate, inclusive, values-based leadership. She has over 30 years’ experience across the NHS and has held a number of director roles previously including at Sirona Care & Health, Guys & St Thomas’s NHSFT and Royal Brompton & Harefield NHSFT. She is a Chartered Physiotherapist and is passionate about maximising the potential of all, delivering innovative clinical services, and excellent experience. Penny puts building collaborative relationships at the heart of her work and actively seeks out opportunities to deliver continuous improvement.

Emma has been a Medical Consultant at Dorothy House since 2011 before her appointment to Medical Director. Previously, she worked as a GP in Somerset before moving to Oxford where she undertook her specialist training. In 2012 she completed a Master’s degree in Palliative Medicine, and in 2016 she became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Her particular areas of interest are complex ethical situations and non-malignant conditions.

Marika is a registered nurse with a passion for service improvement. Most of her career has been focused on the care and  management of people with cancer and end of life care needs. Her clinical expertise was developed working in acute haematology and as a palliative care clinical nurse specialist in the acute hospital setting before moving to various leadership roles within both the NHS and charitable sector. She has worked for Dorothy House Hospice Care for three years and is dedicated to person centred holistic end of life care and supporting the development of the clinical teams.

Stephen has worked for 30 years with large organisations, in the UK and twenty other countries, on their ‘soft’ issues: leadership, teamwork, behaviour, culture, communication. He was chief executive of the Leadership Centre for Local Government for five years. Since 2010 he has been chairman of Taylor Made Media, which makes films for business.

Francesca’s background is in specialist palliative care and she has worked in a number of hospices and voluntary care sector organisations, including St Christopher’s Hospice in London. It was here that she had the privilege to work with its founder, Dame Cicely Saunders. Francesca has a passion for understanding what matters most to our patients and their loved ones and having learnt so much of what does matter during her hospice years, she is keen to spread her learning.

Francesca was also Chief Operating Officer at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust and during her time at the RUH she pioneered the role of Head for Patient Experience and led the early design of a Quality Improvement Centre which continues to flourish at the RUH.

Francesca lives with her husband in Bath and has tw0 grown up daughters.

Simon was previously a GP partner at the Porch Surgery in Corsham. He has always had a particular interest in care of the elderly and has had a longstanding involvement in NHS commissioning for Wiltshire. Until recently he was a board member of Wiltshire CCG and remains active in the North and East Wiltshire commissioning group.

David has been a solicitor specialising in Corporate, Commercial Contracts, IT and Intellectual Property. Having spent eight years in the City, David moved to Bath in 1995 and was Head of the Corporate Department of Bath’s largest law firm until he retired from this role in 2016.

James has been specialising with not- for-profit clients since 1999. He completed his training with Ernst and Young in 2002 where he was involved with the audit of several large charities. James has recently joined MHA Monahans, transferring from another MHA firm, MHA MacIntyre Hudson. James holds the Diploma in Charity Accounting and has lectured at CASS Business School on their MSc in Charity Finance.

Brian is a career marketer having a wealth of experience working both client side and in strategic marketing consultancy. As a hugely experienced Agency leader, he has delivered brand strategy and innovation projects for clients including: Amex, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Hilton, Lego, Malmaison Hotels, Nestle, Orange, P&G, Pret A Manger and Unilever.

He is now an advisor to highly ambitious agencies, Non Executive Director (NED), Brand Strategist and Coach with 15+ years Board Level experience.

Margaret is a extensively experienced registered Social Work Practitioner who has previously held various management roles within NHS for Bedfordshire and Luton Mental Health Partnership Trust,  South Essex Partnership Mental Health NHS Trust in Bedfordshire and relocated to Wiltshire in 2013. She is currently the Head of Ageing Well Service in Adult Social Care for Wiltshire Council. She brings to the board immensely valuable management level experience concerning interacting with Health and Social Care professionals, voluntary sector, Multi-disciplinary / agencies and other public services. She has wide experience leading change management and effective partnership work across the NHS and local authorities in a number of areas as well as previously serving on the board for a charity working with people experiencing homelessness and mental illness in Bath.

Margaret values diversity and firmly believes that creating equal opportunities benefits organisations as well as individuals and feels strongly about contributing to the community.

Charity has worked in retail for all of her career. She joined the John Lewis Partnership as a graduate trainee, and worked for 14 years in various roles including senior store management, branding and buying. She left in 2006 to move back to Wiltshire with her husband and young children and started her own business the following year.

She now runs online ethical gifts retail business Green Tulip and, together with her husband, distribution business Green Pioneer which is focused on selling design led sustainable products to retailers all around Europe. She is also a partner in The Inner Yard, a lifestyle and gift shop situated on the north side of beautiful Salisbury Plain.

Warren is partner at national top 100 law firm Ashfords, where he specialises in property disputes. He acts for a wide range of landlords and property investors, corporate tenants, rural landowners and landed estates, private individuals, charities, and clients in the care sector. Warren is a regular RICS guest speaker, lecturing on a wide range of topics including mediation and property dispute resolution. In his spare time he enjoys travel, long distance walking, surfing, golf, and camper-vanning, whenever possible with his wife Rebecca and three children too.

Bridget is a Registered Social Worker and has worked extensively in the local authority and not-for-profit sectors.

Her career has included specialisms in Probation and Aftercare, adoption and fostering, disability services, education, quality and homecare and she has served on (and in some cases chaired) a number of national and international committees.  She has been Chief Executive of two national not-for-profit organisations and Executive Director of two others.

Bridget is currently working as a social care consultant and mentor to charity Chief Executives as well as providing Social Care advice to NICE and chairing Safeguarding and Quality committees for a national charity.

Jon is a Consulting Partner with Deloitte and brings with him 25+ years of delivery experience in digital and cloud transformation and adoption across many high profile national, regional and global organisations and brands.  Jon loves the challenge of realising the value of investment in technology and the potential opportunities that innovations such as Gen AI, Automation and Cloud can bring to organisations for social, community and people based impacts.  With the social care sector demand for more remote and hybrid working, increased efficiencies, higher customer expectations the need to leverage digital and data is a critical enabler to let our carers and medical practitioners remain focused on patients and their families more, in more places than before.  Jon’s experience is a really welcome addition to our team of Trustees.

David read law at university and worked in the mortgage sector for around 20 years in compliance and audit roles for organisations including Allied Dunbar and Cheltenham & Gloucester. In 2007 David was called to the Methodist ministry and has served in Swindon and Chippenham. He is now Superintendent Minister of the North Wiltshire Methodist Circuit.

Alongside ministry he has served as a volunteer police chaplain, chair of governors to a large secondary school and chair of trustees of Willows Counselling and Chippenham Street pastors. David holds a qualification in counselling and is a spiritual director.

He is married with an adult son. Outside of work he enjoys visits to the theatre, concerts and watching Gloucester and Wales rugby.