Chair Recruitment

Board

Professor David Lalloo MB BS MD FRCP FFTM RCPS (Glasg)

Director

Professor David Lalloo is LSTM’s Director since 1 January 2019.

Having undergone initial training in Newcastle upon Tyne, David Lalloo trained in General (Internal) Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, spending three years in Papua New Guinea. He undertook clinical and laboratory research in Oxford before moving as Senior Lecturer to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1999. Since then he has focused on clinical trials in the tropics, particularly in HIV related infections, malaria and envenoming. He currently has collaborations and studies in a number of countries including Malawi, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland) and South Africa. He has worked with the MLW Programme in Malawi for almost twenty years. He holds an appointment as an Honorary Consultant at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and remains clinically active.  

Prior to taking up the Directorship of LSTM in January 2019, David was Dean of Clinical Sciences and International Public Health and was Director of the Wellcome Trust Liverpool Glasgow Centre for Global Health Research and the Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical PhD Programme. He has a strong interest in identifying and supporting young UK clinicians interested in tropical research and strengthening scientific capacity in resource poor settings. He continues to supervise PhD and MD students in a wide variety of infection related areas.

For more information click here

Jim McKenna

Chair

Jim has a background in technology and services where he works with a number of early stage companies both as an investor and mentor.

In his executive career, Jim was the Chief Operating Officer at Logica Plc having previously worked for GEC-Marconi and the Plessey Company.

He is currently the Senior Independent Director at Wessex Water and Chairman of the SS Great Britain Trust. Jim was previously Chair of Catch22 a social business he helped create in 2008 and Chairman of Azzurri Communications.

He also chaired the Senate at the University of East London and was a member of the Governments Senior Salaries Review Board and a Trustee of Co-operation Ireland.

Jim became Chair of LSTM on 1st February 2021.

Mr Jon Schofield

BA ACA

Vice Chairman and Hon Treasurer

Jon Schofield is a leading figure within the North West business community.  He co-founded Dow Schofield Watts Corporate Finance in 2002, which has grown under his leadership to become one of the most prominent advisory businesses in the North of England. 

For over two decades Jon has provided specialist corporate finance and strategic advice to growing businesses across a range of sectors. He has advised entrepreneurs, private and public organisations on an array of transactions including significant fundraisings, disposals, and corporate mergers and acquisitions. In addition, he has established PHD Equity Partners, an FCA Regulated Private Equity Fund. 

After qualifying as a chartered accountant, Jon spent twelve years with KPMG before joining a 3i backed management buyout in 1994.  After exiting from the buyout, Jon become a Corporate Finance Partner at Grant Thornton in Manchester advising corporates and financial institutions across the UK and overseas. In 1999 he joined Cammell Laird Holdings Plc as Finance Director and subsequently was appointed Chief Executive. 

Since 2011, Jon has held a Non-Executive Director role with Atlantic & Peninsula Marine Services Limited, the UK’s largest provider of ship repair, conversion and marine services.

Jon is also Non-Executive Chairman of Dee Valley Group Plc, joining the board in 2010.  Dee Valley Group Plc is principally engaged in the provision of water services to customers predominantly in North East Wales and West Cheshire, and is fully listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Trustees

Dr Julian Lob-Levyt CBE

Currently Chair of The Malaria Consortium, Dr Julian Lob-Levyt was most recently Senior Vice President, International with DAI, based in London.  Dr Lob-Levyt led the development of DAI's European operations to become a recognised global company within the field of International Development.  

As CEO of the GAVI Alliance between 2005 and 2010, Dr Lob-Levyt's leadership led to the delivery of immunisation to over 250 million children, preventing more than five million deaths globally.  

Previously Dr. Lob-Levyt was Head of Human Development and Chief Health and Population Advisor at the UK's Department for International Development, Regional Health Advisor in Zimbabwe for the EC, led health systems reform in Cambodia, was First Secretary Health for Overseas Development Aid in Bangladesh and Chief Medical Officer in the Solomon Islands. In the 2011 Queen's birthday honours, he was awarded a CBE for 'Services to Global Health'. 

Mr Jeremy Lefroy

MP

A qualified chartered accountant, Jeremy has a background in manufacturing, international trade and agriculture. He was elected MP for Stafford in 2010 and re-elected in 2015. He has been a member of the International Development Committee since 2010 and the Joint Human Rights Committee since 2015. He chairs the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, and on Tanzania, as he is also Chairman of the Board of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF.

From 1989 to 2000, he and his family lived in Tanzania where he worked in the coffee industry. On returning to the UK, he helped to establish a business sourcing and processing coffee and organic cocoa from smallholder farmers in East and West Africa. He believes in tackling poverty through enterprise and job creation and co-founded Equity for Africa which provides equity-type funding for small businesses.

Jeremy has served as a councillor and as cabinet member for resources in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire as well as on the Independent Monitoring Board of a Young Offenders Institution and as a school governor.

Professor Steve Ward

BSc PhD

Professor Ward is the Deputy Director and Walter Myers Professor of Parasitology at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM). 

After a year working as a Research Fellow at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, Steve returned to Liverpool begin his UK academic career.  Working initially as a Lecturer in Tropical Pharmacology at LSTM, Steve then held a number of senior research and teaching positions at the University of Liverpool before being awarded a Personal Chair in 1999. Steve returned to LSTM as Walter Myers Professor of Parasitology in 2000. 

Steve is also currently Head of Drug Discovery at LSTM with a portfolio of antimalarial, anti-TB and antihelminthic drugs. He has delivered one molecule to full international registration, three molecules into human trials and a further four molecules through a completed full preclinical development. He has a key role in the Gates funded AWOL product discovery initiative and collaborates with Eisai Pharma, Japan supported through the GHIT initiative to develop new macrofilaricide drugs. 

During his career, Steve has established a significant number of international collaborative links with key organisations, including the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories Kenya, Centre for Drug Research, University Sains Malaysia, Mahidol University Thailand, Thammassat University Thailand, Guangdong University of Technology China, GSK DDW Madrid, Astra Zeneca. He was appointed Member of the MMV External Scientific Advisory Board in 2008. 

His most recent awards include the Dr Chitavat Sadavongvivad Memorial Medal from the Thai Pharmacology Society in 2010, the Thompson Medal from the Royal Society for Chemistry awarded in 2011 and the Sornchai Looareesuwan Medal from Mahidol University in 2013.

Mr Mark Allanson

Mark joined Edge Hill as Pro Vice-Chancellor (External Relations) in August 2014. Before joining Edge Hill he was the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Regional Consultant for the North West. Prior to this he held a number of senior university roles including UK and international student recruitment, marketing and external affairs, enterprise and knowledge transfer, student services, development and alumni. He also jointly created and was a non-executive director of a university spin-out technology company. Originally with Unilever, Mark has also run his own business and been a Director of a Chamber of Commerce.

Ms Susan Russell

LLB Solicitor

Sue Russell is a solicitor specialising in mergers and acquisitions. She is a member of Hill Dickinson LLP, an international law firm based in Liverpool, which also has offices in Sheffield, Manchester, London, Piraeus, Monaco, Hong Kong and Singapore. Sue has served on the Board of Hill Dickinson for the last six years. 

Sue advises public and private companies in the UK and overseas, principally in relation to acquisitions and disposals (M&A), and also with strategic commercial advice. 

Sue graduated from Sheffield University with a law degree and also holds the Corporate Finance qualification issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. 

Away from business, her interests are choral singing, football and cricket.

Mr John O’Brien

BComm, FCA

John has significant experience of advising clients on strategic, operational and transactional activity. As a partner at KPMG he led radical change, reshaping his business areas by merger, acquisition and significant recruitment. His career has taken him away from Liverpool to Manchester and across the north of England, before finishing in London but always maintaining his home in Liverpool.

John was recognised by his clients and colleagues as a forthright, clear thinker who takes a balanced and commercial view to problems and opportunities to generate innovative and executable solutions.

His client base included sizeable businesses such as Princes Foods, Bibby, Innospec, Arriva, Downing, United Utilities and Amec, a number of the national private equity community and several local entrepreneurial businesses including O'Hare Engineering, American Golf and Epichem.

As well as his longstanding commitment to St Edward’s College and his local church, John has non-executive positions in property and travel businesses.

Outside of work his passions include football, golf, reading and keeping up with his two grown up children.

Ms Rebecca Nightingale

MSc MRes BSc

Rebecca is a respiratory physiotherapist who is currently a PhD MRC DTP student at LSTM. 

She has an interest in lung disease among ‘hard to reach’ populations and is splitting her PhD studies between the UK and Malawi. Having worked as a Senior Respiratory Physiotherapist in Southampton, she went on to work in a health centre in Kenya, helping them to develop into a hospital and setting up new acute inpatient services. During her 5 years working in Kenya she was involved in all accepts of hospital growth from human resource development to grant management. Rebecca has since returned to the UK and has worked again for the NHS in acute adult respiratory services. Rebecca has an MSc in Global Health and Development from UCL and an Mres from the University of Liverpool.

Rebecca is serving as the student representative on the trustee’s board.

Eileen Thornton

CBE, MEd, BA, FCSP, DipTP

Trained and practiced as a chartered physiotherapist in Manchester. A move to Liverpool in 1970, to train as a teacher of physiotherapy, started an academic career in health care education which lasted over 45 years. 

On joining the University of Liverpool in 1992, she expanded her role beyond a single profession to cover the education and training of a range of health professionals. This provided valuable experience for her later role of Associate PVC (Education) in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, from which she retired in 2016.

Eileen has served on a number of key national committees of her professional body and regulatory body where standards of practice, professional codes of practice, quality assurance of programmes and continuing professional development were the focus of her activity. She served on a wide range of University Committees centred on maintaining and enhancing the quality of the student experience.

In 1994 she was awarded a Fellowship of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in recognition of the contribution made towards the development of undergraduate & postgraduate physiotherapy education. In 2012 she was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Healthcare Education and Training.

Andy L.D. Wright

Andy Wright has 20 years experience leading global health programmes improving the lives of people in the developing world. Andy’s early career includes project management of capital projects within the petrochemical construction industry, roles in marketing and business development, and project management consultancy.

Andy worked for the pharmaceutical company GSK from 1994 to 2019 in various roles, however from 2000 joined the global programme to eliminate the disease Lymphatic Filariasis (LF). Andy managed the donation of the medicine albendazole, which has now exceeded 8 billion doses to more than 80 countries, to combat LF and treat school-age children for intestinal worms.

As Vice President of Global Health Programmes at GSK, Andy was responsible for leading the team implementing GSK’s portfolio of donation and grant making programmes aimed at improving the health of underserved people in the developing world. These included the donation of albendazole for neglected tropical diseases, a partnership with Comic Relief to combat Malaria, a partnership with Save the Children improving the lives of children in Africa and Asia, training of health workers in 40 Least Developed Countries, partnerships to strengthen academic institutions, humanitarian response and programmes to improve access to medicines.

Andy has travelled extensively to over 60 countries, including more than 30 in South America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, to visit programmes supported by GSK.

Andy retired from GSK in 2019 and is now Director of Wright Global Health Consulting, focusing on tropical diseases affecting people in the developing world.

Andy has a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters Degree in Project Management.

Joanne Dodd

BA ACA

Joanne is a Chartered Accountant providing financial advisory services to businesses across the North of England. Following graduation from Durham University, Joanne qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Grant Thornton before moving to the corporate finance department of Ernst & Young where she specialised in due diligence and independent financial reviews on behalf of banks, private equity houses and other large financial institutions in both the UK and Europe. Following a period working in industry, Joanne set up her own business, Crabtree Capital, in 2008 which provides retained financial advisory services, often in a non-executive director capacity, as well as specific assignments for companies across sectors including fintech, insurance services and hospitality and telecoms. Joanne became a Governor of Stonyhurst College in 2019.

Nyovani Janet Madise, PhD, DSc.

PhD, DSc.

Nyovani is currently Director of Research and Head of the Malawi office of the African Institute for Development Policy, whose headquarters is in Nairobi. She received her MSc and PhD from the University of Southampton and a Doctor of Science honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen.

Between 1994 and 2018, she was at the University of Southampton where she started as a lecturer, rising to Professor of Demography and Social Statistics. She also served as the University’s lead for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity, Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Human and Mathematical Science, and Director of the Centre for Global Health, Population, Poverty, and Policy.  Nyovani also worked as a Lecturer at the University of Malawi between 1983 and 1994, and on secondment as a Senior Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center in Kenya (2004-2007).

Nyovani has over 100 peer-reviewed publications on the social determinants of health in the specific areas of maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, food security, and nutritional status. In her current role, Nyovani’s focus is on promoting the use of evidence in decision-making in the public sector (where she is working with researchers and policymakers on effective strategies for policy engagement) and supporting countries to evaluate their progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Secretary


Mr Einion Holland

FCCA MBA

Einion Holland is a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant with an MBA Honours from Manchester University's Business School. He thrives in organisations when overseeing transformation, whether as a manager or in a voluntary capacity.  He has served as a Magistrate and as a Chair of School Governors.  

Articled in private practice in Llandudno, at a time when computers were in their infancy, he managed a computer bureaux providing a weekly payroll and monthly financial reports. He joined the Health Authority in the mid-1980s and became adept at providing complex models to support the financial consequences of strategic change with the centralisation processes moving to general hospitals and the closure of cottage hospitals.  He then moved on to local government in 1988 progressing from liaison between the IT and accountancy department, to taking on the role of the accountant for the North Wales Police Force, and a plethora of other services including the Fire Service and Magistrates Committee, trading standards, planning etc.

In 1992 he was appointed Director of Finance at The Normal College which became independent under the Higher Education reforms of 1991 and in its short life, prospered in financial and cultural terms until its merger with the University of Wales Bangor to 1996. He managed two notable projects at this time including a significant refurbishment of the Hen Goleg a Grade II listed building in Bangor with a substantial Welsh Office grant and the rebuild of the Huw Owen building from insurance funds following a major fire.  The Hen Goleg is an impressive building and was a major achievement. 

Einion then became an Assistant Director of Estates at the University of Wales Bangor for the next six years where he refined the administration and financial processes for the facilities and building development teams. He joined LSTM in April 2001 and has been at the heart of the organisation's transition to its current position. Einion is the Director of Strategic Operations as well as the Company Secretary and Clerk to the Board of Trustees.