Our Board of Trustees

Marie has been involved with St Oswald’s since 1999, when she was appointed as a Trustee, retiring after the maximum eight years service. Marie then joined St Oswald’s Hospice Promotions Limited (SOHP) as an Independent Director and has continued to work with SOHP to date. She was appointed Vice Chair of St Oswald’s in 2017 and Chair in 2018.

For the last 17 years Marie has worked for ScS Group plc, a national chain of sofa and carpet retailers. She is the Group’s Corporate Service Director and has responsibility for Customer Services, Estates, HR & Training, Internal Audit, Safety and Compliance.

A keen fencer, Marie has competed at national and international level and was also involved in governance for the sport, retiring by rotation as President of England Fencing in March 2018.

Julie was born and educated in Newcastle upon Tyne, leaving in 1980 to complete her legal studies in London. Julie has practiced law for many years, first in the City of London and for the last 25 years in her home town of Newcastle, where she is Head of the Banking and Finance Practice of Ward Hadaway. Outside her professional work, she loves to travel, whether it is motor biking through the Dales or roaming through flea markets in Florence, skiing down the Alps or venturing further afield with trips from China to Mexico, although this was curtailed a little when she married Clive in 2006. She has always had a keen eye for fashion, something she and Clive have in common as he has been involved in the menswear industry since 1978.

She acts as a non executive for a local Arts organisation.

Julie spends much of her free time with her family, including eight nephews and nieces, two sisters and her lovely mother Mary, who retired from nursing after 35 years.

Brian is a Qualified Accountant (C.I.P.F.A.). His professional career started at Newcastle City Council Treasurer's department in 1974. He then became Finance Manager in the Housing department and then moved to Tynedale District Council as Chief Accountant in 1982.

In 1986, Brian joined the NHS and the Northern Regional Health Authority as Assistant Director (Financial Planning). He later moved to Northumberland Health Authority in similar role, then re-joined the Northern RHA as Acting Regional Director of Finance.

In 1992, Brian was appointed as Director of Finance at South Durham Community Trust based in Darlington and in late 1993 took up post as Director of Finance at Sunderland Health Authority. Following the restructure of Health Authorities in 2002, he moved to become Director of Finance and Contracting with the North of England NHS Workforce Development Confederation, which had a shelf life of two years. Other roles included Acting Director of Finance with Selby and York Primary Care Trust and also Wakefield West PCT.

Post retirement from the NHS, Brian worked for Nomad Housing Group (now part of ISOS Group) as Housing Community Development Manager and for Newcastle City Council Strategic Housing Dept as Housing, Health and Social Care Co-ordinator until 2008.

Helen was a Consultant Oncologist in Newcastle from 1984 until her retirement in 2011. Her areas of special interest were breast cancer, haematological cancers and radiotherapy for children’s cancers. Helen was involved in cancer research, teaching of medical students and junior doctors and served on several national committees, most recently on the Council of the Royal College of Radiologists, where she was a Trustee of the College.

Helen visited St Oswald's weekly for several years from its opening in 1986 and was impressed by the calm, welcoming atmosphere, which she describes as remaining the same. Helen became a St Oswald's volunteer in 2012, working with medical staff on projects related to clinical performance.

Helen is a magistrate in Northumberland and a Governor of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is married to a doctor and they have two daughters and two granddaughters.

Christine's nursing career began in Newcastle over 30 years ago where she initially qualified as an adult nurse before specialising in children’s nursing. She has had the privilege of working in a range of exciting roles in the NHS and University, which have equipped her to lead, manage and innovate both in clinical care and nurse education. These roles have provided her with excellent learning opportunities, using the knowledge and skills she has accumulated over these years within the role as a Trustee.

Christine moved into nursing education after working as a staff nurse, ward sister and senior nurse. After a number of years in education she decided that she wanted to return to practice and negotiated a secondment as a Senior Matron/Senior Lecturer within Paediatric Oncology (2005-2010). The post was a joint appointment between Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust and Northumbria University aimed at providing professional nursing leadership and management whilst developing research capacity within the specialty. The paediatric oncology service included in-patient, out-patient and day patient care as well as palliative and end-of-life care. During her time in this role she played a key role in the planning and successful transfer of services to their new home in the Great North Children’s Hospital.

Christine is currently employed as a Principal Lecturer (Children’s Nursing) and Director of Outreach and Widening Participation within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Northumbria University. As Principal Lecturer she has leadership and management responsibilities within pre-registration children’s nursing, including teaching and research in this area. As Director of Outreach and Widening Participation she has strategic leadership responsibilities across all departments in the Faculty (Health, Lifesciences, Education, Sports) to ensure successful engagement with local schools and colleges to raise aspirations and widen participation in higher education.

Christine's particular research interests are in quality of care and service user perspectives and welcomes the opportunity to make a useful contribution to the on-going development of St Oswald's.

David Hicks is a key member of the Newcastle tax team in Deloitte, and has been instrumental in helping to build a leading practice. In particular, his presence in the market as a heavyweight personal tax adviser has seen the team go from strength to strength, both in the region and further afield.

David is a Deloitte ‘lifer’, having joined as a school leaver from a working class family in 1990. He started his career in the Leeds office, where he gained his CTA qualification, and has been an integral part of the Newcastle office since moving to the North East in 2006. His talents saw him progress to Director in 2012, and since then he has gone from strength to strength showcasing not only his own abilities regionally and nationally, but also that of the entire team.

In Leeds, David worked in a specialist and deep technical team, which acted as a centre of excellence for the UK business. As a result, his tax talents are principally in problem-solving, and coupled with technical knowledge and his commercial and pragmatic approach, he is a go-to person not locally and across the national Private Client business.

For the last four years, David's reputation has seen him assume the position of ‘tax expert’ to the Daily Mail’s personal finance team on Budget Day. Spending the day with the team and helping them to interpret, would then take the Chancellor’s speech and the Treasury Press Releases to the Mail’s significant readership.

David also takes people development very seriously, being a ‘People Leader’ in Deloitte’s performance management process. He is responsible for a cohort of 15 or so individuals in the team.

Despite his busy diary, David is also passionate about leading a school partner relationship with Cardinal Hume Catholic School in Gateshead as part of Deloitte’s One Million Futures campaign.

Neil has worked as a General Practitioner in the North East for 25 years as a Partner at Oxford Terrace and Rawling Road Medical Group in Gateshead and now as a locum GP for Gateshead CBC. Both Neil and his wife, Ruth who is also a GP undertook training in the North East and as such spent time at St Oswald’s learning about end of life care in the hospice and within the community. He has been involved in NHS management for many years, initially as Deputy Medical Director at North of Tyne PCT between 2004 and 2012 and then as a Medical Director for Newcastle Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group between 2012 and 2019.

Outside of healthcare and work, Neil is a Welfare Officer for the Low Fell Running Club and is also a Volunteer Leader for Ski Club of Great Britain.

Steve is an experienced HR Director who has worked at board level in both the private and public sector. Steve's early career was in professional services where he became a partner at Deloitte, leading the HR function during a period of major organisational change. For the last 15 years he has worked as an interim HR Director and consultant leading on change programmes for central government departments, local authorities and not for profit organisations. He is currently interim HR Director for the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman.

Nick is a highly experienced HR leader with a strong track record of delivering operational, tactical and strategic excellence in a variety of industries including oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, utilities, NHS, retail and manufacturing. He has held board level and HR Director roles, and his current role is Head of HR Operations for Accord Healthcare with responsibility for multiple sites across the UK as well as employees based in Europe.

Nick is a strong advocate of lifelong learning and recently completed an MBA at Durham University in order to increase his knowledge of the financial and strategic drivers within an organisation. His personal approach is characterised by high levels of energy, commitment and creativity and he is passionate about employee engagement, and inspiring people to be the best they can be through coaching, mentoring and leading by example.

In his spare time Nick likes to go to the gym, swim and play squash, as well as having a penchant for coffee and cake.

Tricia has been a Director and Business Consultant for 20 years and has worked all over the country in public, private and not-for-profit sectors, specialising in HR and Organisational Transformation. She has experience in a diverse range of organisations including Kier, Youth Hostel Association, Health Care Charities, the Arts, Justice and Housing sectors and is an experiences board member, coach and mentor.

Born and brought up in the North East before moving to Sheffield early in her career where she set up a successful business whilst raising her family. She has recently returned to live near the Northumberland coast and is enjoying all the benefits of living in this fabulous part of the country, and enjoys cycling and long beach walks.

Tricia is delighted to have the opportunity to use her experience in the role of Trustee for St Oswald's.

Graeme moved to the North East in 2001, where be spent 5 years in further education focusing on e-commerce and IT.

During his time in further education, he joined the North East based retailer, Officers Club, where he remained for 8 years. During which time he went through the ranks of retail management, ultimately leading to managing the e-commerce operation of the business, putting his skills from further education to use.

He then moved into e-commerce project management with Aurora Commerce, before returning to retail with another North East based retailer, Charles Clinkard.

Graeme joined the business to help improve it’s e-commerce and multi-channel capabilities, a role which he held for 5 ½ years before being offered the opportunity to lead the IT function of the business, as Technology Director, a role which he has currently.

Laura is a Chartered Surveyor working for a property company based in Newcastle and became a Trustee of St Oswald’s Hospice in 2020.

Laura has had a varied career, firstly as part of the HR department at Fenwick Limited after graduating from University. During her nine-years at Fenwick, Laura also worked as part of the senior management team assisting the Managing Director in all elements of the retail business.

In 2012, Laura made the move to the commercial property industry, joining Gavin Black & Partners. Whilst there, Laura completed an MSc in Surveying and, subsequently, was successful in gaining chartered status with Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS).

Laura is currently a member of the RICS North East Regional Board looking at standards of the property industry in the region and attracting future talent into the profession.

Following a move to the global real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, Laura was seconded for maternity cover to Hanro Limited and wasn’t allowed to leave!

Laura has lived and worked in Newcastle her whole life and enjoys getting out and about across the region either with her dog or on her Stand Up Paddleboard.

Rebecca has worked in digital marketing for almost 10 years with a strong background in social and email marketing.

Beginning her career in agencies, Rebecca managed multiple clients nationwide in the hospitality and leisure sector, creating and overseeing their digital strategies.

After making the decision to move in-house, Rebecca further honed her skills for an e-commerce retailer in Durham, where she was the only digital marketer. Initially employed to manage the social media strategy for Andrew James LTD, Rebecca was eventually tasked with creating and implementing strategies for email and influencer marketing, as well as creating PPC ad copy and SEO copy for multiple e-commerce channels.

Since 2017, Rebecca has held a position with ScS Group plc where she has been involved in many high profile projects such as building and maintaining the plc website, implementing and managing a new DMP, and generating in revenue with dynamic email journeys.