Our People
Who We AreHow MQ’s board works
MQ Trustees form the governing body of the charity and are accountable for management and trustworthiness of the charity as it performs its work for public benefit. Trustees serve a term of three years (renewable once), and the current MQ board is made up of experts in law, management, finance, fundraising and research.
Trustees are recruited for their professional expertise and personal interest and experience of mental health issues. This helps to ensure that the board acts in the best interest of the charity, manages resources responsibly and works towards our mission with understanding, skill and care.
MQ: Transforming Mental Health - London, UK
Dr. Shahzad Malik
Observer, MQ Foundation
General Partner, Advent Life Sciences
John A. Herrmann Jr.
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Michael J. Horvitz
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Chairman, Parkland Management Company
Professor Peter Jones
Chair MQ Research Committee
Professor of Psychiatry, Cambridge University
Helen Munn, PhD
MQ Research Committee
Professor Rory O’Connor, PhD
Ann John
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Co-Director of DATAMIND. Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry at Swansea University.
Sarah Woolnough
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
CEO, Asthma + Lung UK
Fabrizio Campelli
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Management Board Member and Head of Corporate Bank & Investment Bank, Deutsche Bank.
James Palmer
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
Audit & Finance Committee
Dr. Shahzad Malik
Observer, MQ Foundation
General Partner, Advent Life Sciences
John A. Herrmann Jr.
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
John A. Herrmann Jr.
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
In addition to a highly successful career, John has had a lifetime role in philanthropy. He holds leadership roles in many charitable organizations, including the Jewish Board of Family & Children’s Services, National Public Radio, UNICEF, UJA/Federation of New York, the Yale School of Music and at MQ in the U.K. and the MQ Foundation in the U.S. A committed family man, cyclist and world traveler, John and his wife, Anne, his two sons and his seven grandchildren enjoy visiting unique places around the globe.
Henry Bedford
Henry previously traded at rival macro hedge fund Caxton Associates and cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs’ global macro proprietary trading desk in the 1980s.
In addition to his trading responsibilities at Moore, Henry was a member of the senior management team, overseeing the firm’s portfolio managers. He served as a trustee and chair of the Investment Committee of his alma mater, Hamilton College. He has been a trustee of several U.K. charities, including The Elliot Foundation, a network of 30+ primary charter schools, which he co-founded.
He is a key member of MQ’s Campaign Executive Network, which plays a pivotal role in fundraising for the charity’s new research initiative, Brighter Futures. The group will be tasked with generating the funds required to make the program, which focuses specifically on young people’s mental health, a reality, and to help achieve societal change.
Evan Stieglitz
Evan and his wife live in in Brookville, NY. They have five children. His interests include, cooking, travel, cinema and playing golf. Evan graduated from George Washington University with a major in finance.
Chris O'Connor
The father of six has lived in New Canaan, CT since 2003. Chris received an AB in English/American Literature from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Rona Davis
Corcoran Real Estate
Rona has three children and two stepchildren. She lives in New York City.
Michael J. Horvitz
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Chairman, Parkland Management Company
Michael is a trustee of the Cleveland Orchestra, and he chairs the Personnel and Audit Committees and serves on the Executive and Investment Committees. He also serves as a trustee of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation (where he has served on the Finance Committee) and The Frick Collection in New York (where he chairs the Audit Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee and serves on the Executive Committee, the Investment Committee, the Architectural and Long Range Planning Committee and as secretary of the corporation). In addition, he is a member of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He is a member of the Investment Committee of The Cleveland Foundation, the first community foundation in the United States. He is a trustee emeritus of Case Western Reserve University and is a former adjunct professor of law of that university, where he lectured on Law and the Visual Arts. He is chair emeritus of The Cleveland Museum of Art (where he served as president from 1996 to 2001 and as chairman of the board from 2001 to 2011). He is an honorary trustee of the University of Virginia Law School Foundation (where he chaired the board for six years and continues to serve as an adviser to the Investment Committee).
He also is a past trustee of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, where he has chaired its Finance and Investment Committee and has served on numerous other committees, including the Executive, Development, Audit and Strategic Planning Committees, in addition to having served for six years as the federation’s primary outside legal counsel.
Sarah Papineau
U.S. Representative, The Browser
Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic for long stints, Sarah specializes in advising both for - profit and non - profit organizations which have launched in the United States after being conceived and founded in the United Kingdom. At Save the Children US, Sarah was Senior Adviser to the President and Chair of Save's Economic Opportunities Leadership Council. Sarah was Chair of Fauna and Flora International's (FFI) US Board when it first came to the US 20 years ago. Sarah has represented a London- based new media newsletter, The Browser, to expand its market in the US.
Born in the UK, Sarah grew up in South Africa and was educated at King's College, Cambridge (BA and MA) and the London School of Economics (M.Sc Econ). She resides in New York and has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She spent 15 years in Washington DC raising her three children.
Carol Worthman, PhD
MQ Research Committee
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Emory University, Atlanta
Carol conducts interdisciplinary biocultural research on human development and pathways to differential mental and physical health. She has undertaken cross-cultural collaborative research in 13 countries, including Kenya, Tibet, Nepal, Egypt, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and South Africa, as well as in rural, urban and semi-urban areas of the United States. For over 20 years, she collaborated with Jane Costello and Adrian Angold in the Great Smoky Mountains Study, a large, longitudinal, population-based developmental epidemiological project in western North Carolina.
Current work includes tracking effects of war trauma in a matched sample of ex-child soldiers in Nepal, assessment of a sustainable intervention to improve maternal functioning and infant development in Cape Town, and the impact of media exposure (TV) on adolescent functioning in Vietnamese villages lacking television and electricity.
Dr. Shahzad Malik
Chairman, MQ Transforming Mental Health;
General Partner, Advent Life Sciences
Shahzad came to Advent in 1999 with a strong background in science and clinical medicine. He gained invaluable experience at the London office of McKinsey & Company, serving international clients in the health care and investment banking sectors.
Shahzad gained an M.A. in physiological sciences while at Oxford University and an M.D. from Cambridge University. He then specialized in interventional cardiology while at the same time pursuing research interests in heart muscle disorders, both in the clinic and basic science laboratory.
Ann Richman
New York
While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ann served as the Director of Principal Gifts, partnering with individuals, foundations, and corporations to raise over $25 million in transformative gifts. She worked closely with the Museum’s Presidentially appointed Council, as well as with other lay leaders who played a key role in raising the profile of the Museum. She also spearheaded a national group for philanthropists in their 30-50s, introducing a new generation of donors to the Museum.
Before moving into the nonprofit sector, Ann worked at Ericsson, Inc., where her focus was internal communications, managing the global mobile internet division’s internal communications strategy, and working collaboratively with her colleagues in Sweden.
Ann received a M.S. in Mass Communications from Boston University and a B.A. from Bates College. She sits on the board of Common Denominator, an organization that helps in-need middle schoolers build math confidence through tutoring and mentorship. Ann is an avid runner, having completed three NYC marathons, collector of outsider art, and theater lover. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
Professor Emily Holmes
My driving force is improving mental health through science. My specialism is mental imagery.
In addition to being a Professor at the Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Holmes is affiliated to Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.
Holmes received her BA (Hons) in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, UK, and her Masters in Social Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is also a clinician and completed a clinical psychology training doctorate at Royal Holloway University of London, and a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, UK. She became Professor in 2010 at the University of Oxford. She is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien in Uppsala (KVS) and a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences. She is the recipient of several international awards, including from the American Psychological Association and the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Holmes was a founding contributor and then served on the Board of Trustees of the UK based research charity "MQ; transforming mental health” until 2022.
Holmes' field within psychology is experimental psychopathology in the areas of memory and emotion. Under the umbrella of "mental health science", her interdisciplinary research places cognitive science alongside clinical psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience for psychological treatment innovation. Work in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and bipolar disorder is linked by an interest in mental imagery and emotion.
Her research has demonstrated that mental imagery has a more powerful impact on emotion than its verbal counterpart. This is of clinical relevance given the historical focus on verbal thoughts (rather than imagery) in therapy. Her group’s particular interest is intrusive memories—imagery that springs to mind unbidden. She works on potential new methods to prevent intrusive memories after trauma. It also holds fundamental relevance to the science of mental life and the nature of human memory.
Cynthia Joyce MSc
Most recently, Cynthia established the non-profit MQ Mental Health Research, the first international fundraising organization focused on mental health research. In prior years, Cynthia has served as Executive Director of the SMA Foundation (NY) and Executive Director of the American Academy of Neurology Foundation (MN); she has also held positions in industry. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MS from the University of Minnesota. Cynthia currently serves in an advisory capacity for several international research organizations and is as a member of the Board of Directors for the Graham Boeckh Foundation (Montreal).
Professor Jehannine Austin PhD FCAHS CGC
Executive Director BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services Research Institute
Jehannine is a board certified genetic counsellor and their research work involves studying the impact of genetic counselling for people with psychiatric disorders and their families. They founded the world’s first specialist psychiatric genetic counselling service that has won an award for its impact on patient outcomes, and in addition to peer-reviewed publications, has written a book, and won awards for teaching, leadership, and research.
Jehannine is a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Professor Hilary Blumberg
Director of the Mood Disorders Research Program at the Yale School of Medicine
Her research is devoted to understanding the causes of mood and related disorders across the lifespan and of suicide risk. Her program focuses on multimodal neuroimaging research integrated with translational research approaches to identify brain circuitry differences and generate strategies to target them for early detection, interventions and prevention.
Dr Blumberg leads international neuroimaging efforts to study bipolar and other mood disorders and suicide from childhood to older adulthood. She has published many seminal papers on mood disorders and received numerous awards, including the International Society of Bipolar Disorders Mogens Schou Award for Research in Bipolar Disorder, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Colvin Prize for research in mood disorders, and American Psychiatric Association Blanche F. Ittleson Award for research in children and adolescents.
She is Principal Investigator for the U.S. site for the MQ Mental Health Brighter Horizons consortium to study brain and psychosocial risk factors for suicide in adolescents with major depressive and bipolar disorders, HOPES: Help Overcome and Prevent the Emergence of Suicide.
She studied neuroscience as an undergraduate at Harvard University graduating summa cum laude, and completed her medical degree, and psychiatry and specialty training in neuroimaging, at Cornell University Medical College prior to joining Yale’s faculty in 1998.
Dr Jessica L. Schleider
Dr. Schleider has published >75 scientific articles and book chapters. She has created or co-created five open-access, single-session mental health programs, which have served >10,000 teens and adults to date. Based on these programs, Dr. Schleider wrote a self-help workbook for adolescent depression (New Harbinger). She is also co-editor of a forthcoming handbook for therapists, Low-Intensity Evidence-Based Interventions for Children and Young People (Oxford University Press) and is writing a nonfiction book (Little, Brown Book Group) on how brief interventions and meaningful moments can transform mental health.
Professor Peter Jones
Chair MQ Research Committee
Professor of Psychiatry, Cambridge University
Peter’s research concerns the epidemiology of mental illness, particularly the psychoses, early life course influences on adult mental health and illness, and the interface between population-based and biological investigations and explanations, including genetics. He also works in treatment research with randomized trials of drug and psychological treatments for psychotic illness. He became an NIHR senior investigator in 2010 and has been identified as a highly-cited researcher in psychology and psychiatry since 2015.
Clinically, Peter is honorary consultant to CAMEO, the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Foundation Trust’s early intervention service for young people with first-episode psychosis.
Peter has been a non-executive director of a specialist mental health NHS trust (2001-05 and 2016-21), served as a co-opted expert on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs consideration of the legal status of cannabis (2005 and 2008) and coordinated the Royal College of Psychiatrists Early Intervention Network.
Helen Munn, PhD
MQ Research Committee
Prior to joining the academy, Helen completed a fellowship at U.K. Parliamentary Office for Science & Technology and worked for a short time in the BBC Science Team. She followed her undergraduate degree from The Queen’s College, Oxford, with a Ph.D. in molecular endocrinology from the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Irene Tracey
MQ Research Committee
Professor, Oxford University
Irene held a postdoctoral position at Harvard Medical School (Martinos Imaging ) before returning to the U.K. in 1996 to help found and establish the FMRIB Center. In 2001, she was tenured and appointed to a university lectureship with tutorial fellowship at Christ Church at the University of Oxford. She became the director of the FMRIB Center in 2005 and professor of pain research. In 2007, while remaining as FMRIB director, she was elected to the chair in anesthetics with fellowship at Pembroke College.
Irene was an elected councilor to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) until 2014 and was chair of its Scientific Program Committee for the Milan 2012 biannual world congress. In 2008 she was awarded the triennial Patrick Wall Medal from the Royal College of Anesthetists, and in 2009 was made an FRCA for her contributions to the discipline.
Irene was deputy chair of the U.K.’s Medical Research Council’s Neuroscience Mental Health Board for two years and board member from 2009-14. She was an REF panel member for neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology in 2014.
In 2015, Irene was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. She has been associate head for the Medical Sciences Division since 2014. After 10 years directing the FMRIB Center, Irene handed over the directorship in May 2015 to Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg in order to take a one-year sabbatical prior to becoming head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences in September 2016.
Irene is married to Professor Myles Allen, a climate physicist, and they have three wonderful children: a daughter, Colette, and two sons, John and Jim.
Sarah Woolnough
CEO, Asthma + Lung UK
Sarah has a background in government, policy development and influencing, having worked for two members of Parliament, in the civil service and for a national membership organization. Sarah was seconded to the Department of Health in 2011 to write the National Cancer Strategy alongside Professor Sir Mike Richards, then-national cancer director. Sarah is a trustee of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI). She is a previous trustee of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Bliss, the special care baby charity. Sarah sits on a raft of national-level working groups, including the National Screening Advisory Group, the Public Health England Cancer Board, the National Prevention Board and the National Alcohol Advisory Board.
With a track record of successfully influencing government and other stakeholders, Sarah has led national campaigns to introduce standardized plain packaging for cigarettes, a new national strategy and funding deal for radiotherapy, and for updated cancer strategies in all nations of the U.K. Sarah was recently voted the most effective charity sector communicator in the PR Week Power Book.
Lea Milligan
He has worked in the charity sector for over 15 years, leading teams and organisations supporting people in the secure estate, community education and prior to joining MQ, served for as the CEO of Mercy Ships UK, an international NGO delivering surgery, medical capacity building and infrastructure development across West Africa.
He has overseen multimillion pound fundraising and grants programmes supported by philanthropy and a range of government funding. Notable achievements include launching the Global Surgical Evaluation Centre in partnership with Harvard University, public fundraising campaigns in partnership with the Department for International Development and the publication of a British Medical Journal surgical supplement in support of the Lancet Commission’s findings on the global surgical crisis.
Sir Philip Campbell PhD DSc
Editor Emeritus, Nature
Professor Rory O’Connor PhD
Rory presents the award winning MQ Open Mind podcast.
Dr Helen L. Fisher, PhD
PGCAP AFBPsS CPsychol FHEA, Reader in Developmental Psychopathology and Chartered Research Psychologist, King's College London
Professor Andrew M. McIntosh, MD, FRCPsych
Andrew M McIntosh receives funding from The Wellcome Trust, UK Research and Innovation and the US National Institutes of Health. He is part of the Health Data Research UK Mental Health Data Hub ‘DATAMIND’ which is seeking to identify open and trusted methods of working with pharmaceutical and other companies.
Lisa Yahr
Lisa resides in Southern Florida and is an outdoor enthusiast and voracious reader, as well as a passionate cook and avid traveler.
Dr. Chan Lai Fong
Dr. Dixon Chibanda
He has been involved in mental health research for many years. Dixon is a key player in bringing the various stakeholders from local health authorities, health professionals, national and international researchers and donors together to form successful collaborations. In his role as PI, he has led the Friendship Bench team through the rigorous exercise of the randomized control trial (RCT) which was able to deliver evidence for the intervention’s effectiveness. He is currently leading the team as they scale-up the Friendship Bench to over 60 primary health care clinics in the country.
Dixon Chibanda is also Director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI)
Professor Henriette Raventós
After a short time working at the public national reference laboratory for the Ministry of Health and a clinical research institute, Henriette joined the faculty at the University of Costa Rica and has directed the neuropsychiatric genetics lab at the CIBCM for the past 25 years. The lab conducts whole genome scans and has identified genetic variants associated to major psychiatric disorders, which they are further characterizing at a functional level. The lab, under Henriette's direction, has publications on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, priorities for mental health according to different groups of social actors, including people with lived experience of a mental condition, and more recently, is part of the project YourDNA/YourSay for Latin America.
As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed Henriette and her team studied psychosocial effects in health-care personnel and the general population (white papers for the health-care authorities) and at present, risk factors for severity and sequelae, including genetic variants.
Henriette has been an invited speaker/professor for short courses and scientific meetings in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She also has ample experience as a member of global scientific associations and as an invited expert and advocate for global and national mental health policy and priorities, bioethics, disability rights, and sexual and reproductive health.
Professor Daisy Singla
Dr. Singla’s research interests involve increasing access to evidence-based psychological treatments in both high-income country settings as well as low- and middle-income countries, and the application of lessons learned from global mental health to the local North American context. To date, she has led or contributed to large clinical trials focused on treating common mental conditions of depression, anxiety and trauma worldwide. She has collaborated with global mental health leaders and local NGOs in rural Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Pakistan. She now brings these innovative lessons to the United States and Canada.
Dr. Singla has gained an international reputation serving as a PI, co-PI and co-I on CIHR-, NIMH-, NICHD-, Grand Challenges Canada and AFP- funded grants, and winning multiple international awards. In 2021, Dr. Singla was the first awardee to concurrently receive the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Careers from the Association of Psychological Science, the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution in Applied Psychology from the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award from the Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA). In 2022, Dr. Singla was named a fellow in the Association for Psychological Science. She has authored and co-authored over 50 peer reviewed publications, including in prestigious, high-impact journals such as Lancet Global Health, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, World Psychiatry and JAMA Psychiatry.
In short, Dr. Singla aspires to increase access to evidence-based psychological treatments to enrich the lives of all women, their children and their families.
Professor Stephani Hatch
Professor Hatch has over 25 years of experience across sectors, locally and nationally, delivering interdisciplinary health inequalities research with an emphasis on race at the intersection of other social identities. She co-leads the Marginalised Communities and Mental Health programme within the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, as well as the Health and Social Equity Collective.
Professor Hatch also leads the Tackling Inequalities and Discrimination Experiences in Health Services (TIDES) study, funded by a Wellcome Trust Investigator’s Award, that was expanded in 2020 with ESRC funding as part of UKRI’s rapid response to COVID-19 to focus on inequalities experienced by staff from ethnic minority groups working in health and social care.
Throughout her research, Professor Hatch integrates collaborative approaches to knowledge production and dissemination, action and outreach in training and research through the Health Inequalities Research Network (HERON), which she founded in 2010. She also holds national and international advisory roles in health and community sectors.
Professor Karoline Kuchenbaecker
Karoline trained in Psychology and Statistics before completing her PhD in Genetic Epidemiology in Cambridge.
Her research focusses on the genetic and environmental risk factors for depression by leveraging the unique characteristics of diverse populations. She is one of the Principal Investigators of the PARKH initiative, the largest study of mental illness in Pakistan. Her research is funded by the ERC’s Horizon 2020 programme, Wellcome and the NIHR.
Karoline is a co-founder of the London Genetics Network and leads the UCL HumGen initiative.
Professor Kamaldeep Bhui CBE
He undertakes research into socio-economic and health and social systems with an aim to improve policy and practice, reduce health inequalities, and adverse health outcomes to advance research methods and interdisciplinary dialogue.
Kam has a long-standing interest in preventing health inequalities in the experience and outcome of mental illnesses, improving health services and public health interventions, and developing appropriate health policy. His work includes understanding the role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and inflammation in the development of mental illnesses such as depression and multimorbidity
Kam studied Pharmacology (BSc) at UCL and Medicine (MBBS) at United Medical and Dental Schools of Guys and St Thomas’ (now King's College) qualifying in 1988. He holds postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry, mental health studies, epidemiology, and psychotherapy. He completed clinical training in London, secured a first Consultant appointment in 1999, followed in 2000 and 2003 by Consultant/Senior Lecturer and Consultant/Professorial posts in East London Foundation Trust and Queen Mary University of London.
In 2017 he received a CBE for his services to mental health care and research.
Professor Ann John
Professor in Public Health and Psychiatry at the Swansea University Medical School and Co-Director of DATAMIND
Ann John is a Professor in Public Health and Psychiatry at the Swansea University Medical School and Co-Director of DATAMIND, the HDRUK Hub for Mental Health Data.
Ann leads a research programme with a focus on mental health data science Including the MQ funded Adolescent Mental Health Data Platform. It was when Ann started reading medicine that she developed an interest in studying health at a population level and epidemiology. Ann came top of her year in the sociology exam and was offered a place to do an integrated BSc in sociology.
This experience changed the way Ann looked at medicine, in terms of placing it in the broader context of society and culture. After she finished medical school Ann worked in A&E and then went into general practice where she developed a strong interest in mental health.
Ann kept this focus when she moved into public health and then research, studying anxiety, depression and self-harm which are conditions often seen in primary care. Throughout her career Ann has always been passionate about translating research into policy and practice in order to improve people’s lives, particularly in the prevention of self-harm and suicide. She has advised on a number of media story lines including Coronation Street and This is Going to Hurt.
Ann was previously a trustee of the Samaritans.
Fabrizio Campelli
Management Board Member and Head of Corporate Bank & Investment Bank, Deutsche Bank
Fabrizio Campelli has been responsible for the Corporate Bank and Investment Bank on the Management Board of Deutsche Bank since May 2021. He joined the board in November 2019 in his former role of Chief Transformation Officer, responsible for transformation and Human Resources.
In August 2021 he took on additional responsibility at Management Board level for Deutsche Bank in the UK and Ireland (UKI).
Campelli previously spent four years as the Global Head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. Before that he was Head of Strategy & Organisational Development as well as Deputy Chief Operating Officer for Deutsche Bank Group and a member of the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank.
He joined Deutsche Bank in 2004 after working at McKinsey & Company in the firm’s London and Milan offices, focusing on strategic assignments mainly for global financial institutions.
Campelli holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and a Business Administration degree from Bocconi University.
Catherine McNear
Director, MQ Foundation
Most recently Catherine served as co-Board Chair for a local youth center where her focus was on increasing access and availability of mental health resources in the community. As part of this role Catherine engaged Harvard Community Partners to develop a new strategic plan that resulted in her recruiting a new Executive Director, a new Head of Programming and restructuring the Board of Directors. During her time there, growing the fundraising base and creating a critically needed endowment was also a priority.
Catherine holds a deep commitment towards community development which has led her to serving on a wide range of school and nonprofit boards.
Prior to becoming a mother of four, Catherine worked in global brand management and marketing for Lancaster Group International and Estee Lauder Companies in New York. Earlier in her career she worked in financial services roles in Lisbon and London.
While growing up Catherine’s father was in the military taking her to Korea and Germany before she settled down in Georgia for high school and college. Her interests include reading, travel, exploring other cultures, and spending time in nature, especially running and hiking. Catherine lives with her husband John in Darien, Connecticut.
James Palmer
Trustee, MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
James has spent his career as a lawyer with the international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. In addition to working with clients he has held leadership roles in the firm, including two terms as its Chair and Senior Partner, chairing its board.
James' work has involved him working across all sectors, and includes deep experience of governance, responding to challenges, as well as strategy development and implementation. He has been involved in aspects of organisational culture, purpose driven work and people and leadership development. He also has significant experience of advising and engaging with government and policy makers, including internationally.
James is Chair of Trustees of the public policy research charity and think-tank, Reform Research Trust, and is on various advisory boards, including for the Cambridge Law Faculty's MCL course, on which he has taught since its inception. He is on the leadership council of TheCityUK and chairs its legal services group, engaging with government on policy for legal services and justice. His other past roles include chairing various expert legal committees on business law and policy, as well as chairing one of the panels advising the board of the UK Financial Regulator, the FSA (then FCA), on policy issues.
James' original interest in mental health stemmed from challenges faced by a close family member. He and his wife live outside London and have three adult children.