Our people

Rachel has been the Chief Executive of Young Lives vs Cancer since March 2020, after serving for five years as the organisation’s Director of Income and Engagement. With a lifelong commitment to purpose-driven work, she has dedicated her career to the not-for-profit sector, bringing a strong background in fundraising, engagement and strategic leadership. 

Rachel’s motivation to join Young Lives vs Cancer was rooted in her passion for mental health, wellbeing, and tackling inequality. She continues to be inspired by the charity’s frontline social care teams, whose work supporting the psychosocial needs of young cancer patients and their families is at the heart of everything the organisation does. The COVID-19 pandemic only deepened her appreciation of the vital role the charity plays in the health and care system – and her determination to ensure it can go even further in the future. 

As CEO, Rachel leads the development of the charity’s long-term vision and strategic direction. She is especially excited about the bold ambition of the North Star strategy – a collaborative, evidence-based approach to transforming support for young people with cancer. For Rachel, the ultimate goal is systemic and sustainable change: a future in which the needs of children and young people are met so fully that the charity’s services are no longer needed. 

Helen leads innovation and systemic design at Young Lives vs Cancer – a role that continues the legacy of the charity’s visionary founders, Sylvia Darley and Bob Woodward. Her work ensures the organisation is always pushing boundaries to improve outcomes for children and young people with cancer. 

Innovation at Young Lives vs Cancer isn’t about change for the sake of it – it’s about responding to what young people and families tell us they need, and designing solutions that create meaningful, lasting impact. Helen’s mission is to transform the experience of cancer for children, young people and their families – from the moment of diagnosis, through treatment and beyond – so they can live fulfilling lives, even in the face of extraordinary challenges. 

Helen firmly believes in the power of collective action – that through ambition, creativity and collaboration, we can deliver real progress not just for today’s young people, but for generations to come.  

For Helen, innovation means being bold – reimagining what’s possible for young people with cancer and designing systems that meet their needs with compassion, flexibility and ambition. She believes the world is what we make it – and that we should never stop striving to make it better for young cancer patients. 

Tony leads Young Lives vs Cancer’s Corporate Services, encompassing Finance, Corporate Governance & Assurance, and Estates & Capital Developments – the team responsible for managing the charity’s properties, including its vital Home from Home accommodation and offices. 

With a strong belief in purpose-driven work, Tony describes his role at Young Lives vs Cancer as “the best job I’ve ever had” – not because it’s easy, but because it truly matters. His work, and that of his team, directly supports children, young people and families facing the unimaginable – a cancer diagnosis – and helps ensure the charity can deliver life-changing support now and in the future. 

Tony is a passionate advocate for the charity’s North Star vision – a bold, long-term ambition to transform the system for young cancer patients and their families. For Tony, every decision made in Corporate Services must support this future. He is committed to building a team that reflects a diverse mix of skills, experiences and perspectives – and to ensuring the charity’s internal strength enables the delivery of deep, lasting change for those who need it most. 

David leads Young Lives vs Cancer’s People and Culture directorate – a team dedicated to creating the best possible working environment and culture so that every member of Team Young Lives can thrive and deliver their best. 

The directorate brings together People, Volunteering and Organisational Development, working across recruitment and retention, wellbeing, learning and development, reward and recognition, DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging), internal communications and engagement. David’s team also ensures compliance with workforce regulatory requirements and that the organisation has the right people systems, processes and policies in place to support high performance. 

David has spent nearly his entire career in the voluntary sector, working for organisations rooted in social justice. His motivation is clear: children and young people often face serious gaps in support – especially when it comes to personalised care, knowledge and empowerment.  

David is deeply committed to ensuring that Young Lives vs Cancer has the workforce, skills and working conditions needed to deliver its strategic objectives and bring the charity’s North Star vision to life.  

Helen leads the directorate responsible for shaping and amplifying Young Lives vs Cancer’s voice – bringing together the Brand and Marketing Communications, Digital, Media and PR, Policy and Influencing, Clinical Insight, Audience Engagement and Voice teams. Her work centres on ensuring that the organisation’s brand is powerful, purposeful and positioned to drive real, lasting change. 

Helen is passionate about the role of communication in creating systems change. Her directorate works alongside young people and families to understand their experiences and amplify their voices to those in power – using insight, storytelling, and influence to make a meaningful impact on the cancer care system. 

Young Lives vs Cancer holds a special place in Helen’s heart. She is proud to be part of an organisation that not only delivers for the families it supports, but also stands for values she believes in: decency, integrity, and a refusal to accept the status quo. She is deeply committed to the organisation’s bold North Star vision, which aims to transform the future for children and young people with cancer and their families – before, during, and after treatment. 

Lynn leads Young Lives vs Cancer’s frontline service delivery – including social work, accommodation, grants, welfare support and key partnerships – ensuring children, young people and their families receive the practical and emotional support they need throughout their cancer journey. 

With a career rooted in social work and a long track record as a third-sector leader, Lynn is committed to delivering high-quality, trauma-informed services that are responsive, respectful, and truly impactful. She champions a culture of continuous improvement – believing that while the charity already delivers excellent services, standing still is not an option. Young people and families deserve professional, credible support at every step, and Lynn is focused on making sure they get it. 

Lynn is proud to be part of the charity’s bold North Star vision – a long-term, systemic ambition to reshape the future for children and young people with cancer. She is passionate about developing a world-renowned social work service that is responsive, impactful, and centred on young people’s needs – enabling them to live with choice during treatment and die with dignity when needed 

Lynn is excited about the path ahead – and determined to ensure that every step forward brings real, meaningful change for the young people and families the charity exists to support. 

Leading our Digital, Data & Technology Teams, David brings a wealth of multi-disciplinary professional expertise from the public and private sectors and has held senior technology and transformation roles in Local Government and Higher Education. Most recently as Chief Information Officer of Goldsmith’s College, University of London.

David is passionate about people and their lived experiences, ensuring digital services are accessible and that technology has a positive impact on society. He is a qualified social worker and Co-Chair and Board Trustee of The Rathbone Society.

He is a season ticket holder at Crystal Palace Football Club, is married and has five children. Three of his children have now left home and been replaced by two dogs (Polly and Wilfred) and a cat (Benjamin). David describes his dogs as ‘two toddlers that never grow up’ , and they frequently attend online meetings with him.

Sue brings a wealth of experience from across the voluntary sector, having dedicated her entire career to fundraising and marketing and communications roles. With a background spanning both in-house positions and consultancy, she has contributed to over 30 different causes, gaining a broad and valuable perspective on what drives successful income generation. 

Sue is passionate about her role at Young Lives vs Cancer – a cause that resonates deeply with her. She has seen firsthand the devastating impact a cancer diagnosis can have on families, and the crucial difference that the charity makes during the most difficult times. Her connection to the charity goes back to 2012, when she supported CLIC Sargent (now Young Lives vs Cancer) as a consultant, helping to develop its high value and corporate fundraising. She is proud to now be part of an organisation – and a team – with such a strong reputation and bold vision. 

Having worked extensively with health charities, Sue is especially inspired by Young Lives vs Cancer’s North Star strategy – a bold, evidence-based and collaborative approach to driving systemic change. She is excited to help grow the charity’s income so it can deliver on this ambition and transform the future for children and young people with cancer. 

Looking ahead, Sue is excited to work alongside colleagues and supporters to build long-term relationships, inspire new audiences, and secure the income needed to make meaningful, lasting change. 

Sir David joined Young Lives vs Cancer from his most recent role as Chair of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Earlier in his career, Sir David was a GP for 36 years in Cambridgeshire and was later President and Chairman of Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners, President of the British Medical Association, and a vice-chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Farrah is a senior audit manager at Sayer Vincent, an award-winning firm of chartered accountants with a focus on charities and social enterprises. Farrah has worked in the charity sector for 15 years and as well as her experience at Sayer Vincent, she has worked in the finance team at the NSPCC.

Farrah is a qualified chartered accountant and has a Diploma in Charity Accounting.

Rachel is Honorary Nurse Advisor in children’s cancer care in the Leeds Children’s Hospital at the Leeds Hospitals NHS Trust. Prior to retirement in 2018 she spent almost 30 years working in paediatric oncology and haematology in the acute sector.

Whilst all Rachel’s clinical experience was gained in Leeds, she has always played an active role in the development of children’s cancer nursing, and children’s cancer services, at the national level.

Rachel is a past Chair of the Paediatric Oncology Nurses Forum of the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom (RCN), and now represents the RCN on the national Clinical Reference Group for Children and Teenage Cancer. She was made a Fellow of the RCN in recognition of her contribution to children’s nursing.

Rachel is a member of the nursing group within the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP). She is a former Chair of the SIOP Paediatric Oncology in Developing Countries (PODC) Nursing Working Group. In that capacity she has advocated for and worked with nurses from low and middle income countries in looking to define base-line standards of care for nurse training and education.

Anna is a chartered accountant and has held a number of senior finance roles at Morrisons and Tesco. Prior to moving into more commercial roles within retail, she gained audit and corporate finance experience at Deloitte and Andersen. She is chair of governors at a local primary school.

As the parent of a child recently treated for cancer, Anna has direct experience of the critical role Young Lives vs Cancer plays in supporting children and young people both during and after treatment.

Dan leads the practical social change and innovation work with communities, public systems, and social enterprises at the Young Foundation. Dan has worked across the public, private and charitable sectors, and was previously a Director of Nesta’s Health Lab where he led the People Powered Results programme as social enterprise, focussed on developing new methods and approaches to systems change. Dan brings with him a passion for working with individuals, organisations and systems to release the power of people closest to issues.

Kevin is a founding partner of Sana Capital, which supports early-stage companies developing data led healthcare solutions.  He is also the founder of Coleid, which helps organisations with innovation and growth in the UK and overseas. In addition, he is an advisory board member at Global Tech Advocates which develops tech communities around the world to make a positive difference to the sector and their economies.

Kevin was previously at KPMG, where he held several senior UK and global roles. He was the Chairman of KPMG in London, the Head of its Private Enterprise sub-brand in EMA and the Global Chair of its Emerging Giants Centre of Excellence

Sarah is Executive Director, Professional practice and external engagement with Social Work England, the regulator for the social work profession in England. Sarah qualified as a social worker from Trinity College Dublin in 1997. Since then, she has worked in a variety of national and international contexts, from frontline practice in Ireland, to working with street children and ex-child soldiers in Sierra Leone during the civil war, to managing services for children and families in the UK. Sarah has worked across statutory, voluntary and regulatory services. Before joining Social Work England Sarah spent six years in Scotland, where she was Deputy Director of Inspection with the Scottish social care regulator, and worked with a mental health charity. Sarah is also Vice Chair of the board of Who Cares? Scotland, a charity advocating for the care experienced community in Scotland.

Emma Kendrew leads Technology in the UK, Ireland and Africa for Accenture, a global professional services company.

Emma has spent over 20 years of experience driving technology-powered transformation with organisations in health, public sector, retail, energy and financial services.

Throughout her career she has played a lead role in establishing centres for innovation, and applying new technologies at scale.

She sits on the board of techUK, and is passionate about the role of technology to improve experiences and drive regional opportunity and inclusion.

David is a healthcare professional dedicated to improving services and advocating for equitable care. With extensive NHS experience, he has led transformational change in primary and community care, workforce development, and service redesign.

A skilled coach and Action Learning Set (ALS) facilitator, he is passionate about leadership development, equity, and inclusion. With a strong track record of driving innovation and empowering others to create meaningful change.

As a trustee of Young Lives vs Cancer, David brings strategic insight, healthcare expertise, and a deep commitment to supporting young people and their families through cancer.

Simeón Baker is Director of External Affairs at Genomics England, attending the Genomics England Executive Leadership Team, and is SRO for engagement, communications, ethics, assurance and data protection. Additionally, Sim is an experienced non-executive director and board advisor, working primarily in the health, biotech and life sciences sectors. He provides specialist counsel on engagement, strategy, reputation, risk, communications, media, crisis and government affairs.

Sim has an MSc in Health Equity and Sustainability from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where he is a guest lecturer, with a special interest in health equity and threats to global health and security. He is a member of the Canadian College of Health Leaders and a member of both the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and the Public Relations & Communications Association in the UK.

Corinne is currently the Chief People Officer at the charity, Alzheimer’s Society. Corinne has over 30 years of senior leadership experience with Human Resources roles across the private, public and voluntary sector, including Marks and Spencer, Ofsted and Local Authorities. She brings extensive expertise in culture and transformation projects and building high levels of employee and volunteer engagement.

Corinne and her family have a long history of involvement with Young Lives vs Cancer, with Corinne diagnosed with Leukaemia when she was 7 and her family involved with CLIC since its formation. Corinne’s personal experience as a young person with cancer was extended when in her first year at University, she found the Leukaemia was back and underwent another 3 years of treatment. Now fully fit, she has 3 children and a huge fluffy dog called Cali. She enjoys lots of sports, is a keen but very slow runner – with her first marathon run for CLIC and is a big Bath Rugby fan.

Dr Greg Edwards is a General Practitioner with over 15 years’ experience in healthcare management and a specialist interest in digital health. He currently works as Chief Medical Officer for Doccla, an organisation that allows patients to be safely looked after in their own homes via remote monitoring technology.

Luke is a specialist cyber resilience expert for the Financial Conduct Authority, one of the UK’s financial regulators. He is responsible for supporting the FCA’s supervisory objectives relating to the cyber resilience of financial services firms. Before joining the FCA, Luke worked for PA Consulting where he led teams supporting a diverse range of organisations to better understand their cyber security risks and to transform their approach towards cyber resilience.

Richard is a procurement professional with experience in both the private and public sectors. He has worked within the NHS for most of the last twenty years in various organisations covering Acute, Mental Health, Community, and Ambulance providers. He is the Deputy Chief Officer of the Healthcare Supplies Association, a body that promotes the work of procurement and supply chain staff at all levels of healthcare.

James is the cofounder and CEO of SomX, a communications and creative agency for healthcare companies.

He hosts The Healthtech Podcast and is the Editor-In-Chief of Healthtech Pigeon.

He is an anaesthetics and ICU doctor by training, has held roles in leadership, management, and innovation at NHS England, Health Education England, and the British Medical Journal, and previously directed two healthtech startup accelerators.

He has degrees in medicine, biomedical sciences, and education and is a guest lecturer on healthtech innovation and entrepreneurship at academic institutions around the world.

Zoe is an experienced tech entrepreneur and Partner for Ananda Impact Ventures with over 25 years of operating and board experience in technology companies.

She co-founded an assistive technology company back in 2010 that’s helped over 150,000 people lead more independent lives. Achievements include Elle Magazine UK Female Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Finalist Global Mobile Awards and BAA Female led investment of the Year.

She now devotes her time to hunting down Europe’s most impactful software and science entrepreneurs to invest in and partner for growth from seed to Series A.  Focus areas include Digital health, NatureTech, Decarbonization of Industry and TechBio.

Zoe is also the founder of FutureWorldVC a community of diverse, impact-minded Venture Capitalists who work together to change the balance of power in the industry.

Director, Diversity & Inclusion at LSEG

Katherine Gansallo is the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Director at London Stock Exchange Group, she has a global remit with regional responsibility for UK and EMEA. In this role, she leads a team in creating and leading on the organisation’s diversity and inclusion strategy across her region. Katherine is focused on promoting long-term behavioural and systemic change to deliver equitable outcomes. Katherine has held several leadership roles within Talent, Recruiting, Learning and Leadership Development across a number of financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Citigroup.

She earned a BSc, Honours Degree in Information Technology Management for business from Loughborough University, and a MSc degree in Human Resource Management and Employee Relations from the University of Warwick. She is also a Chartered member of the Institute of Personnel and Development and holds both Level 5 &7 CIPD Diplomas.

Katherine has a passion for inspiring and supporting diverse individual and as such she founded Katherine Gansallo Consulting to support diverse millennials to advance in their careers as well as supporting young people at the start of their careers get into corporate environments via internships and graduate programmes.

Gordon joined the Appeals Committee of Sargent Cancer Care for Children in 1998, becoming a Trustee in 2000 and then Chairman in 2002.

He took a lead role in co-ordinating the successful merger of Sargent Cancer Care for Children and CLIC (Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood) in 2005 to become CLIC Sargent.

After the charities joined forces, Gordon continued as Joint Chairman of CLIC Sargent (now Young Lives vs Cancer) before standing down 12 months later, and was very honoured to be appointed Honorary President in 2014.

From 2007 Gordon then focused his attention on establishing World Child Cancer which supports children with cancer in the developing world and was Chairman for 6 years.

From 2006 to 2018 Gordon was a Governor and Deputy Chairman of the University of Hertfordshire.

In 2021 Gordon co-founded Helping Herts which is a charity that supports 12 Hertfordshire-based children’s & young people’s charities.

Gordon is also Chairman of the Mayfair Neighbourhood Forum.

Currently, Gordon is Chairman of the Chaldean Group, which was established to manage interests in Chaldean Estate (a Hertfordshire farming and agriculture contracting enterprise), Property Investment and Development along with a diverse investment portfolio. Gordon is also Chairman of Mayfair Neighbourhood Forum.

He was awarded a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2015.

He is married to Mary, lives in Hertfordshire and has a son, daughter and four grandchildren.