Trust Board profiles

Melloney Poole OBE, Chairman

Melloney joined IWT in October 2020. She is also chair at PHU which she joined in May 2017 and was appointed chair in November 2017.

Since 2015, she has been the head of the Armed Forces Covenant Fund and the other grant programmes funded by LIBOR (London Inter-bank Offered Rate) fines which directly supports the delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant across the UK.

Melloney is a corporate, charity, and administrative law solicitor with many years of private sector commercial and corporate experience and became the head of the legal department for the Big Lottery Fund in 2013. She developed the combined legal service department which now supports all the legal and governance matters for the Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and the Big Lottery Fund.

In addition, Melloney had had a parallel career as a non-executive director in the NHS, serving on the boards of 3 NHS trusts, and vice chair of the Health Foundation.

She has also been a volunteer and fundraiser for various charities and a magistrate on the Preston Bench. Melloney was awarded an OBE in the 2010 New Year Honours for legal and governance services.

Phil Berrington, Non-Executive Director and Vice Chair

Phil joined the trust as an Associate Non-Executive Director in January 2019 and was made a Non-Executive Director in January 2022 and Vice Chair in November 2023 and is the Chair of the Finance & Infrastructure Committee-in-Common. He is also a Non-Executive Director with Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust joining in February 2023, and appointed Vice Chair in November 2023.

Phil was formerly an Executive Partner in IBM Consulting leading IBM’s relationship into accounts where clients were undergoing large and complex transformation journeys, enabled by technology change.

In his consulting work Phil has experience of working in the public sector, notably with a large central government department helping them transform back-office functions and processes. Most recently Phil was IBM’s Lead Client Partner for a large UK based media production and broadcasting organisation.

Phil is a Chartered Management Accountant (FCMA), a Chartered Management Consultant, and holds a post graduate diploma in Strategy & Innovation from Said Business School.

Graham Barneston, Non-Executive Director

Graham, a Chartered Management Accountant, has over twenty years’ experience in the maritime, logistics and retail sectors and has held senior leadership positions in SMEs and multi-billion turnover businesses in these industries.  Most recently he was Chief Financial Officer of the cross-Solent operator Red Funnel.

He is also a Non-Executive Director of the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership where he sits on the Funding Finance & Performance Management Group and has been a Non-Executive Director and Vice Chair of Maritime UK Solent.

A resident of Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Graham is a Governor of the Isle of Wight College where he is Vice Chair of the Audit Committee and a member of the Capital Committee. He is also a Trustee of two Island charities, Independent Arts and the Isle of Wight Literary Festival.

A Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, and Associate Fellow of the Nautical Institute, Graham holds a BSc (Econ) from University College London.

Stephen Brooks, Non-Executive Director and Chair of Audit Committee

Stephen joined the trust in January 2024 as a Non-Executive Director. In the first part of his career, he held senior HR roles in Bank of America, General Electric, Morgan Grenfell, and Deutsche Bank. He subsequently became a management consultant and partner at KPMG and PA Consulting. He led a wide range of business projects for public and private sector companies in the UK and abroad. His clients included Northern Rock, DWP, HM Treasury, NHS, BBC Worldwide, and Channel 4.

He is a Governor of Coventry University and chair of the commercial arm of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and the Royal Society for Arts, and an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Medical Leadership & Management. Stephen lives in Cowes.

Deborah McKenzie, Non-Executive Director

Deborah is an experienced public sector and private sector leader with a passion for supporting people and organisations to thrive. She has worked in the health sector since 2005, starting as a non Executive director at the Royal Surrey County Hospital before working at the London Strategic Health Authority, followed by the Department of Health and Social Care. Deb joined Public Health England  in January 2013 as it was created, moving to NHSBT in autumn 2021. She has served on the Boards of both NHS Blood and Transplant and Public Health England as Chief People Officer and is a Fellow of the CIPD.
Prior to 2005 she worked as an independent OD practitioner, and before that was an associate partner with Accenture she led a number of large-scale change programmes. Her early career was spent in the private sector. Deborah joined the Trust Board in April 2024.

Dr Tim Peachey, Associate Non-Executive Director

Tim joined the trust as a Non-Executive Director in April 2018. He qualified as a doctor in 1983 and worked as a consultant anaesthetist. Tim has held medical management roles at all levels in several acute hospitals including as the Medical Director of the Royal Free Hospital, and Chief Executive of Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals. Tim has also worked as an Improvement director helping NHS trusts and as a Non-Executive Director of University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.

Christine Slaymaker CBE, Associate Non-Executive Director

Christine has been Non Executive Director at PHU since 2017. Prior to this she was Chief Executive of Farnborough College of Technology, rated “Outstanding” for Quality and Financial Health. She is a business graduate and has held non-executive positions for a number of organisations including Farnborough Aerospace Consortium, Treloar School and College, a Royal Engineers charity, and the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership. Christine was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 2014. She is from the Portsmouth area and still lives locally.

Professor Greta Westwood CBE, Associate Non-Executive Director

Greta has been the CEO of the Florence Nightingale Foundation (FNF), a nursing and midwifery charity since September 2019, prior to that she was the Chief Operating Officer in 2017. She is a Registered Nurse, Florence Nightingale Foundation Alumna (2012 Leadership Scholar) and London Business School Senior Executive Programme Alumna.

Greta qualified as a nurse in 1983 and a midwife in 1987, both in Southampton. She has a PhD in Nursing from the University of Southampton. Greta’ career has spanned general nursing, midwifery, clinical genetics, and clinical academic roles across the Hampshire region.  Her last role in the NHS, completing an NHS career of 39 years was at Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust so she is delighted to return to support her now local hospital and excited to be working with new colleagues on the IOW.

In 2021, Greta was awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours List 2021 for services to Nursing and Midwifery.

Penny Emerit, Chief Executive

Penny joined our trust (IWT) as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in June 2023 following the creation of a Group between IWT and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHU). Penny is an experienced and highly capable NHS leader and is also the CEO at PHU, a role which she has held since March 2021. Penny joined PHU in January 2018 as Director of Strategy and Performance and later added the Deputy Chief Executive portfolio to her responsibilities prior to taking on the CEO role. As CEO, Penny led PHU to a second CQC Good rating in July 2022 following a well-led inspection and core service inspection of medicine and urgent care services. She also led the development of the Trust’s ‘Working Together’ strategy. 

Penny has many years of experience in healthcare at national, regional, and local levels, covering policy, regulation, and service delivery, with a credible track record of delivery across the NHS in London and the south. Her expertise in strategy development and implementation alongside regulation and performance improvement drives her passion and commitment to delivering sustainable improvement for the benefit of patients, communities, and staff.

Penny joined the NHS as a management trainee and holds an Economics degree and Post Graduate Diploma in Healthcare Management.

Joe Smyth, IWT Chief Officer

Joe joined our trust in October 2019. In his previous role he worked with 8 CCGs and 4 acute trusts to develop an acute clinical site strategy for North West London. Prior to that, Joe was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Hillingdon Hospitals for seven years and led on the creation of their Integrated Care Partnership. He was also the Director of Service Improvement at Epsom and St Helier in South London and spent 3 years at the Royal Bournemouth NHS Trust as their Deputy COO where he led the reconfiguration of their hospital sites.

Mark Orchard, Chief Financial Officer / Deputy Chief Executive 

Mark joined PHU in October 2019 as Chief Financial Officer before taking up the joint role with IWT in September 2023. Previously Mark was Executive Director of Finance at Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, one of four NHS providers working together with the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group, as a wave one integrated care system. Mark is currently national chair of the NHS Providers Finance and Commercial Directors Network. Mark has also held the Wessex system Finance Director post at NHS England, the Commissioning Finance Director role at Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, and more latterly, at NHS Bournemouth and Poole. Mark was national president of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) during 2016/17 and served a full 10 years as Trustee on their national Board between 2009 to 2019.

Prof Liz Rix MBE, Chief Nursing Officer

Liz has previously held a number of director-level nursing positions in large, integrated trusts, and most recently at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, where she was Chief Nurse. Liz is passionate about delivering quality care for patients through clinical leadership at all levels. She has the experience needed to develop strong nursing teams who manage workforce, patient experience, and environment, while also living the trust values: working together for patients, with compassion, as one team, and always improving. Liz is one of the few nurses to graduate from the NHS Management Training Scheme after working in the health service for a number of years.

Dr John Knighton, Chief Medical Officer

John spent 3 years gaining general medicine experience before training in intensive care medicine and anaesthesia in the South West and Wessex. He spent a year as a visiting instructor at the University of Michigan Hospital before taking a post in intensive care medicine and anaesthesia at PHU at the start of 2000. He led the design of the state-of-the-art critical care facilities, and was one of the clinical team leading on design for the whole hospital. He was Clinical Director for the Department of Critical Care from 2010 to 2016, during which it was rated as 'Outstanding' by the CQC. He has been a CQC specialist advisor for acute hospital inspections, and has a long-held passion for improving patient safety, and quality of services, championing an open and learning culture based on strong multi-disciplinary team working.   

Kelvin Cheatle, Interim Chief People Officer

Kelvin has spent his whole career in HR spending the last 28 years as a Director in NHS Trusts and the Private sector after an early career in local government. He was HR Director at Broadmoor Hospital and then West London Trust, undertook national work on pay, conditions and Speak Up whilst leading the Capsticks HR Advisory service. Since 2016 he was Chief People Officer for Kingston Hospital, latterly working in partnership with Hounslow and Richmond Community Trust as part of a single Executive team. In 2021 Kelvin was given a lifetime achievement award by HPMA which he treasures as it was voted on by his peers.

Kelvin joined the Board in April 2024 as Interim Chief People Officer to help build an integrated People function and lay the foundations pending a permanent employment.

Dr Nikki Turner, Chief Transformation Officer

Nikki started her NHS career in 1998 on the Isle of Wight as a Project Manager. Since then she has held a variety of roles, leading operational areas across acute, community services, mental health and ambulance services as well as leading in service and system transformation. During her time working within the public services, she has also worked for Portsmouth & SE Hampshire Health Authority, Isle of Wight Council, and the former Isle of Wight Primary Care Trust. Nikki was the Deputy Chief Operating Officer before being appointed Director of Acute and latterly for Ambulance Services in 2018. In October 2019 Nikki took up the role of Director of Transformation, later becoming Director of Strategy, Partnerships and Digital. Nikki undertook the role of Acting CEO for IWT for a period of 6 months in 2022. In September 2023, Nikki was appointed as Chief Transformation Officer for IWT and PHU. Nikki holds a doctorate and is a Prince 2 Practitioner in Programme Management. She lives on the Isle of Wight and is passionate about the care we deliver to patients across Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

Peter Ridley, PHU Chief Officer

Peter brings with him a wealth of NHS experience in senior roles. He has a strong track record in NHS finances as he joins us from NHS England where he held the role as Deputy Chief Finance Officer. He has also held roles leading strategy and performance at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

Professor Anoop J Chauhan MBE, Chief Research Officer  

Anoop has been the Director of Research at PHU since 2009 and is also a practising physician in respiratory and general medicine. Anoop has developed opportunities for patients throughout the region to participate in high quality research trials, introduced innovations in clinical pathways, developed new models of care, and helped set up a nationally recognised severe asthma centre in Portsmouth. His research has resulted in a positive impact on disease control, quality of life, healthcare usage and health economic benefits in patients with respiratory conditions. Anoop has helped multiple small and medium-sized businesses to secure funding, develop high-quality research studies and technology trials in support of the NHS. He has also set up the Portsmouth Technology Trials Unit to allow more health technology companies to work with patients and the NHS.

Lee McPhail, Interim Chief Delivery Officer 

Lee was appointed Chief Delivery Officer of Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and Isle of Wight NHS Trust in January 2024. Lee has more than 20 years’ experience within the NHS, including leading operational roles at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust and, prior to this, North Middlesex University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Before commencing with our organisation, he had been at Croydon since 2018.  He was appointed Chief Operating Officer for that Trust in 2019, with a focus on bringing them and NHS Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group closer together to maximise the resources available for the frontline.