Dr Neville Young is Director of Enterprise and Innovation at Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber. He has a real interest and track record in supporting the delivery of high-quality research and innovation that improves patient outcomes and drives health system efficiencies.
Neville is focussed on helping innovative businesses succeed and grow. He is a board member of NIHR Impact Advisory Group, of the NHS Innovation Accelerator and of Sheffield’s Olympic Legacy Park. He is also Vice Chair of the NHSE funded Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Cancer Programme and has been Vice Chair of the National Pathology Imaging Collaborative steering committee.
He created Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber’s Propel HealthTech digital health accelerator programme. Now in its sixth year, the accelerator supports both UK-based and international businesses to succeed in the UK health market.
He also has an interest in supporting international activities, promoting export opportunities for UK-based innovators and creating a safe landing space for successful international companies looking to enter the UK market via the Propel HealthTech International Boot Camp.
Neville has worked as an academic researcher, a drug trial manager, a consultant, as a director for a health tech start-up and is focused on helping to identify and support the ‘pull’ from the healthcare systems for innovative health technologies.
He completed his doctorate in Molecular Embryology from Kings College London, before working at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and then the Institute of Molecular Biosciences in Queensland, Australia before returning to the UK and developing a career focussed on supporting innovation across the breadth of Health and Life Sciences industry.
Oliver has a 22 year background working in and supporting the Health Tech industry as a Founder or Co-founder in Exec Search (MedTecRec), Venture Capital, Investing and an International Market Access consultancy (Havilland Health Active Ventures).
He also lead an industry specific Health Tech community, The Future Health who offer Health Tech specific networking events across the UK with a focus on B2B collaboration and partnerships.
Across all the businesses he is involved with, Oliver has a conscious lean towards working with small to medium sized, high potential, high growth, scale up technology companies that offer innovation across the NHS and Private Health markets.
Outside of work he is a keen but average cyclist and part time taxi driver for his sports mad 9 year old son.
Nathan Berry is Head of Collaboration and Healthtech Lead at Nexus, the University
of Leeds’ innovation community. In this role, he connects businesses with academic
expertise, helping organisations develop innovative products, secure collaborative
research opportunities, and build partnerships that drive commercial and societal
impact.
With a background in biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical research, clinical
research, and industry engagement, Nathan has extensive experience in fostering
collaboration between business, healthcare, and academia. Prior to joining Nexus,
he worked within the University of Leeds supporting corporate and industry
partnerships across the health and life sciences sectors.
He is passionate about helping innovative companies access the expertise, talent,
and resources needed to bring new technologies and solutions to market, particularly
within the health and life sciences sector
Richard is CEO of Paxman Scalp Cooling, a global leader in chemotherapy side effect management and cryotherapy. The company specialises in technologies that prevent chemotherapy-induced
alopecia (CIA) and chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN).
After studying management science at the University of Manchester’s Institute of Science and Technology, Richard subsequently joined Paxman in 2009 and became CEO in 2017. Since then, the business has achieved significant success on the international stage, establishing itself as a key innovator in supportive oncology care, and is now available in over 60 markets globally. As CEO, he drives the company's vision to ensure that every applicable cancer patient, no matter where they are in the world, has the opportunity to access Paxman's technology; be that through maintaining their privacy and sense of normality through hair retention, or preventing the debilitating effects of CIPN.
Richard heavily supports investment in people, biological research, and clinical trials - for both regulatory and marketing reasons - to help achieve this vision. He is also fully committed to developing new scalp cooling innovations to improve efficacy and incorporating a cryocrompression device for the prevention of CIPN into oncology workflows.
Richard Paxman has played a pivotal role in global market development, including clinical trial design and regulatory approvals specifically related to scalp cooling, earning him the award of OBE in the
first King's Birthday Honours List.
Beyond Paxman, Richard contributes to regional economic and healthcare innovation as a private sector member of the Mayor's Business Board for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), Chair of the WYCA HealthTech Cluster and Non-Executive Director of Medilink North.
Dr Cameron Stockwell is the Innovation Manager for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust, where he works across eight Hospitals to create, develop, and adopt innovations in clinical care and Health Tech. Cameron is focused on creating strategic partnerships to drive meaningful change in how healthcare is delivered within North Yorkshire and further.
With a passion for finding practical solutions to real-world challenges, Cameron champions a whole-system approach to innovation, whether that's improving patient pathways, piloting new technologies, or building collaborative relationships that have a positive impact towards tackling health inequality. Cameron brings both the perspective of a busy acute NHS trust and the ambition to look beyond it, connecting with researchers, industry partners, and innovators to bring new ideas into his organisation. He is a firm believer that the future of healthcare is built through people as much as technology.
Lizzy is currently an Investment Manager at PXN Group (formerly Par Equity), focused on early-stage deepTech and healthTech opportunities. She previously worked at ACF Investors, a sector-agnostic UK-wide co-investment Fund. Lizzy holds a PhD in Medical Engineering from the University of Leeds, where she researched spinal cord injury via computational simulation. During her PhD, she undertook a secondment to a pre-seed digital health startup and also contributed to the Creator Fund, supporting the Northern pre-seed ecosystem for students and spinouts.
Patrick Trotter has a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and MBA specializing in Technology Management.
Following the completion of his PhD, he became a Junior Fellow of the British Heart Foundation continuing the work he initiated during his PhD investigating the mechanisms of platelet activation. In 1997 Patrick moved into industry and was involved in developing a CE marked surgical sealant before moving to Johnson and Johnson in 2001, where he managed early stage internal and external projects in the areas of acute and chronic wound care and haemostats.
Patrick then set up his own bespoke medical device consultancy, InnProMa, which he ran between 2007 and 2013. He was assisting clients and many international companies in innovation strategy, R&D planning and the identification and selection of new opportunities/ technologies/ projects for investment. These were focused in the areas of wound care, wound closure, haemostats, sealants, glues and adhesives and tissue regeneration. During this period, he also became a specialist in clinical evaluation reports having written his first one in 2010, and has since gained a significant level of expertise in regulatory affairs.
Patrick is currently the Head of Innovation, Commercialisation and Regulation at Medilink North of England. He and his team have assisted companies in the medical device, diagnostics (including infection diagnostics) and digital health spheres with innovation strategy, market and competitor analysis and developing business cases for adoption of new health technologies. He had also led the formation of Medilink Regulatory providing regulatory assistance to medical device, in-vitro diagnostics companies and digital health companies whose innovations are regulated as medical devices.
He has conducted original research into best practice front end innovation processes and published his finding in international peer reviewed management journals, developed a healthcare specific front-end framework for innovation to reduce risk and maximise the probability of commercial success and profitability. Patrick has regularly run courses and workshops focused on innovation strategy and product development for the healthcare sector. These courses provide senior executives and managers the skills to launch differentiated successful products.
Patrick is an opinion leader, regularly contributing to thought leadership articles in the areas of innovation, product development, market access and regulation in industry-focused magazines with over 20 publications and 17 patent applications, 12 of which are granted.
Patrick utilises his scientific and technical expertise together with his commercialisaton acumen to provide clients with bespoke support to maximise the potential or their organisation.
Liz Whitefield is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hippo, a leading independent digital services consultancy founded in Yorkshire. Over the past decade, Liz has played a key role in the organisation's success, growing the "Hippo herd" from startup into a premier digital powerhouse of over 700 dedicated specialists across six national offices.
Following a successful career in the UK civil service she combines her passion for human-centered design with a strong commitment to regional economic growth and is an active member of the regional Business Board. As Co-Chair of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) Innovation Board, Liz actively supports forward-thinking innovation, supporting high-profile international trade missions alongside Mayor Tracy Brabin and her team to foster global collaboration.
Jack is a Consultant in Public Health who leads population health advice for NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB. He holds public health degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of York. He began his career as an emergency medical technician in the United States, where he founded a healthcare software start-up serving safety-net providers. He has also worked with the World Health Organization, supporting countries to develop national quality policies and strategies. He regularly speaks to national and international health and care audiences about the opportunities and risks that AI presents for population health.
Jennifer is a researcher specialising in AI, organisational culture and socio-economic change. Holding a DPhil from the University Oxford, she leads research at FSP, translating AI trends into practical, human centred strategies for responsible adoption. Jenn translates complex technological shifts into human-centred insights that resonate with executive audiences. Her work — grounded in qualitative research and lived experience — enables leaders to move from abstract concern to practical, principled action. Alongside her role at FSP, Jenn serves as Research Director at OpenUK, a role that sees her regularly address international conferences on how to embed responsibility not as compliance, but as culture — ensuring AI augments human capability while strengthening trust, inclusion, and long-term value.
Laura is Director of Digital Partnerships at Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, joining the organisation in October 2024. In this role, she works across Yorkshire's three Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to analyse how we optimise the data infrastructure and assets across our region to improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities for our populations and best support our NHS workforce. Previously, Laura was Director of Implementation at UCLPartners, where she led the Cardiovascular Health Programme. This included development and scale of the award-winning Proactive Care Frameworks which support the search and stratification of patients in primary care to ensure patients receive the right care at the right time. More recently she led the build and commercialisation of smart data tool CVDACTION. Prior to this, Laura led the award-winning NHS Innovation Accelerator supporting numerous evidence-based, high impact innovations across the NHS.
Graham has joined our executive team as our first Medical Director. This new role has a broad remit allowing Graham to offer clinical support and advice across a range of projects within the organisation. He is also engaged in encouraging partnership working between clinical teams across the region and the Health Innovation Network. Graham studied medicine at University College Medical School in London before moving back to his native Yorkshire where he has been a Consultant Knee Surgeon at Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT) since 2009. He continues to work clinically and works with national teams to improve knee arthroplasty pathways. Clinically his team has won many healthcare awards for their pathway transformation work. He joined Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber having been an Associate Medical Director at CHFT and was also the Chief Clinical Information Officer where he oversaw digital transformation and innovation. He is a strong advocate for the use of technology in healthcare seeing it as an enabler to improve patient care and outcomes and recognises the importance of the patient’s involvement with transformation.
Anna is a strategy and delivery leader with over 20 years’ experience in digital and data, and a strong track record in the public sector, particularly healthcare. She has worked on multi-million-pound national NHS programmes focused on improving safety, efficiency and effectiveness. As a Principal Consultant at Hippo, Anna works from discovery through to delivery, helping organisations unlock the value of their data and turn ideas into meaningful, practical outcomes. She is known for bringing stakeholders together, championing innovation, and putting people at the heart of change — while bridging the gap between technical and business teams.
Robert McGough is a Partner and Head of Health Commercial and Regulatory at Hill Dickinson. Based in Leeds, he advises NHS organisations, independent healthcare providers and health and life sciences businesses on complex commercial arrangements, strategic partnerships and regulatory issues.
Robert works with organisations developing, scaling and adopting new healthcare services and technologies. His focus is on turning promising ideas into commercially robust and deliverable propositions, with clear contracting models, effective partnerships and a practical route through the regulatory and procurement landscape.
With extensive experience across the health sector, Robert brings a practical perspective on what investors, innovators and healthcare customers need to move from research and early-stage development to implementation at scale.
Dr Denis Newman-Griffis (they/them) is Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and AI for Health Lead at the University of Sheffield Centre for Machine Intelligence. Their cross-sector work is advancing the cutting edge in AI for health and disability, responsible AI for the public sector, and AI education. Dr Newman-Griffis is a British Academy Innovation Fellow, an Expert Exchange Fellow in the Government Office for Science, and recipient of the American Medical Informatics Association Doctoral Dissertation Award.
Joanna Rose is HealthTech Strategy and Policy Lead at NHS England. She has 12 years’ experience in the NHS, including 6 years working in HealthTech access. She is currently responsible for national programmes that support the adoption and scaling of health technologies, including the National HealthTech Access Programme, Priority Pathway Transformation Programme and Innovation Procurement Taskforce. Her previous work includes the development and delivery of the MedTech Funding Mandate and the Innovation Ecosystem Programme, as well as developing currencies for the National Payment Scheme.
