Meet the Board of Directors at Sussex Partnership
Our board of directors is made up of non-executive and executive directors who set our overall strategic direction, and closely monitor our performance against our objectives.
View our Board member's and decision makers declarations of interest.
Our Non-Executive Directors
The role of non-executive directors is to provide leadership for the organisation and hold our executive directors to account.
If you'd like to contact a non-executive director email spft.
Sean has a background in mental health nursing and he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Honours List in recognition of his 40 years of service dedicated to mental health service delivery.
Sean was selected to receive the 2024 Skellern Lifetime Achievement Award for his tireless efforts to improve care across the sector and in 2013 was awarded the President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Sean has been a Sussex resident for over 30 years, now with five grandchildren living locally.
- President, Royal College of Psychiatrists (2008-2011)
- President, World Psychiatric Association (2014-2017)
- President , British Medical Association (2018-2019)
- Professor Emeritus of Mental Health and Cultural Diversity, Kings College London
As a cultural psychiatrist Professor Dinesh Bhugra has always been interested in the impact of culture on mental health. Dinesh led and crafted 20 position statements on various topics, part of the World Psychiatric Association programme, some of which have strongly influenced policy in governments around the world.
He established presidential task forces on child abuse and neglect, inter-personal violence, prisoner mental health care, migrant health care, LGBT populations’ mental health care and those of people with intellectual disabilities.
Dinesh created programmes for mental health promotion and appointed good will ambassadors from Bollywood and Hollywood along with patients and religious leaders. He established six World Psychiatric Association collaborating centres in different parts of the world to share research, policy and training. Following a survey of discrimination against people with mental illness in 193 countries, he developed Bill of Rights for Individuals with mental Illness, signed by 60 organisations, which was then followed by Bills of Rights for Children and young people and for those with intellectual disabilities.
Dinesh has authored/co-authored over 500 scientific papers, chapters, editorials, and 40 books. Three of his books have been translated into Mandarin and Japanese and various books have won awards including Oxford Textbook for Public Mental Health, which was British Medical Association Book of the Year in psychiatry in 2019. The same year, Practical Cultural Psychiatry was highly recommended. He is the editor of the International Journal of Social Psychiatry and International Review of Psychiatry. On the 75th anniversary of the NHS, conversations on the NHS including interviews with policymakers, doctors, patients and journalists will be published by Routledge. His new book Psychiatrists on Psychiatry will be out in May 2023.
Dinesh is on the Board of Sane and Psychiatric Research Trust charities. Between 2019-2022 he chaired DocHealth charity which provides psychotherapy to doctors and medical students.
Dinesh started his three-year term as Non-Executive Director at Sussex Partnership on 7 February 2023.
Simon B
Simon is Chair of the Dying Matters Campaign and the Support After Suicide Partnership. He is a previous vice Chair of Stonewall, Chair of Diversity Role Models and vice Chair of the Black Health Agency.
He is passionate about social justice and equalities, and has spent his career working and volunteering in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. He is a keen horse rider and dog lover.
Kevin Crowley has over 25 years’ experience in leadership and policy roles in health and social care – his career spans third sector, housing association and central and local government roles. He spent 16 years as executive director at CGL where he looked after diverse portfolios of organisational development, people, growth, governance, care quality and strategy. He has led large transformation programmes as diverse as mergers, organisational structure, digital transformation, and rebranding. He has board level experience chairing social enterprises and a housing association.
Kevin currently works as a consultant in the Health and Social care sector. He specialises in strategy, leadership, culture, patient involvement and quality improvement.
He is passionate about social justice and addressing the structural unfairness that sees our most deprived communities have much poorer health and life expectancy.
Nitin brings extensive commercial, strategy, analytics and finance experience to Sussex Partnership. He spent over a decade at TUI group where he was a part of the senior leadership team and a member of various executive boards of the organization before starting his own consulting firm. He is a qualified accountant with a B.Sc. in electrical engineering and computer science, an MBA and a masters in finance from London Business School.
Nitin is also a Non-Executive Director at South London and Maudsley (SLaM) Foundation Trust and chairs the Audit Committee and Partnerships Committee at SLaM.
Abiola is an experienced Board member with governance and fiduciary expertise across various sectors. She is Chair of Blood Ties Donor Foundation (BTDF), a blood, stem cell and organ donor membership organisation in Nigeria; a Trustee of Adventures in Compassionate Commerce (AiCC), a social impact innovation and investment organisation; and a Board Member of Yinyinola, a provider of care and accommodation services for older people. Previously, Abiola was Non-Executive Director, Social Inclusion and Youth Director and Acting Finance Director at The National Federation for Music Societies (Making Music).
Abiola studied BSc. International Management with French at UMIST (UK), attended L’ESSCA Business School (France) and is an alumna of the School for Social Entrepreneurs (UK). She is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA) with over 10 years working in banking and finance (Mergers & Acquisitions, Leveraged Finance and Hedge Funds) and a strong track record of achievement at senior leadership level. As owner of licensed and complex organisations in different health markets around the world, Abiola has the commercial and strategic acumen, sector insight and innovative drive to support Sussex Partnership to face current challenges and flourish in the future.
Passionate about health equality and innovation, Abiola works to ensure that everyone has equal access to life-saving and life-improving prevention and treatment interventions and shares in the benefits of medical advances. She is particularly committed to the effective and respectful inclusion of target patients, users and communities in the research, promotion, design and delivery of solutions for global health challenges. Abiola brings to Sussex Partnership extensive experience in multi-agency partnership working, ability to influence a complex range of stakeholders and expertise in engaging diverse communities.
His entrepreneurial career includes being the founder and CEO of Starbucks Coffee’s first global franchise, an organisation employing more than 2,000 team members across 107 sites.
In a voluntary capacity, Anil has been a carer for children with life limiting conditions at Naomi House Hospice, and supported adults towards the end of their lives at Oakhaven Hospice. He is currently a mentor to children in care, an independent member of a fostering panel, and with his wife is a respite foster carer.
As a Non-Executive Director, Anil sits on the board of Croydon NHS Trust, a local authority owned special educational needs and disability (SEND) school, and a local authority owned social care company.
His focus is the equitable access to health care services, and narrowing health inequalities especially amongst the most disadvantaged in our community. Anil is married, Daddy to two boys and lives in Brighton.
Anna is
Involving users in the design and delivery of services underpinned her early career and she continues to be a passionate advocate of co-design and co-production in service delivery, policymaking and research.
Anna is currently chair of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling, and Chair of the Midwifery Panel at the NMC.
Anna has a long-standing interest in quality improvement in health care. She has been involved in national projects on clinical audit, governance and service evaluation and regulation, and is a founding member of the Q Community, a 6000 strong, UK wide quality improvement network led by the Health Foundation. Anna has a strong research background and continues to contribute to research in regulation internationally as well as in the UK. She was awarded the CBE for services to health and care in 2015.
Cathy has worked in the NHS for 40 years, graduating from Manchester University with a nursing degree and spending most of her nursing career in primary care, managing community services, and becoming Director of Nursing in a Community Trust. She completed her PhD in Clinical Decision Making in 2000.
Cathy was Accountable Officer for the Berkshire West Clinical Commissioning Group and became executive lead for the Berkshire West Integrated Care System – one of the first wave ICSs – pioneering new ways of collaborating to develop integrated services.
More recently she worked at national level in NHS England as Director of Community and Primary Care Commissioning, and in a London ICS leading their primary care transformation.
Cathy is also a non executive director for Southdown Housing Association who operate across Sussex and a Trustee for Education for Health, a charity providing education programmes that support improved outcomes for people with long term conditions. She is a volunteer for the Hart Youth Counselling service.
Cathy is interested in Population Health Management and how this approach can be used to identify people at risk and provide targeted support to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
Our Executive Directors
Dr Jane Padmore is a registered mental health nurse and has worked in mental health and learning disability services since 1990. Jane is passionate about driving continuous improvement to ensure high quality services that are safe, effective and a good experience. She is particularly interested in how the emerging evidence in relation to neurodiversity can be applied to our services.
Initially starting her career as a healthcare assistant, Jane later qualified as a mental health nurse and has since worked in various clinical, leadership, managerial and academic roles, across CAMHS and adult mental health, learning disability, and forensic services.
Jane was our Chief Nursing Officer before being appointed Chief Executive in April 2022 and prior to that she was Chief Nurse and Executive Director of Quality and Safety at Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Jane is currently the chair of the NHS Confederation Learning Disability and Autism Forum.
Jane was awarded a doctorate from Kings College London following a research study into the mental health needs of young people in street gangs. She has published in relation to child and adolescent mental health, nursing practice and young people involved street gangs.
Oliver joined Sussex Partnership as the clinical director for the adult community transformation programme, he was appointed as deputy chief medical officer in January 2024, before being appointed as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) from 28 October 2024.
Oliver graduated from Imperial College in 2000 and trained as an adult psychiatrist on the Charing Cross and St Mary's training scheme in West London. From 2008, he worked as a consultant psychiatrist in Hammersmith and Fulham, up until his move to Sussex Partnership in May 2023.
Oliver's clinical background is in community adult psychiatry, with a particular interest in relational practice and systems of integrated care. He is also an Analytical Psychologist and has been a member of the British Psychoanalytical Council since 2016.
Oliver has worked extensively in the field of personality disorder and was co-president of the British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder. He has been an advisor to NHS England on the development of community mental health services and a collaborator with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Mental Health Policy Research Unit on complex emotional needs and loneliness. He is currently working with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health on a project seeking to address prejudice and discrimination relating to the diagnosis of personality disorder.
He has held positions within the Royal College of Psychiatrists, including executive member and academic chair of the General Adult Faculty and chair of the Cross Faculty Working Group on Personality Disorder
Teresa Barker joined the Trust in January 2023 as Chief Nursing Officer. Teresa is a registered mental health nurse and has worked in mental health services since 1997, both in Kent and in London.
Teresa started her registered nursing career as a staff nurse on an acute mental health ward and later worked in various clinical, managerial and professional leadership roles across mental health services including youth, adult and older adult services.
Teresa has a post qualifying degree in Psycho-social interventions for Psychosis and an MBA in Health care Leadership. Prior to joining Sussex Partnership, Teresa worked at Kent and Medway Partnership Trust, as Head of Service for Older Adults and Deputy Director of Nursing and Practice.
Dan is also Deputy Director of the Centre for Health Communications, New Buckinghamshire University which runs a Postgraduate development programme in communications and engagement. He is a member of the Independent Taskforce for Diversity in NHS Communications, hosted in partnership with NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, and is currently undertaking a PhD in NHS leadership and organisational change at Bournemouth University.
John Ch
John started his career as a Social Worker within Brighton & Hove Specialist Older Adults Mental Health Services and has worked within mental health services in Sussex since 2002 in a number of operational roles across both the NHS and Local Authorities.
Prior to becoming the Chief Operating Officer John was the Head of Service for Older Adults and Neurodevelopment Services at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, Operational Director for Adult & Older Adult Mental Health Services in Sussex and the Chief Operating Officer for Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group.
Colin is a registered counselling psychologist, accredited cognitive behavioural therapist and has over 15 years clinical and operational experience working in mental health and learning disability services.
Colin graduated with a doctorate in counselling psychology and psychotherapeutic practice from the University of Surrey in 2006 and subsequently undertook a masters in business administration at the University of Bath.
He has been the director of mental health collaborative programme for NHS Sussex since January 2021 and prior to that was the service director for mental health and learning disabilities at Dorset Healthcare. He has significant operational and strategic leadership experience managing a range of services including IAPT, CAMHS and adult community and inpatient services.
Colin has a passion for improving the quality of care for people who use our services and has delivered significant transformational change at scale and in partnership with health, social care and third sector partners and champions coproduction with people who use our services.
Colin was previously seconded to the post of interim Director of Integration and Partnerships in September 2022 for six months.
Colin's responsibilities include digital.
Usman Niazi joined the Trust as Chief Finance Officer in April 2022 and alongside this role took up the role of Deputy Chief Executive in July 2022.
Prior to this Usman was Chief Finance Officer and Financial Senior Responsible Officer at NHS South East London Clinical Commissioning Group and Integrated Care Service.
Throughout his career in health, Usman has led corporate and finance functions in a range of complex NHS organisations, including acute, Clinical Commissioning Groups and strategic health authorities; working with frontline teams to balance the need between high-quality service delivery and financial sustainability.
Usman's responsibilities include sustainability and Corporate Governance.
Funmi Onamusi joined the Trust as Chief People Officer in April 2023. With a career that spans 20 years across consulting and industry roles, Funmi's experience includes specialities in strategic human resources, workforce development, EDI and organisational development & talent management/coaching.
Funmi has previously held roles at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where she was Director of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and was responsible for the inclusion agenda for 14,000 staff and 1m patients. In this role, she led the development of the Trust's Roadmap to Inclusion 2022-2024, which sets out the steps that King's is taking to become a more inclusive place to work and be treated. Prior to joining King's, Funmi worked for the global management consultancy EY (formerly Ernst & Young) in their workforce transformation team and was Director of HR and Operations in the charity sector.
Funmi has an MBA in Strategy & Human Resource Management and is a Chartered Fellow in CIPD.