Complementing Fran’s marketing and business background, is vice chair Jo Tonkin, an experienced senior nurse and former Director of Care at St Helena. 

The role of a trustee is voluntary and unpaid, yet trustees play an important role in a charity’s management and administration. Fran will be running the role alongside her full time job as Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Suffolk and interim Dean of the university’s London Centre. Fran shares her motivation for taking on the Chair role...

Lots of people say they volunteer for a charity to give back, actually I do it because I get a lot from it in terms of that I learn things and I try to bring to the charity the best of things that I understand. I respect that people know what they're doing and as a trustees, we’re trying to walk alongside them in their roles but also help them. Yes, we have to make difficult decisions as trustees but actually we have to listen, and we have to work out how we can help and try to use our networks and contacts and see if something from our world can help.

St Helena is a leading hospice in the UK, showing other hospices how they can do things better. We need the best quality people doing the best in their roles. For me, a board of trustees is about making sure we are supporting people but being very aware that people are very capable of doing things. We just need to check that they're getting the support and the resources, and see if we can help bring those in.