Leadership team
Transformation Partners in Health and Care (TPHC) is hosted by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (RFL). We form part of the Group Corporate Services business unit alongside several other delivery units.
Learn more about the structure of the Royal Free Group on their website.
Find out more about TPHC’s leadership team on this page.
Susan Hunter ChMC
Managing Director
Born and raised in the north-east, Sue has lived in London over 30 years and is committed to improving public services, including by working with those delivering and/or receiving them. Over the last 25 years Sue’s career has spanned local government and social housing, commercial consultancy, where she honed her transformation skillset, and more recently the NHS. Having joined the team in 2018, Sue became our MD in 2022. A self-confessed city addict, Sue is happiest when on a city break or enjoying all that London has to offer.
Andrew Brown ChMC
Director of Operations
Andrew began his career in Australia working in large acute teaching hospitals as a nurse. With London now home for the last 20 years, he has worked across clinical, commissioning, education, and transformation settings across the NHS. As one of our longest serving team members, Andrew became our Director of Operations in 2022 and is a highly-skilled facilitator, regularly working with groups to help them create strategies and solve problems, alongside his role in overseeing TPHC’s operations. An avid cook, Andrew can often be found in the kitchen or exploring the aisles of a specialty supermarket.
Shirley O’Keefe
Associate Director (Mental Health)
Shirley was born in Dublin and was the eldest girl with five younger brothers. Shirley started her career in healthcare when she trained as a nurse in London in the 1990s. Shirley has worked in healthcare ever since, working in a range of senior provider roles in both the UK and Australia. Shirley has extensive experience working in mental health, and health and justice, and has a passion for service redesign and transformation in complex multiagency pathways. Shirley works across the consulting and partnerships teams and as the Associate Director Mental Health provides strategic leadership over the TPHC mental health portfolio.
Jo Bowers ChMC
Associate Director (Digital, Data, Analytics and Digital Productivity)
Jo was born and raised in Wimbledon, and despite leaving London for her studies, travelling and work she has settled back in her happy place to raise her family. Jo has spent over 20 years working in commercial consultancy across the private and public sector, and in 2021 felt the calling to utilise her skill set in Health and Social Care and joined TPHC. Jo is very committed and passionate about improving the lives of our population. Jo has held senior roles in organisations and large complex change delivery teams, is technical but also a Business Change, Risk and Benefits specialist and has a real passion for finding innovative solutions to complex challenges. Jo is a Chartered Management Consultant (MCMI ChMC) and is happiest by sea or in water, wherever in the world that is and if rugby is also in the equation, ever better.
Jemma Gilbert OBE FRSA
Director of Transformation (Health Equity)
Growing up in inner-city Bradford in a fostering and adopting family, Jemma is passionate about health equity and co-production with communities. Her career in health began as an NHS general management trainee in London. Twenty-five years on from that start, she is now an expert in large-scale change, improvement and transformation across health and government. Since 2011, she has directed many regional partnership programmes for London that address health inequalities. As a Tower Hamlets resident she volunteers as a local youth leader incorporating her other talents as a vocalist, musician, and skater.
Geoff Sanford
Director of Finance
Geoff was one of the founders of our consultancy service and has worked in the NHS for over 40 years. During his career he has worked in acute services and community services as both a provider and a commissioner. His career in NHS finance led to him to being a Finance Director for several organisations including Haringey and Newham Primary Care Trusts. Following this, he developed expertise advising organisations undertaking large-scale change projects. In his spare time, you can find Geoff riding his horse in the Hertfordshire countryside.
More about TPHC
Learn more about Partnerships
Our partnership team has expertise in clinical leadership, London-wide transformation and service improvement, strategic planning, communications, social movements, analytics, and programme management.
Learn more about our health programme work here.
Explore our Consultancy work
As a public sector consultancy that is part of the NHS, TPHC offers resource, expertise and knowledge, in programme management, business intelligence, digital, organisational development, communications and engagement.
Learn more about our consultancy expertise here.
Learn more about Digital Productivity
Our Digital Productivity team drive improvements in efficiency through the NHS by combining strategic implementation of intelligent automation and supporting technologies with process and business redesign.
Learn more about the work of our digital productivity team here.
