Shona joined St John from a position as Second Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Shona played a pivotal role in supporting the government's response to the pandemic, working closely with the NHS on service delivery and leading work to reshape departmental readiness for future challenges.

Having joined the Civil Service in 1995 in the Department for the Environment, Shona has worked across a wide range of issues directly affecting local communities, including housing, regeneration and civil contingencies, later moving to the Department for Education and the Home Office. Her understanding of healthcare systems and her commitment to improving health outcomes, will be invaluable in ensuring St John Ambulance continues to have an impact in society, by putting first aid at the heart of every community.

Adrian Hodes joined St. John Ambulance in Jan 2024 as Commercial Director to lead and manage the Workplace Training and Medical Supplies businesses.

Adrian brings over 25 years of experience with a focus on commercial sales, marketing, brand and ecommerce optimisation and execution, working primarily in the retail and consumer sectors.

Prior to joining St. John Ambulance, Adrian worked most recently at a management consultancy, Alvarez & Marsal, which specialises in transformation and turnaround where he worked on commercial performance improvement projects for brands including Heineken and Debenhams. Adrian has held various commercial, marketing and ecommerce Director roles at Tesco, Currys and Interflora.

Adrian started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers where he spent six years and qualified as a Chartered Accountant, having studied French and Russian.

Since joining St. John Ambulance, Adrian has focused on setting and delivering a clear commercial strategy, whilst creating a collegiate team with a trading culture who increasingly leverage data and creativity to maximise profit for St. John Ambulance.

Claire joined St John Ambulance in April 2022 as People and Culture Director. Claire is responsible for shaping People and Culture strategy and setting in place a roadmap and delivery plans designed to build future capabilities, enhance employee and volunteer experience and cultivate a culture of compassion, inclusion, safety and belonging for all our people Her team, which includes People Services (HR), Culture and Belonging, Internal Communications, Leadership and Management Development, Freedom to Speak Up and employee onboarding, support and empower employees and volunteers across the Charity to thrive, be high performing and deliver sustainable, purpose-led growth and charitable impact.

Previously Claire has enjoyed a career of more than 25 years in the NHS in Wales and wider public sector leadership roles. Prior to joining us she worked as Executive Director of Workforce and OD at the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust for seven years. She is also a Trustee and Council Member at Aberystwyth University, where she chairs the Governance and Culture Committee, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. She enjoys and regularly coaches and mentors fellow people professionals and aspiring leaders and is passionate about supporting people to develop and grow in confidence, capability and to shine.

At home, which is just outside Cardiff, she is a mum of two teenage boys and is married to an extremely patient and supportive husband. She has come to enjoy regularly circuit training, at last, but would really much rather be eating chocolate and drinking a strategic latte or two with friends and colleagues, if she is honest!

Dr George Woods is an experienced C-suite Executive, Strategist, Operational Lead, Culture Architect, Coach, Digital Transformation Implementer, Trustee, and University lecturer with over 30 years of experience across various sectors, including retail, banking, consulting, humanitarian and healthcare. He is known for driving sustainable growth and leveraging innovative solutions and successfully leading large-scale organisational and system transformation.

George mentors and coaches business leaders in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Botswana and advises global corporations on emerging market strategies. A passionate humanitarian, he navigates volatile markets to promote stability, sustainability and development. His most recent developing venture in his previous homeland in South Africa is driving sustainable farming and working with local communities in developing subsistence farming in economically deprived communities.

In 2023, George earned a doctorate focused on post-pandemic recovery models for social enterprises. His accolades include being knighted in 2022 and made a Freeman of the City of London in 2023 through the Worshipful Company of Educators.

Joanne has been the Chief Information Officer at St John Ambulance since September 2022. In this role, she continues to lead and develop services within the Not for Profit sector where her strategic thinking and collaboration skills have been further expanded to adeptly managing the unique challenges of an organisation heavily reliant on volunteer support.

Her leadership extends beyond operational roles; she is also a Non-Executive Director for a Housing Association, where she is taking her leadership skills to a higher strategic level as part of the Board and the Audit and Risk Committee.

Joanne has over 25 years’ experience from both the private sector and Central Government, working to develop, implement and improve the interaction between Citizens, Government and Service Providers. Her diverse background includes significant contributions to healthcare, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she established and transformed services at scale.

At the NHS she was pivotal leading the transition of the NHS BSA from a legacy IT single supplier estate to a modern, cloud-based architecture in a multi-supplier model. Her strategic and collaborative approach has been instrumental in driving these large-scale changes.

Joanne is known for her ability to thrive in challenging environments, effectively facilitating resolutions to complex business problems. She enables an organisation to evolve and grow, whilst keeping it safe, and supporting  the day-to-day running of its multi-facets and multi-disciplinary workforce.

Joanne is a proud Geordie who loves to spend time on the Northumberland coast walking the beautiful beaches with her “lockdown” dog, Amber, and enjoying the local hospitality with her son, Ryan. Joanne is also a family carer for her sister, Louise, who has learning disabilities, and her parents.

Kevin leads our national volunteer movement, chairs the national volunteer leadership network and represents volunteers on the St John Executive Leadership Committee. He joined as a 12-year-old Cadet in Hampshire and has carried out youth work, safeguarding and training roles. He served as the District Manager for East London, Regional Youth Manager for London and the South East, and then Commissioner Young People, before in 2024 becoming our Chief Commissioner. Engaging with our volunteers at all levels is a key part of his role, to ensure that their collective voice is at the heart of everything we do.

Kevin’s career has been in youth and community work. He is currently Chief Executive of City Year UK, an education and social action charity that supports 18 to 25-year-old volunteers to undertake a year of community service in schools.

Dr Lynn Thomas joined St John Ambulance as Medical Director in November 2018. Lynn leads a small team of employees and senior volunteers in the Medical and Clinical Directorate. She sits on the Clinical Committee with the Senior Clinical Volunteers and members of the Trustees Board on behalf of the Chief Operating Officer.

Prior to joining St John, Lynn served for 27 years as a Medical Officer in the Royal Navy. She has served in both shore establishments in the UK and onboard Royal Navy ships across the world, including operational deployments. She was the first female Officer to be appointed to the rank of Surgeon Captain in the Royal Navy.

Lynn maintains her clinical competency as a Consultant Physician at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth.

As Chief Operating Officer, Matthew leads our Clinical Operations and Enterprise Networks. Matthew joined us from The Scouts, where he had been Executive Director of Operations since July 2023. In this role, he was responsible for all operations (including Safety and Safeguarding, Member Support, Growth and Communities, and Youth programmes), working closely with volunteers and staff across the UK to ensure safe and effective delivery.

Before this, Matthew spent six years at the Red Cross, first joining as UK Director Event First Aid & Ambulance Services before taking on the role of UK Director Crisis Response and Community Resilience. During his time at the Red Cross, Matthew led some of the largest operational responses in recent times responding to issues such as Covid, the Afghanistan evacuation and the conflict in Ukraine. Matt was awarded a British Empire Medal in the 2021 Honours list for his work during Covid.

Matthew has over 25 years’ experience working for some of the largest charities across the UK, including Barnardo’s and Catch 22, combining senior operational and commercial business development roles.

Sam joined St John Ambulance in March 2021 as Interim Financial Planning and Insights Director but then was successful in taking the permanent role. Sam said she liked the kindness of our people, the services we provide and the challenge at the time (before the financial downturn) of developing and building a great Finance team that adds value and is well respected across the organisation. After successfully achieving transformation in the FP&A team, Sam is now looking forward to achieving the same across all areas of finance in her broadened role as Director of Finance.

With over 25 years’ experience across healthcare, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), and charity roles Sam has a breadth of experience of accounting, commercial, operational, strategic business partnering and transformation. Sam is a strong believer that the NHS needs the support from the third and private sector to help provide much-needed capacity.

Sam is also a Trustee for Everyturn, a charity dedicated to supporting people and communities across the country with their mental health.

Tommy joined St John in November 2016. As the Company Secretary, he leads the support to Trustees across the charity’s Board and Committees to fulfil their responsibilities effectively. As a member of the Executive, he provides leadership across the charity’s corporate governance frameworks, and Museum of the Order of St John.

Tommy has formed a career of public service as he has always been driven to help organisations that focus on the public interest and social impacts. He has developed a +20 year career across different types of organisations in the public sector, not for profit sector and currently the voluntary sector. His previous experience across External Audit in a regulator (Audit Commission), Internal Audit across local government (Southend on Sea Borough Council and Westminster City Council), a membership body (Law Society) and regulator (Solicitors Regulatory Authority), he has broad experience of risk, controls and assurance across regulated environments with highly public profiles. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant (CIPFA), Chartered Auditor (IIA), Accredited Counter Fraud Specialist (ACFS) and part qualified Chartered Company Secretary (CGI).

Outside of his Executive role, Tommy volunteers as an Independent Committee member of the Audit Committee at Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and the Governance and Nominations Committee at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

Across all his executive and non-executive roles, Tommy is always focused on creating inclusive cultures and helping to create the environment for teams and individuals to thrive.