Meet St John Ambulance’s Board of Trustees
The Prior - Rear Admiral Simon Williams CB CVO
Rear Admiral Simon Williams CB CVO OStJ is the Prior of the Priory of England and the Islands of the Order of St John, and Chair of St John Ambulance. He is a member of both Boards of Trustees where he works collectively to ensure that the principles of the Order inform the work of St John. He is part of two other Orders of Chivalry: as a Companion of the Order of the Bath and a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. He joined St John as Registrar of The Priory in 2021 and has been so impressed with the people, volunteers, and paid members alike, that he jumped at the opportunity to take a more leading role with his fellow Trustees.
In his professional life, Simon remains a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy, now working part-time after a very successful career. He has commanded three warships, operating all around the world where he hunted mines, arrested drug smugglers in the Caribbean and conducted counter-terrorist operations in the Mediterranean. He commanded all new entry training for the Navy, including the Leadership Academy, and later also the volunteer Reserve. He spent three years working for Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth before his last full-time role as the People Director of the Royal Navy. In semi-retirement, he takes Appeals for internal Royal Navy Service Complaints and is the Chairman of two Royal Navy Charities.
The Dean - The Reverend Canon Dr Paul Williams CStJ
Paul was born in Chatham, Kent and has attended the universities of St Andrews and Cambridge. He trained for the ordained ministry at Westcott House.
After being appointed Assistant Chaplain at Selwyn College, Paul served a curacy at St Stephen, Chatham and an incumbency at St Augustine, Gillingham, before becoming Personal Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester. He moved to Tewkesbury in 2003, where he was Vicar of the Abbey, Area Dean and Honorary Canon of Gloucester Cathedral. Paul was appointed Rector of the Sandringham Group of Churches in September 2022.
As Vice Dean of the Priory, he is closely associated with St John Ambulance, is a Commander of the Order and Secretary to the Pro Fide Committee of Grand Council.
Paul is a published author, and is married to Catherine, who is also a priest. They have two adult children, Alice and Harry.
Chief Commander Carole Lawrence-Parr CStJ
Carole is our Chief Commander, Director /Trustee and lead volunteer: her role is to ensure that the voice of our volunteers is heard at the highest level.
Carole joined St John Ambulance in 2009 as an Area President and was then County President until her appointment as Chief President in 2020. As Chief President, Carole led a network of Presidents across the country and worked closely with senior colleagues to promote the work of St John Ambulance and the Priory, including as a member of Chapter.
Carole spent her career in healthcare as a Director in the NHS with responsibility for GPs, pharmacists, dentists, community hospitals and community nurses, and latterly healthcare in prisons and police custody. She won a bursary to explore prison healthcare in the USA and received a number of local and national awards for her work in prisons and primary healthcare. Her published work includes a Quality and Outcome Framework in Prisons toolkit, and she has lectured and presented on many occasions including the International Prison Conference held in Bulgaria. She has held directorships in private healthcare and is currently a management consultant with a particular speciality in start up businesses supporting them to obtain regulatory requirements, develop organisational structures and obtain contracts.
Ingrid Waterfield
Ingrid Waterfield is an HR executive and is currently Chief People Strategy & Culture Officer for KPMG EMA (Europe, Middle East & Africa). Prior to this, she was the Executive HR Director responsible for implementing the people strategy and the change management programme for KPMG South Africa. In 2017 she spent a year working with KPMG’s Global Leadership on the most important strategic questions facing the global firm at that time.
Ingrid originally trained as a Chartered Accountant and has over 20 years of experience both as an external HR adviser, and as part of KPMG’s HR leadership, on interventions to increase organisation performance and improve employee motivation and engagement. An important aspect of her work has been focussed on diversity and inclusion strategies and developing agile workforces to enable businesses to adapt to the fast-moving world around them.
Ingrid is passionate about supporting young people to enable them to belong, contribute and thrive in their communities, in education and in the work place. She is Vice-Chair of YMCA Downslink Group, part of the International YMCA Federation across Surrey and Sussex that supports over 15,000 young people every year.
Harpreet Kondel
A senior fundraiser with nearly 30 years’ experience within the charitable sector, Harpreet Kondel has acquired her experience within agencies and charities. During her career she has provided strategic and practical leadership to grow income for a number of organisations, including the British Red Cross and Barnardo’s. She has managed income in excess of £35 million per year and teams of up to 100.
Since 2017, she has been providing interim fundraising support and consultancy to a range of charities, including Diabetes UK, Christian Aid, Mencap, Age UK, Thames Valley Air Ambulance and Animals Asia.
Dr Annette Doherty OBE FRSC
Annette joined the St. John Ambulance Board as a Trustee in January 2023. She has 35 years of international experience working within the pharmaceutical sector, including at Warner-Lambert, Pfizer and most recently GSK where she was Senior Vice President, Global Head of Product Development and Clinical Supply. She has been directly involved in the research, development and launch of over 30 new medicines in respiratory, infectious diseases, and inflammatory conditions.
She is currently Senior Advisor at Frazier Life Sciences, a team investing in and building companies developing and commercializing novel therapeutics. She has served on the Boards of various research, educational and charitable organizations. She currently holds various non-executive positions including at the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the Addenbrookes Hospital Charitable Trust (ACT), The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) charity and Member of the Tonbridge Grammar School Academy Trust.
Annette has a BSc and PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College London.
She has recently been elected as the next President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a charity focussing on education and research in chemical sciences.
In 2009, Annette was awarded an OBE in recognition of her services to the pharmaceutical sector.
Julie Gooderham CIIA
Julie Gooderham became a St John Ambulance Board Trustee in 2023 and is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. She joined St John Ambulance as an independent member of the Audit and Risk Committee in 2021. Julie has over twenty five years experience leading, advising and transforming enterprise risk management, internal audit, governance, compliance, operational and crisis management teams working across Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific.
Julie is currently Director, Internal Audit and Risk at the John Lewis Partnership in the UK. Prior to joining the Partnership, she worked in professional services across telecommunications, manufacturing and consumer products, energy, chemicals, utilities, financial services industries and in government.
Dr Peter Holden
Peter Holden joined the St John Ambulance Board as Clinical Trustee in January 2024. In 2023, after 38 years, he retired as senior partner of a teaching and training rural general practice. He has held many senior posts representing the UK medical profession and has 30 years’ experience as trustee of a national charity. He is Vice President of UEMO an EU organisation based in Brussels frequently taking him all over Europe and to the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam.
Clinically, his major interest has been in the provision of, and teaching, the acute care of the ill and injured outside hospital and was instrumental in initiatives culminating in PreHospital Emergency Medicine becoming a GMC recognised subspecialty in 2012. He is an accredited Consultant in PreHospital Emergency Medicine.
Peter spent 20 years as a HEMS physician on both the Lincs-Notts and MAGPAS Air Ambulances and now is Trustee with responsibility for Clinical Governance Oversight at the CQC Outstanding MAGPAS Air Ambulance in Cambridgeshire. He is Treasurer of The Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Peter is one of very few with real major incident experience at all four command levels ranging from the Hillsborough disaster, the Tavistock Square bus bombing in 2005, and co-authoring the primary care response to pandemics in 2008/9. He has been a member of the government’s Emergency Preparedness Resilience & Response Clinical Reference Group since 2012 and was part of its Frontline Clinical Cell during the Covid 19 Pandemic.
Peter maintains clinical currency as Strategic Medical Advisor to East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, responding in a critical care car for East Midlands Immediate Care Scheme (EMICS) and working on the GP out of hours service.
Tara-Bella Halai
Tara-Bella Halai joined St John Ambulance as a Cadet in June 2015. She was elected Chair of the Young Responders Youth Advisory Group, representing the initiative on the National Youth Forum and advocating for youth involvement in strategic discussions. Tara was appointed as an International Youth Ambassador for the Priory of England and the Islands advocating for the needs, experiences, preferences, and achievements of young people in St John globally through St John International. As Regional Student Volunteering Officer, Tara helped develop a transition programme for student volunteers, building connections across the organisation. The combination of these roles meant that she gained experience in representing young people at a regional, national and international level.
Tara has also gained experience in championing youth voice outside of St John Ambulance in her previous role as a national representative for the British Medical Association Medical Students Committee. Tara has completed an intercalated BSc degree in Prehospital Medicine from Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry.