Our day-to-day operations are overseen by our executive leadership team. They are responsible to the boards of Trustees of the charity, St John Ambulance, and its parent charity, the Priory of England and the Islands of the Order of St John.
Martin joined St John Ambulance as Chief Executive in January 2018. He has a strong track record in leading the development of public service delivery and in policy change with a focus on giving people – especially young people – the chance to fulfil their potential through volunteering, education and training. He comes to St John Ambulance from Depaul UK, where he was chief executive for five years. While at the charity Missing People, he successfully campaigned for a new missing persons law and launched the new national telephone number for missing people. He has also held roles at the Children’s Society and served as Chair of the YMCA England & Wales board of trustees.
In June 2019, Martin was appointed as Chair of the Centre For Youth Impact which reflects his long-term commitment and dedication to making a positive impact on the lives of young adults and children.
Our trustees ensure the smooth running of both charities. The Prior, the Dean, the Chief Commissioner, and the Chancellor are ex officio members of both governing bodies.
Surgeon Rear Admiral Lionel Jarvis CBE DL KStJ (Chair)
Dr Lionel Jarvis joined the Royal Navy after training as a doctor. As a consultant clinical radiologist, he won many professional awards. From 1999-2003, he was Commanding Officer of Royal Hospital Haslar. He was deployed on operational activity in a number of conflict areas, receiving operational medals from the UK Government, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the State of Kuwait.
In 2006, he was appointed Honorary Surgeon to Her Majesty The Queen, which he held until 2012. As an Admiral, he was Medical Director General of the Royal Navy and Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff for Health. Before joining St John, he was Chief Executive of the Qatar Heart Hospital.
Dr Jarvis was admitted as Officer Brother of the Order of St John in 2012 and promoted to Knight of the Order in May 2016. From June 2016, he was appointed Prior of England and the Islands of the Most Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem, and Chair of St. John Ambulance.
Mr Michael Messinger LVO KStJ QPM DL
Mr Messinger had a 40-year career as an officer in the Metropolitan Police Service. For the latter part of his time in the Met he was responsible for public event policing, emergency planning, and consequence management policy and delivery across London. As Director of the Metropolitan Police Friendly Society, Mr Messinger has been the Commander of St. John Ambulance London since 2007.
He was appointed Chancellor in February 2017, having previously been Chief Volunteer for St. John Ambulance from 2012 – January 2017. He has been a Trustee since June 2010.
The Very Reverend Dr John R Hall KCVO FSA FCIS
Dr Hall was the 38th Dean of Westminster from 2006 until November 2019. As Dean, he led the ministry and mission of Westminster Abbey. He chaired the governors of Westminster School and of Harris Westminster Sixth Form.
After a gap year in Kenya and university in Durham, he taught for two years in Hull before training for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1975 and worked in parishes in South London, later serving as diocesan director of education in Lancashire. Then for eight years he served as the Church of England's chief education officer, overseeing, amongst other responsibilities, almost 5,000 Church of England schools and eleven Anglican universities.
Dr Hall is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. He has honorary doctorates from four universities and was for eight years a Pro Chancellor of the University of Roehampton. In October 2019, The Queen appointed him a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
Dr Hall chairs the Council of the Royal School of Church Music and is a trustee of two groups of academies and independent schools, the Woodard Corporation and United Learning. He lives in Chichester, where he is a Prebendary (honorary canon) of the Cathedral. He is Dean Emeritus of Westminster.
Mrs Ann Cable MBE DStJ DL
Appointed a Trustee in 2017, Mrs Cable began her St John life as a Cadet and has been involved with the organisation ever since. Having run several successful Cadet Units, she went on to hold senior operational positions and was appointed the first female Commissioner for London St John Ambulance in 2008. She led the St John Ambulance volunteer resourcing for all major events in the capital during the period 2008 - 2013. This included Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics and Paralympic Games. Mrs Cable went on to become National Volunteering Adviser and, in 2017, she was appointed Chief Volunteer. In June 2019, she became St John Ambulance's Chief Commissioner, with responsibility for leading our 25,000 volunteers and providing strategic oversight in this area for the Charity.
Now retired from her professional life as a Headteacher and School Inspector, Mrs Cable also thoroughly enjoys her role as the Representative Deputy Lieutenant for the London Borough of Enfield.
Ms Margaret Coleman
Ms Coleman joined the St. John Ambulance Board as a Trustee in April 2015. She holds a number of non-executive roles including Chair of the Media Centre, a social enterprise in the creative and digital sector; Chair of Yorkshire Dance, a charity promoting excellence in dance; Chair of Certa, an awarding body; and until December 2013 was on the board of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Chartered Management Institute.
Until 2010, she was Regional Director in Yorkshire and the Humber in the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). She had responsibility for education and training, including apprenticeships for adults and young people in schools, colleges, and workplaces across the region. She was also national Third Sector Champion.
Ms Coleman has worked in all the major sectors of post-16 education, including higher and further education, teacher education, adult skills, and sixth form colleges. Before joining the LSC in 2001, Ms Coleman was the Principal and Chief Executive of Huddersfield New College.
Ms Jayne Mee
Ms Mee is a Human Resources Consultant and Non-Executive Director with specific experience in retail, leisure and hospitality, construction, healthcare (NHS) and charity/not-for-profit. Ms Mee is passionate about people and has a proven track record in creating behavioural and cultural change with tangible business benefits. In her career she has worked with the Boots Company, Sears, Whitbread, Royal Mail, Punch Taverns, Barratt Developments, and the NHS. Ms Mee founded Calabash Limited in 2015 and has been working as a professional advisor to a ‘big four’ Board Advisory Practice, executive coaching in both the private and public sector, and delivering strategic HR consultancy and board advisory work in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.
Ms Mee joined the St. John Ambulance Board in April 2015 and chairs the Remuneration Committee and the People Committee. She is a Mentor for Carers Trust’s CEOs.
Mr Mohan Mansigani
Mr Mansigani is a highly commercial and creative finance director with extensive private equity experience who has played a key leadership role in establishing Casual Dining Group (previously known as Tragus) as a major UK restaurant business. He also led the business through two private equity transactions including the £267m sale to Blackstone in 2007. Prior to this he was CFO at Costa Coffee and TGI Friday’s.
Mr Mansigani is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and serves as a trustee on the Migration Museum Project. Mr Mansigani joined the St. John Ambulance Board as a Trustee in July 2016.
Mr Matthew Stevenson-Dodd
Mr Stevenson-Dodd is a respected social entrepreneur with a background in youth work, employability, enterprise, and sport-based social impact. He joined the St. John Ambulance Board as a Trustee in July 2016. Mr Stevenson-Dodd is currently Managing Director of Trust Impact, an impact and transparency consultancy helping charities, social enterprises, and sports organisations build trust through innovative impact journeys.
From 2010-2019, Mr Stevenson-Dodd was CEO of the sport for employment charity, Street League. He helped change its direction and drive growth of 30-40% every year for the past six years. Street League employs 140 full time staff, operates in 14 regions across the UK, and serves 39 local communities.
Prior to Street League, Mr Stevenson-Dodd was Chief Executive of Young Enterprise North West and Founder CEO of the multi-award winning ‘Unique Social Enterprise’ in Newark. In 2014 he was selected by the RFU to join the ‘Try For Change’ Legacy Panel of the Rugby World Cup 2015.
All of this is underpinned by a strong academic record which includes an MBA with Distinction from Nottingham University and a scholarship from Harvard Business School.
Professor Sir Keith Porter
Professor Porter was educated at Marlborough College and St Thomas’s Hospital, London. He was appointed Consultant Trauma Surgeon at Birmingham Accident Hospital in 1986, a service that is now delivered at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, where he is Professor of Clinical Traumatology, and until June 2018 was the Clinical Director of the Major Trauma Centre. He has been the clinical lead for injured soldiers returning to the UK for the last decade, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Professor Porter has been a leader in the development of the new medical subspecialty of Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine. In recent years, he has been the Chairman of the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care and also the Intercollegiate Board for Training in Emergency Medicine. He is Chair of the Trauma Care Council and co-editor of the journal 'Trauma'.
For his services to the military, Professor Porter was knighted in the 2010 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List.
Mr David Springthorpe
Mr Springthorpe first became a Trustee of St. John Ambulance in September 2015, serving until June 2017. He was subsequently appointed to the role of interim Chief Executive until the end of 2017, with a handover period that began in July 2017. He returned as a Trustee in September 2018. Mr Springthorpe now chairs the Audit & Risk Committee, having been a member of the Committee since 2015.
Mr Springthorpe has held a number of Senior Executive roles as a Qualified Chartered Accountant. In the 1990s, he was part of the rapidly expanding DIY group B&Q. He later joined Virgin Atlantic as Finance Director. He led the transformational change of the airline, its finances, and its operating model. In 2004, he joined Heathrow Airport as Finance Director. Two years later, he became the Chief Financial Officer of the Heathrow Division. He was involved with the building of Terminal Five and adapting airport security changes, as well as leading on the CAA Regulatory Settlement. In 2008, he became the Chief Financial Officer of Anchor Trust, Britain’s largest charitable provider of care and housing for older people. Mr Springthorpe now holds a number of consultancy, non-executive director, and voluntary roles in the care, housing, and health sectors.
Dr David Reeves
Dr Reeves is a technology and marketing specialist with almost 40 years’ experience in the UK and internationally. Following a series of successful roles in the marketing sector, his experience includes 15 years in senior management positions with Sony. He was President and CEO of Sony PlayStation in London for six years, overseeing a turnover of over £3 billion. He currently runs his own company, David Reeves Consulting.
Dr Reeves is a trustee for Autistica (UK), Sense (UK), and St. John Ambulance as well as Senior Independent Director of Keywords International, PLC, and RED Entertainment (Dubai). He is a Consultant at the Quantic Group and an accredited Growth Accelerator Coach for UK companies. Dr Reeves is fluent in German, Japanese, and French. He holds an MBA in Marketing, a BSc in Chemical Sciences, and a PhD in Chemical Physics and Astrophysics.
Our clinical team ensures the first aid advice we give is accurate, and maintains standards of clinical practice throughout the organisation.
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Richard Lee joined St John Ambulance as Chief Operating Officer in November 2018. He has spent 25 years in the NHS ambulance sector in a number of clinical and operational roles. He was previously the Director of Operations at the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust (WAST), where he helped to improve their performance and reputation. He also played a key role in WAST’s clinical modernisation programme and new response model. As well as helping to develop and lead their volunteer activity.
Steve Foster is the Director of People & Organisation, joining St John Ambulance in 2010. His directorate includes HR, Volunteering, Safeguarding and Health & Safety.
Mel Fox is the Director of Training. He joined St John Ambulance in July 2003 initially as the CEO for West Midlands Region prior to becoming a Regional Director within the-then newly formed Commercial Training Division, now known as Workplace Training. Prior to joining St John Ambulance, Mel spent 20 years in retail banking and 7 years in the private sector with equity funded start-ups.
