John Ormerod

John Ormerod deserves to win this award as he has made a massive difference to our organisation, specifically during a pandemic where he has continued to push, challenge and support the organisation in a way that has resulted in many positive outcomes including finishing in a much better financial position than we expected when the pandemic started. John has championed closer working between the Executive and trustees. As part of this, he successfully argued for Gemma Peters, CEO, to be appointed as a trustee. This sent a clear signal that trustees and management were working together as one. It also helped mitigate sometimes seen charity sector caution, where trustees view their role as mainly to hold the Executive team to account, making it difficult to balance the need to minimise risk with the need to take proportionate risks. Another reason why John should win this award is the commitment and action he has taken to improve the diversity of our Board. He identified that a key thing holding us back from representing all the people affected by blood cancer was that our Board did not adequately reflect the people we serve, and so he took steps to change it.