Charities Committee

Kirsty McHugh, Trustee – Chair

Kirsty joined the Board in April 2026. She is Chief Executive of Carers Trust, the largest charity in the UK supporting unpaid carers through its network of local services. Kirsty has extensive experience of working in the voluntary and not for profit sectors. Before Carers Trust, she was CEO of the Mayor’s Fund for London and the Employment Related Services Association and a Director of the UK charity, Business in the Community, where she led community programmes across England and Wales.  Kirsty spent 12 years as a local councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth and has previously served as a non executive of a housing association and as a National Lottery panel member.

Amanda Pritchard

Amanda is the Chief Executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Prof David Crossman (Medical Research)

Having started his clinical career in London, David has had two stints leading medical schools at UEA, and St Andrew’s, where he is the longest standing Medical School Dean in Scotland. Externally, David has had significant involvement with the British Heart Foundation, having served on clinical research consortium boards, and overseen their data science partnership with Health Data Research UK.

David’s experience as Chief Scientist for health to the Scottish Government, during a period that included the pandemic, demonstrates his ability to offer strategic insight and convey complex information to non-expert audiences. David has a wide range of experience in scientific research related to medical problems including a personal research programme, based on his clinical specialty of Cardiology. Through engagement with national bodies such as UKRI, NIHR, UKCRC and BHF, David brings well-rounded depth of experience.

Dr Andrew S Higgins (High Value Fundraising)

Andrew is a deeply experienced, engaged, and energetic fundraising leader whose career has centred around the arts and culture space but who has also demonstrated considerable adaptability in operating environments both in the move from the US to UK and in the move from opera to the broader base of Imperial War Museum.

Andrew has had considerable success in his fundraising roles, notably raising over £30m for the new Holocaust and photographer galleries at IWM and has a track record of developing high net worth donor relationships as well as wider institutional support. He has extensive stakeholder management and high net worth donor handling experience and displayed a particularly sophisticated approach to high value fundraising. He spent three years as a Trustee at the British Youth Opera in addition to wide experience of working with high level Boards at his organisations.

Sir Ron Kerr, Trustee

Ron was appointed as a lay member of the Council for King’s College London in August 2019 and Chair of NHS Providers in July 2019.

Prior to this, he joined Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust as Chief Executive in 2007. He stepped down on 1 October 2015 after 30 years in senior NHS leadership roles remaining with the Trust as Executive Vice Chair and then special advisor to the board. His other Chief Executive roles have included the National Care Standards Commission, United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust, and the South East London Commissioning Agency.

Julie Milnes (Public Fundraising)

Julie is a very experienced fundraiser at major UK charities who has progressed from a background in corporate and institutional fundraising to the full multi-channel breadth of her current leadership role at Centrepoint. An engaging, experienced, and energetic communicator, Julie combined thoughtful, experienced perspectives with an evident, adaptive learning style.

At the heart of Julie’s experience is her partnership work which has been significant from growing partnership income at the British Red Cross by 137% through to recently winning a £9m partnership for Centrepoint. She has significant experience of crafting powerful, persuasive narratives. Her experience of legacies and individual giving is more recent, but the latter is the biggest piece at Centrepoint which has forced her rapidly up the learning curve. She is also running a £30m capital appeal to build more accommodation for vulnerable young people. Julie led a significant rebuilding and repositioning of the fundraising function at Centrepoint which had been in a precarious position when she arrived during Covid. She built new supporter journeys and has increased their fundraising from £24m in covid to over £35m today.

Julia Palca, Trustee

Julia joined the board as Vice Chair in January 2025 and is a member of our Charities Strategy Committee. She was a partner in the law firm Olswang for many years and a part-time judge.

Among her third sector roles, Julia has been Chair of MacMillan Cancer Support, where she remains Deputy President, Chair of the Royal Free Charity,  Chair of City, University of London, and Senior Independent Director at the Nuffield Trust.

Julia’s current roles include chairing the Mines Advisory Group and being Deputy Chair of City St George’s, University of London.

Jackie Parrott

Jackie is Chief Strategy Officer at Guy’s and St Thomas’. Up until 2000, Jackie held a number of clinical operational roles in Trusts, managing local and specialist services. Presently, she’s responsible for developing the Trust’s organisational and clinical strategy, supporting clinical services and key strategic partnerships.