People are our most important asset. As well as our partnership of some 2,000 healthcare professionals, we have assembled an exceptional executive team.
Mark Aichroth (Partnership Development)
Mark joined Circle from Mercury Healthcare where he was the Commercial Director of Mercury Health and helped win an Independent Sector Treatment Contract worth £214 million from the Department of Health. His previous appointments include Chief Executive Officer of a diagnostic growth company, International Executive Director for Blue Cross Blue Shield, the world's largest health insurer, and Vice President of Columbia/HCA International (now HCA Healthcare). Mark is a Director of Yeovil NHS Foundation Trust and was a past council member of the Independent Doctor's Forum and former Board member of the Independent Healthcare Forum.
David Allen (Finance)
David has a range of consulting, corporate finance and private equity experience with high growth and process-driven companies in the manufacturing, telecommunication and restaurant sectors. Most recently, David was Finance Director for a software firm. In the past, David managed transactions as an Investment Manager at Capricorn Ventures and advised on large, complex merger and acquisitions transactions at Deutsche Bank. He has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Brunel University and a Diplome D'Ingenieur from L'Ecole Centrale de Lille, both in Manufacturing Engineering.
Dallas Ariotti (Operations)
Dallas has served as a board-level Executive Director at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (2002-6) and the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (1998-2002) where she held chief operating officer responsibility. Her responsibilities included the delivery of clinical operations, organisation-wise performance measurement, the design of clinical strategies and models of care and the line management of 10,000 WTE staff. From 1982-98, she served as Principal Policy Advisor to the Australian Federal Department of Health, providing international consultancy to the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, OECD and Humana. She also acted as interim Chief Operating Officer for Humana Europe Ltd. She holds an M.Psych from Sydney University in Clinical & Organisational Psychology with the Mathematics of Measurement/Psychometrics.
Richard Atkinson (Technology)
After spending four years as a Technology Strategist at PA Consulting Group, Richard built three technology businesses, including the UK's largest charity website portal, Justgiving. He regularly speaks at conferences on the role of technology and is both an Executive of the Healthcare Technology network and Chairman of the MedTech conference of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. He has a Bachelor of Engineering degree with first class honours in Manufacturing Engineering with Management and Business Studies from Brunel University.
Patrick Butterworth (Finance)
Patrick joins us from Home Retail Group PLC where he was Financial Controller of commercial operations and activities in the UK and Asia, including the offshore sourcing of $1 billion per annum via Group companies in Asia and China. Previously he established an operational excellence programme within Argos Ltd and delivered operational cost base savings in excess of £60 million. He has over 15 years experience in operational financial control across retail, manufacturing, financial services, and supply. He previously held key roles at Home Retail Financial Services, Scottish and Newcastle, Northern Foods and De La Rue.
Tim Collins (Finance)
Tim is an experienced Financial Controller, with a background of managing financial control and delivering finance systems on a global scale. During his 5 year career at BT, he worked initially as Financial Controller in the Retail division to support the turnaround of one of the most poorly performing of BTs units into one of its most profitable. Tim then moved into the Global division where he managed the financial control of the 400 business units worldwide with a global team of over 150. Tim qualified as an accountant with British Airways where he spent 8 years in a number of roles including Financial Controller of the UK Sales and Marketing division and Head of Group Financial Reporting. Tim has also held positions at Centrica, a Telecoms consultancy and trained as an engineer at Rolls Royce. He holds a BSc in Physics (1st Class) from Bristol and a MBA from London Business School.
Farhang Daemi (Commissioning)
Farhang has over 20 years' senior management experience in development and delivery of advanced technology programmes, products and businesses. He was Director of Product Development and Client Services at Medicsight Plc where he delivered and supported five groundbreaking software products for the detection of cancer and heart disease. Before that, Farhang was a senior consultant and interim executive at various international advanced technology companies in the UK, Europe, Middle and Far East. Farhang's early professional career started at University of Nottingham where he founded and ran the £3 million Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre for Industrial and Medical Informatics. He has a Bachelor of Science degree and a Doctorate in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Nottingham.
Jacqueline Droogan (Commissioning)
Jacqueline joined Circle from the Birmingham New Hospitals Project (BNHP), where she spent six years and was most recently Deputy Project Director. During her tenure, she was responsible for managing a variety of programmes, including a £560 million Private Finance Initiative for acute and mental health facilities, one of the UK's largest. Prior to moving into project management, Jacqueline served as Associate Director of Nursing. Before joining BNHP, she was Head of Nursing at University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, where she led the Trust's nursing, development and marketing strategies. Jacqueline has more than 25 years' experience in healthcare and began her career as a nurse. She was also a research fellow in Health at the University of York. Jacqueline holds a Master of Science degree in Psychology and Statistics and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Lancaster University.
Anna Evans (Operations)
Anna joins us from a position as General Manager with Spire Healthcare in Reading. Initially trained as a nurse at Guys Hospital in London Anna has worked in healthcare for 20 years in a variety of environments in both the NHS and Independent Sector, and in both general surgery and psychiatry settings. In 1997 she moved from the NHS into the Independent Sector working at Capio Springfield Hospital in Chelmsford initially in a clinical capacity but swiftly moving into more operational and managerial roles. During her time there Anna was involved in project managing a building programme which doubled the size of the hospital. Following this she worked as Hospital Manager at two other Capio Units in Cornwall and Staffordshire. In 2002 she moved into psychiatry as Hospital Director of the Priory Hospital in Chelmsford where she remained until the end of 2007, when she then returned to the surgical arena as General Manager of Spire Hospital Reading. During this time she completed her Diploma in Nursing, BSc in Health Promotion, Certificate in Medical Law and commenced an MSc in Healthcare Policy and Management.
Massoud Fouladi (Managing Partner)
Massoud graduated from Bristol Medical School in 1990, and completed his ophthalmology training at Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre in 1999, when he took a consultant job in East Kent. He completed his Masters in Health Services Management at Birmingham Health Services Management Centre in 1998. Soon after this, he was involved in redesigning ophthalmic services for East Kent by establishing the Integrated Ophthalmic Group which brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including commissioners, secondary care specialists, GPs and optometrists. This became a national model for service redesign. In 2001, Massoud founded the Ophthalmic Clinical Leads Forum at the King's Fund; he published the seminal guide to commissioning ophthalmic services; and in 2003-2007 he became Chairman of Association of Ophthalmologists in the UK.
Mark Gorton (Operations)
Mark joined Circle in January 2009 and brings a wealth of experience of procurement, finance and operational management experience with the private healthcare sector. Mark Joined from Ramsay Healthcare where he was General Manager of the Ramsay New Hall Hospital, Salisbury. Prior to that he was General Manager at North Downs Hospital, Caterham where he also managed a major expansion in the facility adding a new operating theatre and daycase unit. During his time at North Downs he also was project manager for the commissioning of the Bromley Private Patient Unit and led it through to having a very successful first year in operation. Mark initially started his career in healthcare in 1997 as a Procurement Manager before moving into a regional finance role after qualifying as a management accountant.
Andrew Haw (Technology)
Andrew studied Operational Research and Computing at Leeds University and has since spent his career in informatics. He began in operational research for the coal industry and progressed into the Department of Health. Andrew then moved to Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) where he worked primarily on the design and implementation of large-scale systems in the government sector and on healthcare management and IT consultancy. He joined the NHS in 1992, firstly as Director of a shared Information Management & Technology (IM&T) service in Manchester and then moved to Birmingham Health Authority as Executive Director of IM&T in 1995. Andrew was then Director of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Electronic Patient Records (EPR) at University Hospital Birmingham between 2000 and 2007 in the course of which the hospital achieved one of England's highest levels of sophistication in clinically orientated information systems. He also spent time consulting to NHS 'Connecting for Health' and for five months, was Programme Director for the South of England in 2007. Andrew is also chair of the British Computer Society Health Informatics Professional Development Board.
Stephen Hay (Partnership Development)
Stephen is based in Scotland and focused on Circle’s businesses in the North of England and Scotland. He started his career in the Foreign Office in 1980, and after gaining an MSc from London Business School spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was a Managing Director. He is also currently a Non-Executive Director of the Homerton University Hospital Foundation Trust. Stephen graduated from Oxford with a degree in Modern History.
Karin Hogsander (Business Development)
Karin was active in the healthcare field as an adviser first at JPMorgan for three years, working on large international projects mainly in Mergers & Acquisitions and leveraged transactions. In 1999, she went to the Healthcare Practice of The Boston Consulting Group where she managed large projects, mainly post merger integrations, corporate finance projects and other strategic advice projects for healthcare companies for over six years. Before joining Circle, she was the Business Development Director of CMPMedica (part of UBM plc), a medical communications and media company. At CMPMedica, Karin managed large international projects such as Searchmedica, a clinical search engine, and she also acquired several medical media companies on behalf of UBM.
Garri Jones (Investor Relations)
Garri was an Executive Director of the Equities Division of Goldman Sachs. He worked there for 11 years and held various responsibilities including Head of European Corporate Access and Chief Operating Officer of pan-European shares. He also helped run the Technology shares sales team and was part of the team that took BSkyB, Orange, Infineon and Computacenter public. Garri trained as a Manufacturing Engineer and holds a Masters in Manufacturing Engineering degree with first class honours and a Masters of Philosophy degree in International Relations from Cambridge University.
Pam Khera (Human Resources)
Pam has a wealth of experience in the healthcare sector. Her previous endeavour as HR Manager for Serco Health saw her manage a national recruitment campaign for nursing staff, deliver multi-site employee relations advice and devise and embed a HR infrastructure across the Health contracts. Prior to this, Pam has worked as a project manager on a major PFI bid and acted as Senior Consultant within the healthcare consultancy arm of the above company, a position that provided exposure to both private and public healthcare clients. After achieving a first class BA Business Economics degree, she went on to complete MA Management with distinction in Nottingham and became a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD) after successful completion of the CIPD qualification.
Richard Leworthy (Partnership Development)
Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, Richard has been the Chief Executive Officer of three businesses. He was the CEO of Primetime plc, an independent television distributor and producer, from 1980 to 1998. Primetime both produced and distributed television programmes – including Home & Away and The Professionals – around the world from its offices in London and New York. He was Chairman of Frontline Online Limited, an insurance sector supplier, until stepping down to be a Non-Executive in September 2007. At present, Richard remains the Chairman of SVT Licensing Ltd., which is developing and marketing an invention with Imperial College, London, and he sits on the RNLI’s Operations Committee.
Rachel Magnani (Operations)
Rachael has 19 years NHS experience having started her career as a radiographer. She has spent the last 11 years in NHS operational management roles and worked as a Director in Primary Care and the Acute Trust sector for 7 years. Before joining the Treatment Centre (Burton) Rachael worked at Nottingham University Hospital as Director of Strategy leading the merger and integration of the two Nottingham Hospitals and the reconfiguration of some clinical services.
Tracey McNeill (Operations)
Tracey is a senior healthcare manager with over 10 years' experience as an Executive Director running private hospitals for the three major providers: BMI, BUPA and Nuffield. As a recent advisor to the Healthcare Commission, she inspected and regulated independent healthcare providers within the centre of London. She was also involved in drafting the governance criteria for 'The Standards for Better Health' for the joint NHS and private sector project team.
Shelagh Meldrum (Operations)
Shelagh Meldrum joined Circle in October 2007 as Clinical Operations Manager for Clinics. Shelagh began her management career in the NHS as a Senior Nurse working in Acute Medicine and then as a Senior Specialist Nurse in Neurology. Shelagh's later career in the NHS was as a Clinical Services Manager, managing the 6 Departments which formed the directorate of Specialist Medicine. Following a 14 year career in the NHS Shelagh worked as Head of Clinical Services in private health care for 6 years, working during this time for Nuffield, BMI Healthcare and Spire Healthcare undertaking large scale service redesign and staff restructuring projects whilst leading the operational and strategic management of a team of 90 clinical and support staff.
Steve Melton (Operations)
Both in the UK and overseas, Steve has over 22 years' experience of change management and operations in blue chip organisations. Steve studied Chemical Engineering at Cambridge before starting his career with international roles in engineering, manufacturing, logistics and supply chain for Unilever. Since then he has worked in the retail sector with ASDA, managing its non-food and apparel supply chain, in brewing as Supply Chain Director at Scottish Courage and for Argos where he led a transformational change programme. At Argos, Steve was responsible for operational excellence across the enterprise and engaged employees to create a culture of continuous improvement for customers.
Lasair O'Callaghan (Business Development)
Lasair joined Circle in April 2008. Her educational background comprises an undergraduate degree in molecular biology from Princeton University (US) and a Masters of Philosophy degree in Bioscience Enterprise from Cambridge University. She has two and a half years' experience as a consultant, addressing the sales and marketing issues of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices companies.
Ali Parsa (Managing Partner)
Ali is a former Executive Director of Goldman Sachs' European Technology Investment banking team. He was previously a Mergers & Acquisitions investment banker with Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston. He was the founder of Victoria and Gilan, a media company, and a recipient of the Royal Award for UK Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Ali has a PhD in Engineering Physics from the University of London.
Kelvyn Price (Operations)
Following graduation from Sheffield University and having attained an MBA, Kelvyn has 26 years of NHS Acute Hospital Managerial experience, having worked in Bristol, Chorley, Penzance Oxford, Halifax, with his last post as Deputy Director of Operations at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, where he spent 7 years. His main responsibilities in this post were the management of the 18 week waiting list targets, management of the Patient Choice, and the Choose and Book agenda and Emergency Planning. Kelvyn joined Circle in January 09 as the General Manager at the Midlands Treatment centre in Burton.
Helen Ridley (Legal)
Helen joined Circle from a leading global law firm, White & Case, where she advised on cross-border and domestic corporate matters. She has particular experience in mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures and private equity transactions in natural resources, telecoms and real estate sectors and has advised on high value deals such as divesture of $3.5 billion of assets by TNK-BP. Prior to White & Case, Helen spent 2 years at a commercial law firm, where she gained experience on a wide range of commercial legal issues.
Phil Sinclair (Technology)
Phil is an experienced technology and healthcare operations manager. He was most recently the commissioning and operational lead for Information Management and Technology at Mercury Health, including responsibility for its ECN (Choose and Book) programme and IQ Utopia implementation - the same patient administration and clinical records system used by Circle. Previously, he held a Senior Corporate post at the Nuffield Group. Phil has a background in Clinical Research and holds a degree in Physics from Imperial College, London.
Tony Vasishta (Commissioning)
Tony has over 25 years' experience in property development and joined from McArthurGlen Development, where he was the International Development Director. In that role he led joint ventures, capital investment agreements and site negotiations in a number of emerging markets. Prior to that, Tony was the Development Director at Tesco where he was responsible for setting and delivering retail property and format solutions. In addition, Tony has held senior positions at Boots, TK Maxx and Woolworths, focusing on property services and procurement. Tony has also completed postgraduate studies in strategic marketing and retail at Stanford Graduate School of Business (US) and the University of Oxford.
Lindsey Wallis (Operations)
Lindsey has an international, multi sector background in health and health related fields. Lindsey worked at a senior level in top 100 organisations most recently heading up the optics and health care services operations for Boots PLC prior to joining an NHS trust. In the NHS Lindsey lead FT applications including implementing Integrated Governance, modernisation and other organisational development programs. Lindsey has a predominately operational background latterly specialising in organisational development and change management, leadership and workforce development and is a Chartered member of the Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD). Lindsey lives in Nottinghamshire and is based at the Nottingham Treatment Centre.
Laura Wood (Legal)
Laura joined Circle after spending three years in the Corporate and Commercial team at Russell McVeagh, which is widely regarded as New Zealand’s premier law firm. While there, she worked on a wide variety of matters, including business acquisitions, general commercial contracts, capital markets matters and funds management files. In 2007, Laura was seconded to Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited, where she gained experience working in-house for a large multi-national dairy company.
Byron Woodmansee (Health Properties Management)
Byron has over 20 years experience in business, in both corporate and entrepreneurial environments. He has held senior roles in WH Smith and Centrica, and has created a number of technology-led businesses, which have focused on improving business performance. He was a key member of the management buy in team that was brought in to turn around performance at Electricity Direct, and that was then subsequently sold to Centrica. Byron has a first class honours degree and an MBA from INSEAD, Paris.
