Chief Executive Officer

Michelle Kabia

Michelle has over 30 years’ experience of working within health, social care and the charity sector and joins us from Mind where she has been supporting mental health and wellbeing in East London.

Director of Finance and Resources & Company Secretary

Tim Hammond

Tim Hammond leads on the Finance, IT of the charity. Tim oversees the governance and stewardship of the charity in his role as Company Secretary. Tim has over 20 years senior management experience in both the charity and commercial sectors.

He started his career in hotel management, before moving into commercial retailing and then gaining experience in the charity sector, working in a diverse range of national and hospice charities. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Certified Accountants and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration specialising in Retail.  

tim.hammond@ellenor.org

Director of Care, Registered Manager, Caldicott Guardian

Linda Coffey

Linda Coffey has been a registered nurse for 25 years, and has worked in Healthcare across a variety of settings, both acute and community. Working predominantly in community around rapid response services, focusing on prevention of hospital admission and has an extensive background in service development. She has 13 years senior management experience across both the NHS and charity sector. 

Linda says "I want to ensure patients and families have the best experience of care possible. People will remember how you make them feel". 

Linda.coffey@ellenor.org 

Director of Income Generation

Ben Alonso

Ben is our Income Generation Directorate and is responsible for driving the charity’s income generation across our 14 retail shops and fundraising team.

Ben brings over 10 years of charity sector experience with him. Having previously worked at a range of regional and national charities such at the Church Urban Fund, Hospice in the Weald, Neuroblastoma Children's Cancer Alliance UK and Richard House Children's Hospice. Ben has garnered a wide breadth of fundraising experience including managing organisational change and development.

With a passion for building relationships and developing staff, Ben incorporates a relationship fundraising approach to everything he does. In his spare time, he enjoys travelling and he passed his PgDip in Charity Marketing and Fundraising in 2016.

ben.alonso@ellenor.org

Director of Operations, HR and Education

Jacquie Hackett

Chair

Mac Cheema MSc BEng

Mac Cheema currently leads a real estate organisation in the UK, an internationally experienced business executive with progressive supply chain and procurement experience. Mac has over 30 years of experience with large global organisations at the executive level in property, automotive, aerospace, and medical devices. Mac has become chair December 2022

Roger Wedderburn-Day

Roger is in his mid-50s and spent most of his working life as a solicitor with a major law firm based in London. His clients included governments, international organisations, major financial institutions and other leading companies around the world. Roger worked part time from 2011 to 2015 while writing a legal handbook and retired in 2015. Since then, Roger has sought to become more involved in the community and joined Knole Academy as a governor in September 2014 and ellenor in late 2016. 

As a retired lawyer, Roger has nearly 30 years’ experience of building up and managing a substantial legal practice and has worked with, analysed, described and investigated a wide range of businesses. His skills include the ability to assimilate and analyse large amounts of data, to identify problems and to find solutions. Roger is also a trustee of his firm’s charitable foundation and a volunteer with the Institute of Advanced Motoring. 

Peter Shotter

Peter is 65 and spent the last 22 years of his executive career in healthcare, with Boots the Chemists Ltd as Director of Healthcare Businesses and subsequently Director of Stores; and with Merck, as Managing Director of Seven Seas and then President/CEO of the global over-the-counter medicines Division, based in Germany. Since 2012, he has been non-executive Chairman of BioFilm Ltd, a Scottish B2B supplier of thin, dissolving film products.

Peter joined ellenor’s Board of Trustees in June 2019 and sits on the Finance and Investment Committee and the Voluntary and Income Generation Committee.

Nigel Springhall

Nigel has had a varied career in business. After graduating, he started work in in the Abbey National Building Society as a trainee manager in Liverpool in 1977 before becoming an Assistant Manager in St Helens, then Kirkby and finally Ipswich which was one of the largest Branches at that time.

Nigel joined IBM in 1986, working on designing, building, marketing and selling computer solutions to Banks, and Building Societies in the UK and Ireland. While at IBM Nigel won a prize for leading the campaign that led to the largest sale of AS 400 machines in Europe.

In 1993 Nigel Joined BT and worked in the international division for 10 years, in a role that included buying and selling companies for BT and developing its international partnerships in Europe and occasionally other parts of the world. In 2004 Nigel moved to the Mobile Phones part of BT Global Services and ended up running the UK Corporate Mobile business, providing Mobile services to a large business in the UK, looking after 100000 end users and responsible for the P&L. Nigel retired from BT in December 2014.

Outside of BT Nigel was a School Governor at Crook Log School for 8 years and he was a Non- Executive Director of Queen Mary’s Hospital Trust Sidcup from 2006 until 2009 when the Trust merged with the PRU Bromley and QE Woolwich to form the ill-fated South London trust. Nigel was also Chair of the Audit Committee from 2006 -2009.

Nigel was Treasurer of Dartford CAB from 2014 until its merger with NW Kent in 2017 and is currently Treasurer of Bexley CAB. Nigel is also a volunteer adviser at Swanley CAB.

Victoria Heath

After achieving her chartered accountancy qualifications with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Vicky has had a varied career within finance covering a number of different industries including charities, manufacturing, retail and construction.

As the current head of external reporting at Laing O'Rourke, Vicky is responsible for all compliance and guidance relating to new accounting standards, reporting to lender groups as well as managing a group wide audit reporting process.

Manjit Atwal

Manjit Atwall is a Chartered IT Professional with over 35 years’ experience within Finance and Insurance, running large-scale IT Service Management Change Management programmes and functions.

Manjit has delivered complex global change management, regulatory risk, and process transitions in challenging environments.  

Shaminder Bedi

Shaminder Bedi spent over 25 years of his career working in Social Services for Kent County Council specialising in developing Day centres for Older People. He has also served as Chairman for The Police Liaison Group, Executive member of the charity Mind and held a position on South East Arts Board. Shaminder is the Co-Founder and Ex Chairman of Jugnu Bhangra Group founded in 1970. Jugnu are Europe’s most established Bhangra group, performing all over the World and supporting the youth of Gravesham’s community.

In recognition for his services to the community, Shaminder was rewarded with an MBE on the Queens Honours list in 2005.

Bryan Harris

After training as a journalist, Bryan moved into public relations for a commercial consultancy and then local government. In 1990 Bryan became a freelance editor, managing several newspapers for the Church of England, keeping very busy with just the one after semi-retiring.

Bryan is also a Reader (licensed lay minister) in the Church of England attached to St Peter’s Church, Ightham; a member and Past President of Swanley and North Downs Lions Club and a member of Darenth Valley 41 Club (ex-Round Tablers). 

Ann Barnes

After a  long career  teaching in Kent secondary schools and over 25 years serving as a magistrate , many in the Family courts, Ann entered the  world of police governance, firstly locally then on the regional and national stage. She was Chair of the Kent Police Authority  for many years before deciding to stand  for election, as an independent, for the position of Kent’s first Police and Crime Commissioner. The role  of PCC is to  hold the Chief Constable to account, on behalf of local people, for the level of policing the force gives to the people it serves, with appropriate  structures and procedures in order to do so effectively.

Amongst other things, as PCC, Ann set the police budget, set local objectives of the county , worked with local agencies on joined up crime strategies, appointed the Chief Constable, whilst contributing  to regional and national policing priorities. Nationally, she was Deputy Chair of the Association  Police Authorities, Chair of the employers’ side of the Police Negotiating Board, advised the Home Office on senior police appointments and served as a trustee of the College of Policing. Regionally, she worked with colleagues in Kent and Essex to establish and oversee the very successful collaborative work that takes place between the two force areas. 

Throughout her 15 years in the policing world, Ann was a relentless champion of the rights of victims of crime (often the forgotten people in the Criminal justice system) eventually establishing, with Kent Police and Victim Support, Kent’s victim centre at Compass House, which is held up as a blueprint for the delivery of care to victims and witnesses. She remains a patron of a charity that provides counselling for victims of crime. 

It was as PCC that Ann first came across the excellent and compassionate service  that ellenor Hospice gives to local people in North Kent and she took active steps on her retirement from the policing world to do what she could to help. She chairs the Property Committee, which oversees the governance arrangements around the exciting development that is about to take place at the hospice, to enable it to expand the range of support offered to those who need it.

Karen Griffiths

Karen Griffiths is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner and has 40 years’ experience working in various hospital trusts and GP practices.

Karen currently works in a GP surgery where she works with GP’s, nurses and health care assistants to ensure that National Service Frameworks are being delivered. Karen works within a multi-disciplinary team within the Practice, and across the wider CCG, to promote integrated and seamless pathways of care.

Vanessa Jeans

Vanessa is Dartford born and bred.  Working as a biology and chemistry teacher at Dartford Girls Grammar School before retraining as a medical doctor, she has worked at Gravesend North Kent, Joyce Green, The Brook, Greenwich District and Stone House Hospitals, before becoming a GP partner at The Orchard Practice, West Hill, Dartford in 1991.

As part of that practice, for several years, she helped provide medical cover for in-patient care at ellenor.  After retiring in 2007 she started hosting annual ellenor Open Garden events and hopes to continue doing this.  She is also a long-standing member of the charitable organisation Dartford u3a, of which she is currently chairman.

Vanessa joined ellenor's Board of Trustees in November 2022 and is a member of ellenor's Care Committee.

Amanda Cottrell OBE

Amanda Cottrell has lived and worked in Kent for most of her life and is passionate about the county and its residents. She is Patron of Visit Kent and Produced in Kent and is a former High Sheriff of Kent.

As a charity that cares for all people of all ages across North and West Kent, Amanda brings a wealth of expertise and knowledge to ellenor.

Lady Barbara Ramsey

A committed supporter of ellenor for many years, Lady Barbara Ramsey has been involved with a variety of fundraisers for the charity. She has been particularly supportive of ellenor’s Glorious Gardens programme, throwing open her own beautiful garden on a number of occasions.

People have enjoyed afternoon tea and evening drinks on her lawns – with a French theme last year, accompanied by jazz. She is well-known local face in the Swanley area and has done much to raise ellenor’s profile there.

Carol Stone

Carol Stone retired as Chief Executive of ellenor in 2014, after 26 years of pioneering leadership of the charity. Carol trained as a health visitor and community nurse and joined ellenor in a nursing role in the late-1980s.

Her dream and vision for hospice care was to ensure families are always at the centre of everything ellenor does and she pioneered many vital services, including home respite care and the charity’s children’s hospice at home service. Carol remains passionate about the delivery of hospice care for children and adults.

Charlotte Hawkins

Good Morning Britain presenter, Charlotte Hawkins, has been a loyal supporter of ellenor since 2009, when she first met some of the families the charity supports and witnessed first-hand how ellenor allows families ‘to be together and have some normality through unimaginable hardships’.

Since then, she has attended many ellenor events, including the Orange Ball, which she co-hosted with Phil Spencer in 2016. Charlotte has not only interviewed a number of prominent politicians over the years, but many well-known celebrities.

Cheryl Fergison

Award-winning actress and loyal ellenor supporter, Cheryl Fergison, is well known for her portrayal of Heather Trott in Eastenders, as well as numerous other television appearances, including in The IT Crowd. She has also wowed audiences with her stage performances and fantastic singing in shows such as Menopause the Musical.

Cheryl says that ellenor and the support it provides ‘means the world to her’ and she has raised thousands for the charity through auctions, television quiz appearances and bucket collections.

Graham Perolls

Graham Perolls founded ellenor back in 1985 and the charity takes its name from his parents – Ellen and Norman. He was inspired by a vision that those facing the end of life should have only the best care possible either at home or as close to it as possible.

Graham’s vision was to help others who find themselves on the same journey that he had travelled with his parents; and to do everything in his power to make the journey the best it could be. He remains committed to pioneering the work of hospices both here and overseas.

Guy Portelli PVPRBA FRBS

Born in South Africa in 1957, Guy Portelli is a sculptor, painter and events organiser who appeared on Dragons’ Den in 2008. As an ellenor Patron, he has shared his art at ellenor open gardens and organised events to raise vital funds for the charity. He organises an International Art Fair in Kent.

Art is used as a therapy for many of ellenor’s patients – particularly in Day Therapy – and Guy agrees that it’s a great way for people to explore their feelings and feel empowered.

Jason Fox

Star of Channel 4’s ‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’, Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox represented ellenor at the BGC Charity Day in 2016. There he found meeting some of the families which the charity supports extremely impactful, saying it really helped him to understand the vital support ellenor provides and the difference it makes to the lives of very sick children and their families.

Jason is a former Royal Marine Commando and Special Forces Sergeant, who has led and executed global operations. He is also a double Atlantic rowing world record holder.

Kelsey Parker

Actress and celebrity vlogger, Kelsey Parker, is a patron of ellenor along with her husband Tom Parker. She regularly vlogs about ellenor – which gives the charity access to a new audience of potential supporters.

She has supported many of ellenor’s events including its popular Twilight Walk and Orange Ball, while she has met families which ellenor supports at some of its children’s events. Kelsey was specially invited to represent ellenor at an exclusive reception at 10 Downing Street to launch the very first Local Charities Day.

Phil Spencer

Phil Spencer is a presenter, businessman and property investor. As co-presenter of Channel 4’s Location Location Location, he is widely credited as being an expert in all things property related. Outside of television, he has published books, written columns and features and hosted radio shows, as well as set up two businesses. 

Phil has been a Patron of the charity for several years, and has met with the children and families who benefit from ellenor's respite services with visits to the Friday Fun Club.

Tom Parker

A member of the award-winning band, The Wanted, Tom Parker was a loyal supporter of ellenor, along with his wife Kelsey Parker. He says he is ‘proud to get behind a charity which does so much for families facing terminal illness.’ He has met with some of the children ellenor supports on a number of occasions, including at the children’s Christmas party, and has started and walked in the charity’s flagship Twilight Walk twice.

Tom has appeared on a number of television shows, including Channel 4’s The Jump, as well as touring in Grease as lead character - Danny Zuko.

In 2020, Tom was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour and sadly died on 30 March 2022.

We were honoured to be able to call Tom a Patron of ellenor where his compassion and kindness for other people always shone.

Rest in peace Tom, you will be remembered with so much love and affection.