Our Board

Rachel commenced her career in banking and first joined the NHS in 1992. She has significant healthcare experience across hospital, community and mental health services. Rachel has held a number of Board positions since 2005, leading on strategy, service transformation and operations including at Hinchingbrooke Healthcare NHS Trust and Papworth NHS Foundation Trust.

Rachel joined East of England Community Health and Care NHS Trust in November 2019. As Director of Corporate Affairs, she is responsible for governance, emergency planning and resilience and communications. Rachel has an MBA from the University of Wales.

Sarah joined East of England Community Health and Care NHS Trust as Chief Information Officer in February 2025 following 7 years as a CEO in General Practice and as the Speciality Advisor for Primary Care for Norfolk and Waveney ICB, bringing extensive expertise in digital transformation and technology innovation.

Before joining the NHS, Sarah spent 18 years as a Royal Navy Engineer working across several major new capability projects as the digital transformation lead, including the Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carriers and the Submarine replacement programme. Sarah’s career took her all over the world in various roles including strategy, innovation, digital transformation, and disaster relief. During her career she brought in a defence wide, first of its kind, Learning Management (and content) System and embedded a culture of digital inclusion and learning across Defence by tackling digital literacy amongst service personnel.

Sarah advises the East of England AI forum on AI ethics and during her time in General Practice championed healthcare innovation by introducing virtual Shared Medical Appointments and automation for certain tasks. Currently is responsible for introducing digital patient flow pathways, AVT, agentic AI and mobile working solutions for staff.

Sarah is passionate about getting girls into science and digital, and as such is a mentor for Inspiration Trust on STEM.

Sarah holds a MSc with a focus on the culture of eLearning and a PG Dip in Digital Health Leadership. Sarah enjoys open water swimming, long distance running and has completed two Ironman’s, qualifying previously for the World Championships in Hawaii.

Laura joined East of England Community Health and Care in 2009 and has been a Board member since November 2018. She is a Physiotherapist having trained at the Royal London & Barts Trust and has worked in a variety of clinical roles across the health and social care environment and has experience at a regional level as Allied Health Professions lead.

Laura has an MBA from the University of East Anglia and a PGC in executive and organisational coaching. Laura moved with her family to Norfolk in 2003 to work in Great Yarmouth and Waveney. Since joining East of England Community Health and Care she has undertaken several operational roles. More recently she has worked in a strategy and transformation role and delivering major projects for the trust.

John returned to the East of England Community Health and Care NHS Trust’s Board as a Non-Executive Director in early 2022. He has experience across the public and private sector in core roles in finance, and has wider skills across, commercial, operations, and sales, where he has held positions including CEO and CFO.

With significant involvement on numerous Boards, and audit, risk, and remuneration committees, John has many years of knowledge in managing regulation, corporate governance and risk. He has driven large strategic initiatives, led strategic reviews and major change programmes, and led mergers and acquisitions and business turnarounds.

Njoki Yaxley is an experienced governance and risk management professional. She has worked on both sides of the Board table, initially as a Deputy Company Secretary/Governance Manager with Flagship Housing Group, and more recently as a Non-Executive Director for East of England Community Health and Care - a post she has held since February 2020.

Njoki’s passion and motivation lies in social housing where she spent over 15 years in various roles. She has risen through the ranks from collecting rents to supporting the delivery of new social housing as a development officer, and later as a governance officer with Broadland Housing Group. In 2017, she became a governance and risk manager/ Deputy Company Secretary at Flagship Housing Group.

She holds a degree in Law from the University of East Anglia, a Masters in Social Housing from the London School of Economics, and is a Clore Social Fellow (Social Housing, 2014 Alumnus).

Mani has been a Non-Executive Director since 1 September 2025 and is Chair of the Finance and Infrastructure Committee.

Mani brings deep experience in all aspects of finance and business strategy and has held roles based in both the USA and UK with AstraZeneca PLC, Pfizer Inc and GlaxoSmithKline PLC.

He has a strong track record of supporting organisations through challenging situations, including during rapid growth and through financial challenges. He’s also led large-scale change across global teams.

He is enthusiastic about diversity, inclusion, developing people and creating opportunities.

Mani is a fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and currently serves as Senior Vice President Finance - Group Controller and Head of Global Finance Services at AstraZeneca PLC, based in Cambridge, UK.

Charlotte lives in Cambridge and started her career working in public health in Suffolk and London. 

She then moved into local government working in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in children’s and adults’ services. Her most recent job was Director of People Services across Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council.

Charlotte now works independently for a variety of national and local organisations.

Jayne joined as a Non-Executive Director on 1 October 2025 bringing experience of the Social Housing Sector, where she is a Non-Executive Director at Saffron Housing Trust.

Jayne has extensive experience in Technology and Transformation, including responsibility as the Chief Information Officer for Aviva’s Group Services, operating at Board level, in a complex regulated organisation and membership of Group Executive Meetings, Risk and Audit Boards.  As a global technology and transformation leader, Jayne has successfully delivered digital, cloud, cyber and network technologies in line with group strategies.  

Jayne is passionate about creating a working environment with diverse leadership, thinking and acceptance, and successfully led the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work across Aviva’s global technology, collaborating with partners in the Financial Services and Technologies Industries.

Dr Ursula Montgomery brings over 25 years' experience across the NHS, government and life sciences sectors. A former GP and National Director of Primary Care at NHS England, she has led major programmes to improve healthcare quality, access and integration of services. She has also worked within the pharmaceutical industry, partnering to bring innovation to patients who need it most. Ursula has lived in the East of England for the past six years and is committed to improving outcomes and reducing health inequalities across local communities.