Trustees
Our trustees are volunteers with a broad range of experience who give up their time to help us run Cruse.
Dr Neil Churchill OBE
Chair
Neil is Director for People and Communities at NHS England, having joined the NHS after a 25-year career in the voluntary sector. His work includes understanding people's experiences of the NHS, involving people and communities in decision-making, and leading change to improve the quality and equality of care. He has a particular focus on strengthening partnerships with unpaid carers, volunteers and the voluntary sector.
Neil has previously been a Non-Executive Director for the NHS in the South of England, is a member of the Strategy Board for the global Beryl Institute, and Chair of two charities, Cruse Bereavement Support and Care for the Carers. He is himself an unpaid carer and in his spare time writes about medieval art and politics.
Juliet Armstrong
Vice Chair, Digital Lead
Juliet has over 30 years’ experience of large-scale transformational change and digital transformation. She has worked with Boards and senior leadership teams in over 20 FTSE 100/250, public and private-equity backed organisations across many sectors. As a partner she helped to grow a successful international management consultancy and is currently a NED at South West London and St. Georges mental health NHS trust. She has also been a Trustee at The House of St. Barnabas in Soho and The Makaton Charity.
Lei Wei
Trustee, Honorary Treasurer
Lei currently work as Chief Finance Officer at Homerton Healthcare Foundation Trust, following her appointments as Chief Finance Officer and Director of Finance at various NHS organisations in London and South East England. Before her career in NHS, Lei worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers London on audit and assurance reviews across a wide range of commercial and public sector clients. Lei is passionate about delivering real health and wellbeing improvement for communities and is a keen campaigner of diversity and inclusion in NHS and wider public services.
Mary Walsh
Trustee
Mary is a senior communications specialist with extensive experience of leading communications in a range of high profile organisations including Eurostar and Lloyds Banking Group.
Vijay Patel
Trustee, Safeguarding Lead
Vijay has worked across the children’s and adult care services throughout his career in a range of operational and strategic roles.
Mabinty Esho
Trustee, EDI Lead
Mabinty is the Head of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at Comic Relief. Prior to this role she was the EDI lead for the Evelina London's Children hospital at Guys' and St. Thomas' Trust. Mabinty has breadth of experience working in the EDI space across both private and public sector organisations.
Kate Mozzicarelli
Trustee
Kate has over 25 years’ experience as a lawyer working in legal and financial services. She has significant corporate and regulatory advisory expertise and has been involved in advising boards on corporate governance standards and practices for many years. Kate was previously a trustee of Relate London South-West and has been involved with several other charity organisations. She currently works as European Counsel for an investment bank based in Frankfurt and prior to that worked for a law firm in the City.
David Cavell
Trustee
David worked as a public and environmental lawyer in the public sector. He was Solicitor to and Legal Services Manager for the Environment Agency Wales and then Natural Resources Wales. A previous service user of Cruse, David has been a Cruse volunteer since 2018 and brings that experience of supporting bereaved people to the role of Trustee.
David Boyd
Trustee
David is an experienced finance professional currently serving as a Financial Controller overseeing financial operations across multiple regulated entities, including audit, risk management, and board reporting. He has strong senior finance experience, including working as a CFO for a UK regulated organisation, and has led teams across risk and internal audit. Alongside his professional expertise, David is personally committed to Cruse’s mission, drawing on his own experience of bereavement to support the organisation’s work in providing accessible, high-quality support.
Pritesh Modhvadia
Trustee
Pritesh is a senior international HR leader at Chubb, with extensive experience leading strategic talent, leadership, and organisational transformation initiatives across global organisations. He has a strong track record of building high-performing teams, driving culture change, and delivering people strategies that support business growth and leadership capability.
Harley Cunningham
Trustee
Harley has over 20 years’ corporate experience spanning strategy, governance, communications, marketing, and large-scale transformation programmes. Following her own lived experience of bereavement after the death of her son in 2021, she is passionate about improving bereavement support both within communities and the workplace. She brings a combination of lived experience, frontline volunteer insight, strategic and governance expertise, with a particular focus on organisational culture, financial sustainability and communications.
Helen Hilton
Trustee
Helen has worked in the Public and University Sectors for over 20 years in a variety of roles relating to communications, transformational change and personal development. She is a Coach, Coach Supervisor and Counsellor, became a Bereavement Volunteer in 2020 and is also a Placement Counsellor in the NHS.
Senior Leadership Team
Our Chief Executive and directors are responsible for the day-to-day running of Cruse.
Karen Wilson
Director of Finance and Corporate Services
Tracey Gibson
Director of Services
National Leads
Tracy Shutt
Head of England
Andrea Powell
Head of Wales
Our patrons
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Gloucester
Patron
