Race to Equity: Workforce Justice, Power and Protection in Health & Care

Karen Bonner MBE is a highly respected nursing leader with extensive experience across major NHS organisations in London and the South East. As Chief Nurse and Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, she led significant improvements in patient safety, quality of care and workforce culture, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A passionate advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion, Karen has contributed nationally through the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard Advisory Group and helped establish the Mary Seacole Trust. She holds an MSc in Advanced Practice Leadership from King's College London and received an Honorary Doctorate from Buckinghamshire New University in 2025.

Recognised among the UK's leading ethnic minority healthcare leaders from 2021 to 2025, she was also named by Nursing Times as one of 75 nurses who have shaped the NHS. Karen received an MBE in 2024 for services to nursing, is a Fellow of the Queen's Nursing Institute, and serves as a trustee of Prostate Cancer UK and Helpforce. Her recent honours include the Livingbridge Executive Leader Award at the CAHN Healthcare Leaders Awards.

Rohit Sagoo QN is a Children's Nurse, researcher, educator, and community health leader with over 30 years of experience across healthcare, academia, public health, and policy. He is the Founder and Director of British Sikh Nurses, an award-winning organisation promoting health equity and community engagement.

A Queen's Nurse and recipient of the Freedom of the City of London, Rohit is a member of the Race Equality Engagement Group, chaired by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, and the APPG for Obstructive Sleep Apnoea. He is completing his PhD at the University of Bedfordshire, focusing on community-based maternal and child health interventions and reducing health inequalities.

Dr Zeshan Qureshi is a paediatrician and academic, currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His research explores how racism operates within healthcare systems and how it can be meaningfully addressed.

He co-edited Anti-Racist Medicine (Elsevier, 2026) with Dr Mehrunisha Suleman and has edited several previous textbooks, including the Oxford Textbook of Global Health of Women, Newborns, Children, and Adolescents. Widely published on ethnicity, race, and health, he has contributed to anti-racist policy development with the BMA, GMC, UK government, and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He is also a media commentator and TEDx speaker.

Roger Kline OBE FRSA is a Research Fellow at Middlesex University Business School and a leading authority on race equality, fair employment and workplace culture in the NHS. He authored The Snowy White Peaks of the NHS, co-authored Fair to Refer, designed the NHS Workforce Race Equality Standard, and served as joint national director of the WRES team from 2015 to 2017.

His influential work includes Being Fair, The Price of Fear, No More Tick Boxes, Difference Matters, Too Hot to Handle, and Investigating the Investigators. He is currently researching good practice in NHS disciplinary and investigation processes and is co-author of the forthcoming HPMA report Leadership in HR (2026). HR Magazine named him among the UK's 30 most influential HR thinkers in 2021, 2022 and 2024.

Tista Chakravarty-Gannon is a senior leader at the General Medical Council, where she co-leads the Outreach team and heads the Welcome to UK Practice programme for internationally trained doctors. With more than 25 years of experience supporting survivors of abuse, she continues to champion safeguarding, medical leadership and inclusion in healthcare.

Tista is a peer reviewer for BMJ Leader and the Sushrata Journal, and a recognised voice in tackling misogyny in medicine. She received the BAPIO President's Award in 2022 and BIDA's Special Award in 2024, and is currently co-authoring a textbook on anti-racism in medicine.

Graeme Caul has served as Chief Operating Officer at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust since 2022. He joined the Trust's Camden services in 2010 and progressed through Borough Director and Service Director roles before taking on his first Managing Director position in 2017, with responsibilities that included services in Milton Keynes.

Before becoming Chief Operating Officer, Graeme led Goodall, the Trust's largest division. He has also chaired the Camden Integrated Care Partnership and led several system-wide programmes across North West and North Central London, bringing extensive operational and partnership leadership experience to the Summit.

Owen Chinembiri is Assistant Director and Workforce Adviser at the NHS Race and Health Observatory, with expertise spanning health informatics, digital transformation and workforce equality. An alumnus of the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme, he has held senior roles at Macmillan Cancer Support and within the national Workforce Race Equality Standard team, where he led data-driven strategies to advance workplace equity.

Originally from Zimbabwe and Botswana, Owen is passionate about using data to improve both patient care and staff experience. Outside work, he is a keen runner.

Alex Gild is Deputy Chief Executive at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, a mental health and community services provider with 6,000 staff. His leadership purpose is to improve equity of outcomes for staff, patients and communities. A partner member of the Frimley Integrated Care Board, Alex co-chairs the system Mirror Board with Safina Nadeem.

He is executive sponsor of the Trust's health inequalities programme, including a community and system partnership focused on reducing Mental Health Act detentions among Black people with support from the NHS Race and Health Observatory. Alex also leads the Trust's anti-racism programme, recognised with a Race Equality Matters Trailblazer Award. Building on shared system-wide commitments, he and Safina are engaging health and care partners to develop an anti-racism alliance.

Safina Nadeem is an award-winning equality, diversity and inclusion, anti-racism and organisational culture leader with more than 30 years of experience across the NHS, local government, higher education and the voluntary sector. An accredited Executive Coach with a master's degree in Promoting Equality and Managing Diversity, she helps organisations embed inclusion and anti-racism into leadership, governance, workforce strategy and culture.

Safina was among the first specialist advisers to the Care Quality Commission to assess the Workforce Race Equality Standard within the Well-Led domain and contributed to the University of Sheffield's national evaluation of WRES. She is Executive Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Thames Valley Integrated Care Board and works independently as a leadership, culture and inclusion consultant.

Safina is also a Non-Executive Director on the Lancashire Cricket Foundation Inclusion Advisory Board and a University of Surrey Co-Investigator researching the impact of wellbeing interventions across the NHS.