Ed Smith, CBE
Ed is an experienced Chairman with significant health service, public sector and business experience.
Ed is the former Chairman of NHS Improvement and Deputy Chairman of NHS England. He was also Lead Non-Executive Director for the Department for Transport and Senior Independent Director of HS2Ltd.
Previously he was Global Assurance Chief Operating Officer and Strategy Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers where he had a 30-year career holding many leading Board and top client roles in the UK and globally.
Ed is a Chartered Accountant and is currently Non-Executive Director at Saxton Bampfylde.
Jonathan Murphy
Jonathan is the CEO of Assura and was previously the Finance Director, having joined the Group in January 2013. He has significant experience in real estate, capital markets and investment. Jonathan sits on the Advisory Board for the European Public Real Estate Association (“EPRA”) and is Chair of the Healthcare Committee for the British Property Federation.
Jonathan was previously Finance Director for the fund management business of Brooks Macdonald and Braemar Group plc. His earlier career included commercial and strategic roles at Spirit Group and Vodafone.
Jonathan qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, holding management roles in both the UK and Asia. He holds an MBA from IESE and a degree in English Literature from the University of Durham.
Jayne Cottam
Jayne is a CIMA qualified accountant, with skills including finance, debt strategy and risk management. She joined Assura from Morris Homes, one of the UK’s largest private national housing developers where she was the Finance Director for Operations, heading up the operational finance team across the Group and providing financial and strategic support as a member of the Board for each of the three operating regions.
Jayne was previously Director of Finance for the Continental Europe Division of European Metal Recycling Limited, one of the world’s largest metal recyclers, and before that held a number of other senior finance positions.
Louise Fowler
Louise has many years' customer, marketing and digital experience working as a senior executive in regulated services industries. She spent the first part of her executive career in travel and tourism working for British Airways and was CEO, Brymon Airways. She later moved into marketing financial services at Barclays, the Co-operative Group, First Direct and the Post Office.
Now an independent consultant advising consumer brands such as M&S, Barclays, Costa Coffee and ITV, Louise also serves as a Non-Executive Director on the boards of a number of publicly listed businesses. She is honorary professor of Marketing at Lancaster University Business School.
Jonathan Davies
Jonathan is Deputy Chief Executive & Chief Financial Officer of SSP Group plc and has extensive experience of finance, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance. He has been CFO of SSP since 2004, taking it private in 2006 and listing it on the London Stock Exchange in 2014.
Jonathan began his career in Unilever plc’s management development programme before joining OC&C, the strategic management consultancy, as a start up in 1987, where he was part of its rapid growth to become a leading international consulting firm. From 1995 to 2004 Jonathan worked for Safeway plc, where he was Finance Director on its Executive Board between 1999 and 2004.
Jonathan holds an MBA from INSEAD and a degree in Chemistry from Oxford University.
Emma Cariaga
Emma is the Joint Head of Canada Water, one of the largest regeneration schemes in London, and Head of Residential with British Land where she also sits on their Executive Committee. She also holds a current Non-Executive role with TEDI-London - a higher education provider for engineering.
She has over 20 years' experience in the property sector across residential, retail, commercial and leisure with previous roles at Landsec, Barratt Homes and Crest Nicholson. She was previously on the Board of Thames Valley Housing Association where she chaired the Investment Committee.
Emma is passionate about sustainable development within the property sector and has a strong interest in the evolution of cities and the social impact of property.
Noel Gordon
Noel is a recognised figure across the UK health system, formerly as Chair of NHS Digital, Chair of Healthcare UK and as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of NHS England. He spent most of his career transforming the footprint and operating models of large, multinational banking institutions.
In the late 90's, Noel led significant restructuring programmes to enable banks to adopt new digital channels. He brought this transformative experience to NHS England and NHS Digital, reshaping their approach to digital change and new models for healthcare delivery.
Noel is a Non-Executive Director of Bestway Panacea Holdings.
Dr Sam Barrell, CBE
Sam is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Francis Crick Institute - a world-leading biomedical research organisation which she joined from a career in the NHS as a noted healthcare leader. Sam was CEO of the Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and before that, established and led the South Devon and Torbay CCG. Earlier in her career, as a practising GP, she led the formation of a practice based commissioning consortium.
Sam offers strong ESG credentials, as a past National Advisory Council Member of the King's Fund and an active Mentor for the NHS Innovator Accelerator Programme. She is a Non-Executive Director of the York Health Economics Consortium.
She was awarded the CBE in 2014 for services to healthcare
Aamir Aziz
Aamir currently heads the technology team for Frasers Property Limited across EMEA and the UK. With an emphasis on understanding the flow of data within the organisation, Aamir is actively assisting the Frasers Property team in enhancing the quality and timeliness of their decision-making, improving operational efficiency, safeguarding Frasers' intellectual property, and ultimately striving to enhance customer and guest experiences. Meanwhile, Aamir is revitalising the connection between Technology and the broader business to generate value within an agile and streamlined environment. This approach enables the team and the company to thrive with agility and speed.
Aamir joined Frasers Property after careers spanning IT services, manufacturing and financial services in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Prior roles include leading technology shared services for GE across the Middle East, and Africa and subsequently leading technology for GE’s Transportation business as interim CTO.
Jonathan Murphy
Jonathan is CEO of Assura. He has vast experience in real estate and his commitment to developing strategic partnerships has recently led the company to its largest acquisition to date, a £500 million private hospital portfolio.
Jonathan is passionate about creating social and sustainable impact and has committed to Assura’s property portfolio becoming net zero carbon by 2040.
Since joining Assura he has guided the business to become the first FTSE250 certified B Corporation as well as introducing the Assura Community Fund. Since 2020, the Fund has donated over £1.8 million to health improving projects and supported over 200,000 people.
In addition to his role as CEO, Jonathan sits on the Advisory Board for the European Public Real Estate Association (“EPRA”) and is Chair of the Healthcare Committee for the British Property Federation. Jonathan also is Deputy Chair of the North West Business Leadership team.
Jayne Cottam
Jayne is a CIMA qualified accountant, with skills including finance, debt strategy and risk management. She joined Assura from Morris Homes, one of the UK’s largest private national housing developers where she was the Finance Director for Operations, heading up the operational finance team across the Group and providing financial and strategic support as a member of the Board for each of the three operating regions.
Jayne was previously Director of Finance for the Continental Europe Division of European Metal Recycling Limited, one of the world’s largest metal recyclers, and before that held a number of other senior finance positions.
Steven Noble
Steven is Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Assura and is responsible for implementing the company’s investment strategy across all healthcare markets, including delivering capital recycling initiatives.
He has extensive experience in the property sector and during his previous role at the Atrato Group negotiated and executed over £2.0 billion of property transactions.
Prior to joining Assura, Steven spent nine years at Lloyds in origination and risk management with a focus on commercial real estate. He also worked at KPMG where he qualified as a chartered accountant.
Steven is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Sarah Taylor
Sarah joined Assura with significant board level experience gained predominantly in the Professional Services and the Life Sciences sectors. She has held roles in FTSE companies such as Intertek plc and Spectris plc as well as Private Equity backed businesses, supporting buy and build strategies.
A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) with a Masters in Strategic Human Resources, she has broad generalist HR experience with particular skills in strategy, change management, leadership development and culture and engagement.
Orla Ball
Orla’s skills include corporate governance, and managing legal risk. She qualified as a solicitor with Eversheds Manchester and gained significant corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions experience working as a corporate lawyer for over 14 years.
Orla’s move in-house to Braemar Group plc, subsequently acquired by Brooks Macdonald plc, provided her with further property skills as she looked after the legal matters for its property management and property funds business.
She is a Chartered Secretary and an Associate of ICSA.
Owen Roach
Owen, an ACA qualified accountant, started his career at Deloitte in Manchester, where he specialised in audits for public sector entities. Upon joining Assura in 2015, he brought with him knowledge from his tenure in the Professional Services sector, specifically in the listed audit markets.
His experience spans across areas such as financial strategy, compliance, risk assessment, and financial forecasting. In addition to his financial background, Owen holds a Degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Bristol.
Rob James
Rob joined Assura in 2020 following the acquisition of Apollo Capital Projects. Rob was Managing Director at Apollo and soon moved to become Development Team Manager at Assura. In his current role as Group Development Director, Rob oversees the development, sustainability and asset enhancement teams.
He has over 20 years of experience in the NHS and Primary Care sector and has advised both the English and Welsh NHS on best practice design in primary care. Rob's focus is delivering world class sustainable health facilities for Assura.
Sian Taylor
Sian has recently joined Assura after 20 years at United Utilities, a regulated water company covering North West England. During the early part of her career, Sian held a variety of roles with a focus on scientific, technical, regulatory, strategic and business development disciplines before becoming their Head of Property in 2016. In this role she led a large operational team covering all elements of the property and land life cycle for UU’s significant portfolio including day to day operations, investment, maintenance, compliance, acquisitions and sales.
Sian studied chemistry at university and is a passionate STEM mentor with a focus on encouraging young people into scientific, technical and engineering careers.