Appointment of new Chief Executive
Catherine Brown, formerly Chief Operating Officer, has been appointed as Chief Executive of Animal Health with effect from 16 July 2008. She succeeds Professor Steve Edwards who has acted as interim Chief Executive since March.
Catherine Brown has considerable management experience, gained in BUPA and the NHS, where she has undertaken a number of senior roles.
As Chief Executive, she will be personally responsible to Defra Ministers and to Ministers in Scotland and Wales for the delivery of Animal Health’s annual performance targets, and to Parliament for ensuring propriety in management of public funds. She will lead the work begun by her predecessors to guide Animal Health through significant organisational changes, not least implementing the Agency’s Business Reform Programme, which during 2008 will begin to modernise Animal Health’s operating model.
During this time Animal Health will participate in the developing debate on cost and responsibility sharing and on developing animal health and welfare policies in England, Scotland and Wales, for example in relation to bluetongue and bovine tuberculosis, whilst continuing to deliver an effective capability to respond to outbreaks of exotic and endemic animal disease in order to protect public health and deliver a successful and sustainable livestock industry.
Biographical Note
Catherine Brown joined Animal Health as Chief Operating Officer in 2007. She had previously worked for BUPA, whom she joined in 1997 after working in the NHS as deputy chief executive of a Community and Mental Health Trust in the East End of London.
Her BUPA career began as a general manager in Reading and Clare Park Hospitals, then as a regional director of Hospitals in the Eastern Region. She was appointed the managing director of BUPA Wellness in 2001 and has also worked as a member of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Employers’ Working Party on Disability.
In 2005 she was appointed a Commissioner for the Equal Opportunities Commission.