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Yorkshire & Humber AHSN’s CEO, Richard Stubbs, has been recognised as one of the most influential Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) leaders in healthcare in the first Health Service Journal (HSJ) BAME power list.

The HSJ’s top leader list celebrates those who are influencing change and through their work inspire other people to push boundaries and strive to achieve more at a time when the BAME community are still under represented in the NHS at leadership level.

In his role as CEO Richard leads on a number of significant projects that will help improve health and care services for the future including the recent ‘Levelling Up Yorkshire and Humber: health as the new wealth post COVID-19’, a joint report with NHS Confederation and Yorkshire Universities. The report highlights the need by local and national leadership to embed a renewed focus on health, tackle long-standing regional inequalities, and level up future investment in Yorkshire’s health and life sciences assets as we begin living with and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Richard is passionate about transforming lives through innovation and is also leading on the NHS Reset work in collaboration with the AHSN Network, NHS Confederation and The Health Foundation to help identify those service transformations and innovations that were rapidly adopted across health and care services in response to the pandemic and that can help improve health and care services for future generations.

Last year Richard created a major national programme focused on increasing diversity within the health innovation sector. This work has led to a series of pledges which aim to improve the ability of the 20% of NHS staff from BAME backgrounds to become innovators, as well as celebrate and support existing BAME innovators and the impact that their work can have on health inequality.

The top 50 BAME Power List also included other leaders from across Yorkshire and the Humber including Owen Williams, CEO at Calderdale Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, and Steve Russell, Chief Executive at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford also made the list on account of his successful campaign to get the Government to fund lunches over the summer for children who would have been entitled to free school meals.

In addition to being CEO of Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, Richard is an established member of the NHS Assembly, a national forum to help shape the delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan. He is also a private sector board member for the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and is one of the Directors of Legacy Park Ltd, which is responsible for driving the development of Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park. He also chairs the Strategic Advisory Board of Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellness Research Centre, a £14m research institution established to develop innovations that will improve population health and physical activity.

Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is also a non-executive director of the Maltby Learning Trust, a multi-academy trust of secondary and primary schools across Rotherham.

You can learn more about Richard’s work in health innovation in this podcast interview with Ian Holmes, Partnership Director for West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership.