DSC Leadership and Governance Summit - Speakers

Dr Sarah Hughes is Chief Executive of Mind, the UK’s leading mental health charity. With more than 35 years’ experience in mental health and social justice, she has held senior leadership roles including Chief Executive of the international think tank Centre for Mental Health and CPSL Mind.
Her work in mental health began at 15 and became her life’s vocation. She trained as a social worker and went on to manage services in communities, residential care and Holloway Prison before moving into senior leadership. Sarah now serves on the boards of One Small Thing, A Better Way, and the Central East Integrated Care Board, and is the founder of The Muse Nine, an online leadership studio exploring rebellious leadership and feminist innovation.

A regular media commentator and sought-after speaker, Sarah is frequently invited by governments and organisations worldwide to share her expertise on mental health and inclusive leadership. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Sciana Health Leaders Network and Salzburg Global, she holds a professional doctorate in women and leadership and an honorary doctorate from Hull University. Her leadership is rooted in lived experience of social injustice and a lifelong commitment to equity and inclusion. She lives in Cambridgeshire with her family — and an ever-growing collection of pets and plants.

Martin Edwards has been CEO since 2005 of children’s hospice Julia’s House, a charity employing 240 staff and 600 volunteers and renowned for innovation in workforce culture. Julia’s House has twice been ranked No 1 Charity to Work For by Best Companies, based on staff survey scores, and has won the Healthcare category at The Charity Awards. Martin writes a regular column for Third Sector on leadership and fundraising, and won Fundraiser of the Year at the 2025 Charity Heroes Awards.

Mark Simms OBE is Group Chief Executive of P3 Charity⁠ and Rugby Portobello Trust⁠, leading organisations that support more than 80,000 people each year through housing, homelessness, mental health, youth and community services. With more than 30 years’ experience across the charity, public and social enterprise sectors, he is recognised as one of the UK’s leading voices on charity leadership, governance and social enterprise.

Mark is a Board Member and former Interim Chair of the Charity Commission for England and Wales⁠ and has held a range of board and public appointments across civil society. A former mental health nurse, his leadership is shaped by both professional expertise and lived experience of homelessness, giving him a practical and deeply personal perspective on social change.

Awarded an OBE for services to social enterprise, Mark is a regular speaker on leadership, governance, public trust and systems change. He is known for challenging conventional thinking, championing innovation and helping organisations build cultures that deliver lasting social impact.

Kolbassia Haoussou MBE is a torture survivor who came to the UK in 2005 after fleeing persecution in central Africa. He experienced the challenges of being a refugee in Britain, which included immigration detention, homelessness, and mental health issues before receiving treatment for the psychological impact of his torture at Freedom from Torture.

His career began with campaigning and advocating when he co-founded the Survivor Speak OUT (SSO) network in 2006, a network led by survivors, campaigning for survivors. After a short while running, SSO came under the umbrella of Freedom from Torture and Kolbassia found himself employed with Freedom from Torture as SSO Coordinator.

Kolbassia was and has been instrumental in building Freedom from Tortures’ survivor activism and making sure survivors were centred in all aspects of the organisation.
After over 10 years of working at Freedom from Torture in the capacity of SSO Coordinator, Service User Champion and acting Survivor Activism Lead, Kolbassia is now the department head for the organisations newly founded Survivor Empowerment directorate.

In 2019, he became a survivor champion for the UK government's Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and in 2020 received an MBE for his work with survivors.

Suneet Sharma is a charity governance specialist, twice trustee and governance consultant. Having worked in law for eight years in roles at the BBC, Associated Press, SEGA Europe and Blenheim Chalcot, Suneet transferred to charity governance to work with cause driven organisations. Now a Governance Consultant for Eastside People Suneet specializes in governance reviews, advisory and strategy work- whilst bringing an operational governance understanding from having been a Governance Manager. He also runs a governance resource hub via the website Sharma on Governance and is an avid governance writer. Passionate about EDI, Suneet has conducted award winning work establishing Employee Resource Groups in the games industry and is a passionate advocate for EDI and inclusive governance.