Two new Non-Executive Directors have been appointed to the Board of Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Bilal Lala and Jason Makepeace were appointed following a competitive recruitment process, and Trust Chair Graham Russell said he was looking forward to working with them.
He said: “We are very fortunate to have appointed Bilal and Jason to the Board, as they both have extensive experience in their respective specialist areas of expertise. Bilal brings with him a lengthy background in accountancy and finance, while Jason specialises in digital so they will complement the skills within our current Board very well.
“I am looking forward to working closely with them both for the benefit of the Trust, our colleagues and most importantly the communities we serve.”
Bilal Lala
Bilal is an FCCA qualified accountant who is also a Non-Executive Director of Bristol Energy Cooperative, with prior non-executive experience with the local NHS acute trust, as well as broader experience through private sector pensions related chair and trustee roles.
Bilal started his working life in high street banking, before graduating as a mature student, thereafter, professionally qualifying whilst working for Chubb Electronic Security during the 1990s. Subsequently, the majority of Bilal’s career has been spent in senior finance roles working for large national and multi-national outsourcing companies, spanning amongst others rail, highways, waste, energy (including renewables), EV charging and property technology offerings, servicing both the public and private sectors, and culminated in his last role, prior to retirement in June 2023, as Divisional Finance Director with Equans UK & Ireland.
Bilal’s personal interest in the NHS stems, in part, from his children, three of whom have pursued careers in healthcare, two being doctors, the third being an optometrist; with all three now working for the NHS.
Jason Makepeace
Jason is a director at Ginkgo Bioworks, a US-based company seeking to make biology easier to engineer. He is also a non-executive director of the Royal Agricultural University, and sits on both the Audit and Risk Committee and the Remuneration Committee there. Before joining Ginkgo, Jason worked as a senior civil servant, including as both director of products and director for community services at the UK Health Security Agency (formerly NHS Test & Trace) during the Covid-19 pandemic, and as chief digital, data and technology officer at Barnardo’s.
