The Brain Tumour Charity has appointed a permanent chief executive after a year without one.
Michele Afif is the first permanent CEO at the charity since Alex Lochrane, who joined in January 2022 and stepped down seven months later.
Since then, the charity has appointed two interim chief executives.
Trustee Graham Norton was interim chief executive until April 2023 when his planned tenure ended. Fellow trustee Beth Worrall was then appointed in his stead.
Afif will take over from her on 17 July. The charity begun the recruitment process for its permanent CEO in February.
‘It’s taken the charity a long time to find our new CEO’
Jack Morris, chair of the charity, said: “It’s taken the charity a long time to find our new CEO. This is because we’ve been looking for someone with very special, almost unique, qualities to lead it into the future. In Michele, the trustees and I feel we’ve found that person.
“Michele’s wide professional experience in the medical, legal and charity sectors is almost unparalleled and her empathetic style fits well with the caring and understanding culture we promote amongst our staff and within the brain tumour community we serve. We’re greatly looking forward to Michele joining us and taking the charity onward and upward as it moves forward with its new strategy – Living Longer and Better 2023-2030.
“I’d also like to warmly thank Beth Worrall for stepping in for us and being such an outstanding interim CEO recently. Also, to our marvellous team who have ensured the charity’s vital work has continued to shine during this period.”
‘It’s my great privilege to take up the CEO role’
Afif’s latest role was as chief executive of Rays of Sunshine, which she led for over a year. She worked as a consultant paediatrician for 10 years and a medicolegal consultant for five.
Commenting on her appointment, Afif said it is with “great privilege” that she takes up the helm.
She said: “I look forward to working alongside this amazing community to ensure the Brain Tumour Charity’s hugely important work continues unabated in the drive to deliver its unashamedly ambitious goals.
“A doctor by training and background, my experience as a consultant working in the field of paediatric haematology and oncology for more than 10 years meant I regularly looked after children who’d been diagnosed with a range of different brain tumours and so saw first-hand the cruelties associated with this most difficult of conditions.
“Contact with this extraordinary and courageous group of patients – and the family and friends around them – was both humbling and inspiring. It left an indelible mark on me as a clinician and ignited a deep desire to find more ways to do more for more – in honour of those I have met along the way. I came to the Brain Tumour Charity as part of that search.”
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