Marie Curie creates senior digital leadership role

Marie Curie has turned to the private sector to bolster its leadership team’s digital capabilities.

The end of life care charity has appointed, Tiffany Willcox, Specsavers’ head of technology – retail IT to the newly created role of chief technology officer.

This “critical new role” will help the charity as it “accelerates its technology transformation in all aspects of its work and services”, said Marie Curie.

In the role Willcox will provide executive leadership to the IT and data teams.

She joins after eight years at Specsavers and has more than 20 year technology experience globally.

"I'm really pleased to be leading the technology advances at Marie Curie, and enabling the charity to support more integrated ways of working and improve the experience of people at the end of life and those affected by dying, death and bereavement,” said Willcox.

Meanwhile, Marie Curie has also announced that the Zoological Society of London’s chief financial officer Amanda Oakley Smith has been recruited to take the same role at the charity. She replaces Jackie Freeman, who retired in 2020, and joins in May.

Marie Curie chief executive Matthew Reed added: “I'm delighted to welcome Tiff and Amanda at such a significant time for the charity. As the leading end of life charity, we want to make sure we are set up in the best way to transform as an organisation and to ensure our future financial sustainability. This has become even more critical over the last year as a result of the pandemic.

“The pandemic has highlighted massive inequalities and shortages at end of life, which has made what we do as a charity even more important. Having the right strategic leadership in place is essential as we plan and build for the future to ensure that we can continue to be there for people at end of life and make a difference to everyone affected by dying, death and bereavement."

Last month Marie Curie staged a National Day of Reflection to support those who have been left bereaved since the first Covid-19 lockdown last year.
This came as the charity cancelled public collections for its Easter Daffodil Appeal for the first time in the campaign’s 35-year history, due to the pandemic.