Cheryl Samuels is the Director of People and Culture at the Evelina Women’s and Children’s Hospital at the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. But although Cheryl, a pioneering HR leader, has been in the NHS for over a decade, she started out on the other side. “I spent quite a number of years working for the British Medical Association (BMA) as an Employment Advisor, advising hospital doctors, dentists, GP’s on employment disputes. Often I thought to myself ‘how on earth do these NHS Trusts get themselves into these situations?’, and after several years of working for the BMA, I felt that I would be more useful if I was on the other side of the table preventing some of the routine disputes from occurring.”

So Cheryl left the trade union and went into the NHS as a HR manager. She moved on to become a Head of Employee Relations at a primary care Trust, and then moved again to become the deputy HR director at a mental health Trust. Reflecting on her movement in this period, Cheryl offered “I've got a thirst for wanting to do more and create greater impact. And I believe I'm capable of doing more, it’s just about finding the right organisation that appreciates my skill set, experience and expertise that allows me to do that.” She moved on and became deputy director at Kingston Hospital and was there for a number of years. So what did these experiences teach her? “I spent the best part of 10 years working at deputy director level, in different environments. And then I had the realisation, that I was good, ready, had the self belief that actually, I was capable of being a director. With all that underpinning knowledge and experience, and expertise gained over the years, I finally took the plunge and apply for a few roles.”

As Director of People and Culture, Cheryl has a unique perspective and understanding of the shifts the NHS has seen with women in leadership roles over the past decade. Her views on this are typically nuanced and thoughtful - “The NHS is female dominated anyway. And within the whole HR profession, I don't think that there has been a massive shift in terms of women that are actually in the senior leadership roles in that department. That’s been the case for quite some time. But if you intersect it with race and disability, for example, then I’ve definitely seen a visible shift in the number of Black women that have become HR directors. And I also think of the visible leadership of women with visible disabilities coming into the profession, which I haven’t seen as much as I’d like to but there are some examples of it.”

An intersectional approach to viewing changes in the workplace is essential for Cheryl, and the other thing that’s key for her is culture. “The organisations people are looking to join are responsible for whether those people feel able to be open and authentic about who they are, and to show up openly about it. Again, it all comes back to the conditions and the culture you create.” Cheryl sees ample room for progress within the NHS: “I would like to see more diverse representation, because representation matters. I'd like to see it in lots of other spaces. So I'd like to see lots more female Finance Directors, lots more Facilities and Estates Directors . It would be really good to disrupt the status quo in some of those male dominated professions to see more women going into those spaces. And I think it's the same for digital and technology.”

So how do we enact this change? “It's about being intentional in attracting, recruiting, and retaining people from the widest parts of society. So that we have an accurate representation of people that are making decisions about the population that we're serving. We all have blind spots and if organisations continue to recruit in their own image, they are missing a trick and failing to serve the workforce and their population appropriately. And in terms of the culture I’m trying to create, I'm about listening and supporting my staff, nurturing them, finding out what makes them tick and getting to know who they are as people, getting the best out of them, stretching them, but trying to create a safe space for them to be able to be open up and to realise their full potential.”