Alex Leach has been appointed as Acting Director of Innovation and Growth at the West of England AHSN, taking over from Nigel Harris who retired earlier in the summer.
Alex joined the AHSN in 2019 as Deputy Director of Innovation and Growth and, during this time, has led our Future Challenges Programme which evaluated promising innovations to help people to stay healthy at home and support mental health resilience in the young. She also developed the formalisation of the West of England Innovation Pipeline over the last 18 months which is currently supporting over 80 innovators at various stages of technology and market readiness.
A trained nurse, specialising in infectious diseases and haematology, with 15 years’ experience working across a number of NHS roles, Alex moved into the medical device industry and spent over 20 years working in sales and marketing roles with a range of companies, ranging from consumables, implants, capital equipment, diagnostics and generic pharmaceuticals.
Alex has worked widely across the whole healthcare marketplace and has extensive experience of pathway redesign and business case development, She also worked as Commercial Manager for assistive technology charity Designability, leading on the commercialisation and exploitation of new products and services for adults and children living with disabilities.
As our Acting Director of Innovation and Growth, Alex has a remit of bringing a whole system approach to matching innovation to locally identified health and care challenges by connecting and brokering relationships between innovators, patients, carers, industry, academia and health and care professional and creating an ‘innovation ecosystem’.
The West of England AHSN is also pleased to have recently welcomed Claire Denyer and Kate Mould to the Innovation and Growth team. Claire joins us from Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership as a Project Manager. Kate is currently studying for an MSc in Public Health and has joined us as a Project Support Officer.
Posted on September 22, 2022
