The Vivensa Foundation has announced that Katy Saunders will become its new Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Susan Kay who will retire at the end of the year after nearly ten years of distinguished leadership.
Katy says: “I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the Vivensa Foundation. Together with the team and our partners, I look forward to building on the Foundation’s powerful work to fund the remarkable science and radical social change needed to help everyone age well. We are at a pivotal moment for health and social care. I am excited to lead us into our next chapter of impact, as we continue to invest in those who have great ideas and methods for improving the health and wellbeing of older people.”
Katy brings over 20 years of experience across all parts of the health and social care ecosystem. She has held senior roles in the NHS and a large healthcare charity. Since joining Social Finance in 2019, she has progressed from Associate Director to Executive Director of Investment and Strategic Partnerships. In this role, she leads Social Finance’s social investment portfolio. She provides strategic independent advice to large charities on market analysis and strategic diversification of their business models. Katy pioneered a groundbreaking non-profit social investment model in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support. This resulted in the launch of the highly successful Macmillan End-of-Life Care Fund.
Katy has extensive experience of service transformation, cost benefit analysis, outcome measurement and the successful scaling of impact. Notable work includes leadership of research and development to explore how innovative finance can improve outcomes for older people; the development of an HSJ-nominated new model of care for heart failure; and work to achieve ‘most improved’ NHS Trust for patient experience. Katy is a Trustee of the Health Creation Alliance and a member of Women In Social Finance. Her work has been published in the HSJ, Healthcare Leader and HMFA, the professional organisation for healthcare finance.
Katy will spend a period of time working alongside current Chief Executive, Susan Kay, before she leaves in December. Susan says: “The last nine-and-a-half years have been quite a journey. I’ve met and worked with some enormously talented people and had the opportunity to support some truly transformational work along the way. I’m thrilled to be handing the tiller to someone who I’m confident will hold dear the values and principles which have come to define us at the Vivensa Foundation.”