This episode we are joined by Professor Kevin Fenton, current president of the Faculty of Public Health and Public Health Director for London.

Professor Fenton has worked in a range of executive public health leadership roles across government and academia in the UK and internationally. In his regional director role, Kevin is currently the statutory public health advisor to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority. In his role as FPH President, Kevin works across all 4 national of the UK and with FPH members across the world.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Teaser

(00:23) Introduction

(01:08) What is Public Health campaign

(03:21) Reflections as Kevin steps down as FPH President

(06:37) Expectations of the role

(09:15) Highlights as President

(13:40) Message to the next FPH President

(14:37) A new paradigm of leadership

(18:59) FPH role in speaking truth to power

(24:49) Politics and advocacy in FPH

(27:12) Social media and public health

(31:07) The dark side of social media

(34:47) Dealing with professional failure

(36:27) Quick fire round

(40:33) Ending

A very special live recorded episode of the podcast at the 2025 UKHSA Conference, live and in partnership with the UK Faculty of Public Health.

We were joined by Professor Kevin Fenton, Professor Yvonne Doyle and Dr. Meera Chand to discuss the evolving landscape of public health leadership and the skills required for the challenges ahead. We delved into the challenges systems leaders face, their reflections on how to navigate chaotic environments and the practical advice for current and future leaders.

BIOS:

Dr. Meera Chand leads UKHSA's national specialist clinical and public health functions for emerging, respiratory and high threat infections. She has over two decades of experience in incident response and has been the incident lead for a range of high threat outbreaks including mpox, COVID-19, lassa fever and H5N1. Meera is also the clinical lead for the UKHSA-wide pathogen genomics programme.

Professor Yvonne Doyle brings over 40 years’ experience as a public health doctor who has worked in several senior roles including as the first Medical Director for Public Health at NHS England and had a leadership role in England for health protection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yvonne is currently a senior adviser to the WHO-Europe on ageing in good health and has a number of non-executive roles and chairs the Health Services Committee at the UK Faculty of Public Health.Professor Kevin Fenton is the President of the Faculty of Public Health and the Regional Director for London in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) within DHSC. As regional director, Kevin is the statutory public health advisor to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority. And as President of the Faculty, Kevin works closely with a wide range of partners who have interests in Public Health.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Introduction and setting the scene

(03:06) Panellist introductions

(05:55) Systems leadership and influencing change

(08:43) Delivering results in public health - long term vs. shortterm

(10:40) Systems leadership skills during acute response

(13:29) Leadership during chaos and uncertainty

(18:03) Preparing for chaos

(19:00) Knowing yourself and burnout

(21:29) Motivating staff

(25:08) Saying thank you

(29:19) Loyalty

(32:04) Leadership across borders

(35:22) Traits of incident response leaders

(37:50) Authenticity in leadership

(41:38) Healthy ageing

(43:24) Supporting leadership transitions

(45:38) Leadership development

(47:36) Q&A

(52:09) One career tip

In August 2024 we sat down with Dr. Ebere Okereke. Ebere is a public health doctor specialising in global health security and health system strengthening. Ebere has built her expertise over a number of roles including as a senior health advisor at the Tony Blair institute for Global change, co-lead for the Africa CDC partnership for African vaccine manufacturing, a senior public health advisor to Africa CDC and was the lead for the former Public Health England’s IHR strengthening project. Ebere is also an associate fellow of the Global Health Programme at Chatham House. She also recently received awards for her work promoting women and under-represented groups in public health leadership.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Introduction

(01:41) Ebere's career journey

(07:31) Transition to global health

(13:01) Supporting African Public Health systems

(14:45) What is Public Health?

(18:42) What is Global Health?

(24:52) Equity and Global Health

(30:12) Adressing inequity in Global Health Leadership

(38:47) Career mentorship

(45:07) Ebere's leadership journey

(50:26) One career tip