President and Chair

Dr Stephen Battersby is a visiting senior fellow at the Robens Centre for Public and Environmental Health, University of Surrey. He was awarded an MBE for services to environmental health in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List. Stephen was CIEH President between 2008-2011 and chaired of the Board of Generation Rent (the National Private Tenants Organisation) from 2013 to 2015. He chairs the Pro-Housing Alliance, is an Associate of the Safe and Healthy Housing Unit at the University of Warwick and is editor of Clay’s Handbook of Environmental Health.

Christopher Brereton is a Welsh Food Advisory Committee member and former Chief Environmental Health Officer (CEHO) for Wales. During his time as CEHO for Wales, he focused on key issues such as environmental and public health, food safety, public health legislation, environmental hazards, emergency response, and communicable diseases. A fully-qualified Environmental Health Practitioner (EHP), prior to joining the Welsh Government in 2006 he was responsible for delivering all the functions of Environmental Health and Public Protection at Cardiff Council including food safety, port health, public analyst, infectious disease, licensing, pollution control, pest control, emergency planning and strategic management services.

Karen Buck is the Labour MP for Westminster North, having held the seat since 2010. The seat was the successor to Regent's Park and Kensington North, which she had held since 1997. She is currently Shadow Minister for Social Security and has held a number of other positions both in Government and in Opposition. Working closely with CIEH, Karen Buck’s Private Member’s Bill received Royal Assent as the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act which came into force on 20 March 2019. Before becoming an MP, Karen worked in the charity sector and in local government, and served as a Westminster City Councillor.

Christopher Elliott is Professor of Food Safety at Queen's University Belfast and founder of its Institute for Global Food Security. He is a visiting Professor at the China Agriculture University in Beijing and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a recipient of a Winston Churchill Fellowship, and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Society of Biology. He has published more than 300 papers in the field of detection and control of chemical contaminants in agri-food commodities, and led the UK government's independent review of food systems following the 2013 horsemeat scandal.

Ilora Gillian Finlay is a Welsh doctor, professor of palliative medicine, and an Independent Crossbench member of the House of Lords. She is a past president of the Royal Society of Medicine, a professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University School of Medicine, and is a consultant at the Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff. In 2001 she was made a life peer as Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, in the County of South Glamorgan. She is a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group, which brings together parliamentarians committed to tackling carbon monoxide poisoning, and also chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dying Well.

Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at City, University of London's Centre for Food Policy. He specialises in how policy affects the food supply chain, what people eat and the social, health and civic outcomes. He has worked in a variety of posts in education, research and public interest organisations, and since 1994, as Europe’s only Professor of Food Policy, he has concentrated on long-term strategic issues in food policy, linking human and environmental health with social justice. He was elected a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health in 2001, won the BBC Radio 4 Derek Cooper Food Award in 2003 and the Caroline Walker Trust Award in 2002.

Jim McManus is the Director of Public Health at Hertfordshire County Council. He is responsible for England’s fifth largest public health system, with a portfolio of 142 workstreams, including drug and alcohol treatment and care, health protection and health improvement services. He leads the council’s corporate transformation programme in prevention and demand management, and is a Board Member of Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). He is also a member of the Clinical Oversight Group for the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Systems (ICS). In November 2021, Jim was elected President of the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH).

Geoffrey has held four British and international Chief Executive posts in the public health and regulatory sectors, namely as Chief Executive of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, the European Food Safety Agency, the UK's Food Standards Agency and most recently as Acting Chief Executive of WorkSafe New Zealand. He is currently Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Kings College Centre for Risk Management, a lay Council Member of the Royal College of Radiologists, a member of the Standards Board of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and in addition holds various honorary health and safety positions.

Janet Russell has been working with the Department of Health and Social Care since June 2020, initially helping to link the Test and Trace system in England, with regional contact tracing infrastructure in Yorkshire and Humber. More recently, she has been focusing on environmental health capacity issues in English local authorities, including setting up the Environmental Health Together recruitment register. Previously CIEH President from 2012-14, Janet also has extensive experience at local authority level having worked at Kirklees Council as Strategic Director accountable for corporate management and delivery of a range of services including environmental services.

Sarah Veale was Head of the Equality and Employment Rights Department at the Trades Union Congress (TUC), where she worked since 1985. She was a member of the TUC team which negotiated the agreement with the CBI and the Government that formed the basis of the Temporary Agency Work Directive, and was also responsible for the development of TUC policy on employment law. Sarah was awarded the CBE for services to diversity in 2006. She is currently a member of the Board of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, having previously been a Board Member of the Health and Safety Executive, Better Regulation Commission and the Risk and Regulation Advisory Council.

Joan Walley was Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North from 1987 to 2015. Following a career in local government, she became opposition spokesperson on Environmental Protection and Development (1988-90) and Transport (1990-95), and since 1997 has served on the Environmental Select Committee. Her special interests include the environment and health. Joan was awarded an Honorary Membership of CIEH in 2014 in recognition of her outstanding service and support in furthering environmental health and the profession.