Anne Cooper had had a long and distinguished career as a nurse in the NHS and is now a non-executive Director at Yorkshire Ambulance Service and Clinical Director of Ethical Healthcare. Until recently Chief Nurse at NHS Digital, Anne is immensely experienced and highly regarded figure within healthcare informatics.

A national leader in driving the digital nursing agenda, she has experience in strategy and leadership development, requirements and design, clinical safety and deployment. As a T1 Diabetes patient, she is also a passionate advocate of ensuring the patients and citizens have an equal voice in the health and care system.

Outside of both work and being a Twitter addict (@anniecoops)

In this podcast we talk about the humaness of leadership, leadership as friendship (and what we do about bad friends), women only leadership development, matriarchy and patriarchy, slime making, and the nature of female only community – where Anne breaks the code!

In conversation with Emma Bearman of Playful Anywhere we talk about play, Leadership, being side by side rather than following someone who is in front. We talk about the power of provocation and discomfort, innovation and novelty.

Playful Anywhere CIC is a Leeds-based social enterprise with a mission to catalyse creativity, inventiveness and playfulness, where we work, live and travel.

They have a proven track record of delivering high-quality fun participatory events, programmes and activities. They have devised and delivered festivals, open space events, civic participation, networks, playful tech labs, young inventor programmes, building launches, panel events, team builds, place change activities, websites and community activities. They take care of the smallest detail, creating meaningful experiences whether it’s a one to one or a huge family festival.

They bring teams together to deliver high quality experiences, and have a long-standing reputation for excellence in culture and heritage, public art and realm, art and urban landscaping, fundraising, digital and social media engagement. 

Blurring the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds, encouraging participants to get creative with all manner of media, from cardboard to code.

Lou Mycroft has been working nomadically for several years now, guided by an ethics of joy.

She brings people together in community, to think, make decisions and implement plans which change cultures, choosing work based on Nesta UK’s 2018 definition of Good Help:

“…enabling people to feel hopeful, identify their own purpose and confidently take action.” 

She is a Thinking Environment facilitator, writer, public speaker and coach and her work translates well to online spaces. She is co-founder of the #JoyFE💛 movement and its influential ‘Ideas Rooms’. She has particular strengths around engagement, digital resilience and the creation of effective, bespoke culture change programmes. She tries to be joyfully militant in everything she does.

She is very interested in wellbeing, particularly mental health and developing personal agency (her first career was as a Public Health Specialist). She is a member of the @MHFECrowd and is currently developing new thinking around health, wellbeing and empowerment, particularly for women.

She has been nominated for an EduFuturist 2020 Award as a Staff Wellbeing Champion, even though she doesnt have a ‘staff’.

Find her on twitter @loumycroft and on the net at loumycroft.org

Just a quick trailer for my podcast series helping you to become a better leader.

You can find it at https://be-a-better-leader.captivate.fm/listen

Mike Chitty

@mikechitty