Trustees

Jean has been a Trustee with Vista for nearly 4 years and has recently taken on the role of Chair of the Board. Jean is a highly experienced retired Head Orthoptist, with over 43 years’ experience in practice at St James's University Hospital in Leeds, and more recently the Leicester Royal Infirmary. Jean has been a Vista volunteer for some time, throwing herself into children’s activities and our early intervention projects and helping us explore new ways for Vista to get involved in health and social care and support.

Maddy has also been appointed as a Trustee. She worked in finance roles for a variety of commercial companies before setting up her own business as an independent CFO, specialising in small enterprises in the life sciences sector and with considerable experience of business planning and starting up new ventures. 

Rob, has been appointed as a Trustee and is an optometrist with a career of 38 years working in academia, his own practice, hospitals and large corporate organisations. He also brings significant experience of working on clinical and quality standards and in leading professional training and development and is particularly interested in raising the profile and impact of Low Vision and Rehabilitation services. 

Haseeb has been registered Blind since 1987 following a diagnoses of RP. He started his career after graduating from Leicester University as an Advocacy worker with a local charity in 1994 supporting disabled people who were trying to access social services. He then joined the local authority sector for 17 years working in a range of policy areas including equality and diversity. He then joined the NHS in 2013 and is currently the Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Apart from his work, Haseeb loves to run, bike and is a former GB Paratriathlete. In 2016 he set the Guiness book of Record for the world’s fastest blind Ironman race. He is also the author of “From blind Man to Ironman”. He was also nominated on to the Shaw Trust top 100 most influential disabled people in 2019.

Aadil is the Manager of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology. 

He is responsible for overseeing the delivery of world leading eye and vision research aiming to improve the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of eye diseases for the benefit of patients. Aadil was previously a Research Programmes Manager at Imperial College London, and brings with him experience of senior leadership, strategic delivery and operational management from these world class institutions.

Aadil grew up in Leicester and joined Vista in February 2023 to combine his experience of working in the sight loss sector and contribute to the local community.

Phil was born with congenital glaucoma and has been severely sight impaired from a very young age.  He has over 30 years experience working in the field of IT in roles including Programming and Design, Analysis and bespoke software Support Management.  His interests/hobbies have included cars, horses, cycling, walking and acoustic rifle target shooting.

Jen has over 18 years experience within health, social care and the voluntary sector, a journey which started when she trained as a Rehabilitation Officer with Vista over 18 years ago. Having held both strategic and operational management roles, she has always remained passionate about the development and delivery of quality care, most recently leading on the development of specialist dementia nursing services within the Midlands. Jen currently supports effective workforce development within the adult social care sector, delivering a range of programmes and coaching to registered managers, operational and strategic leaders.

Jon has over 20 years’ experience working in telecommunications and Networking. Including roles in System integration, Networking, OSS, BSS and Design. He currently leads IP Architecture and design in Motorola Solutions. Jon is hearing impaired and has Keratoconus and brings the experience of living with these disabilities to Vista. Outside of work Jon is a keen cyclist.

Rebecca has been a qualified rehabilitation officer for 33 years and 19 of those she has managed the rehabilitation team at Vista. She has experience working in both social services and charities and following her retirement this year she has decided to take a post as trustee. So that she can help guide Vista and its services towards a secure future. She is looking forward to using her knowledge and experience of being an employee of Vista to give valuable insight into the day to day operation of the organisation.

Meredith Wilkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at De Montfort University in Leicester.  As someone with a severe visual impairment since birth, Meredith is proud to come on board as a trustee of Vista and utilise her lived experience within her role.  In her work life, her research and writing focuses on advocacy for staff and students within Higher Education. In her spare time, she enjoys reading.