James Sinclair has just recently joined us as our COO from the NHS where he worked in mental health and dementia research for over 10 years. “My very first job was working at a petrol station where I soon learned that having unrestricted access to chocolate and crisps was a really bad idea for me! From there I worked in a nursing home where I fell in love with working with people and continued to work across care homes and domiciliary care for the next 10 years. This included during my time as an undergraduate in Edinburgh which (as my friends never fail to remind me) took a very long time as I first did three years of a medical degree before changing to a four year degree in Psychology and Sociology. I then continued to do domiciliary care work in Birmingham while I got a research masters in Clinical Psychology.
My first job following my masters was as a Research Assistant on a dementia project at the R&D department of North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) in 2011. I progressed to become the Research Site Coordinator for NELFT and finally the Research Delivery Manager before I left to join Care City in 2022. I’ve been very lucky in leaving a fantastic team at NELFT to join an equally incredible team at Care City where the people and passion for the work makes every day meaningful. My career path to here hasn’t always been linear (in the middle of everything I also did a PhD for a year and half before deciding it wasn’t for me!) but I’m really happy where I’ve ended up”.
And what about Matt Skinner, our Chief Exec…?
“Since around age 16, I’ve always had an interest (and growing frustration) in politics. Whilst studying the subject at university, I did a stint as a parliamentary researcher. I caught the bug for working in the public sector and started my career in local government 15 years ago, working in adult social care. It was around this time that my mum was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and my personal journey of supporting her through the social care and health system began. My career and this journey have been interwoven ever since.
I spent 5 years in local government, joining the local government management programme and working for Lambeth Council in various roles across social care and the local strategic partnership where I supported the health and wellbeing board. I really enjoyed working with amazing people and doing co-production to help improve local services, but I became increasingly frustrated with the pace of change. I could see services failing my mum, and I wanted to make sure others didn’t have the same experiences. So, I left my job to join FutureGov, a startup agency, who wanted to deliver change in local government through better technology, design and change approaches.
For 10 years at FutureGov, I was part of a fantastic team that delivered really important work with the sector. I helped to grow the business and in the last few years led the team as Managing Director as we joined forces with other like-minded companies to become TPXimpact – a digital agency that now works across the public sector and health delivering large and complex change.
My personal mission to fix health and social care continues. My mum passed away at the start of Covid in her care home. I did much reflecting and decided it was time for a personal change. When the opportunity at Care City CIC came along, I leapt at it. Joining last November as CEO, I couldn’t be more delighted to work for a smaller organisation who are deeply rooted in its local community and who are mission focused to help improve health and social care outcomes by working with our partners”.
