DrLisaKerr

About me

When people ask what I am most proud of in my career, my answer is always the same: founding Safe Space, AstraZeneca's global Employee Resource Group for Mental Health.

I led it from lived experience. I posted videos during my own time off work with depression, talking openly about how I was feeling and how I was accessing support, because I believed that visibility was the only way to shift a culture of silence. What grew from that was a community of over 3,500 people across 8 countries, a space where people felt safe to listen, to share, and to work together to dismantle stigma and make support genuinely accessible. Mental health was where it started, but the principles were the same ones I carry into every space I work in: that people thrive when they feel seen, heard and included, and that real change only happens when those with lived experience are at the centre of it.

That conviction runs through everything I do. As a passionate advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, gender equity and neurodiversity, I have spent my career working to create environments where people do not have to choose between bringing their whole selves to work and feeling safe. I champion these causes not from the outside, but as someone who understands personally and professionally what it means when the right support is there, and what it costs when it is not.

I am also acutely aware of my privilege. My own mental health, and that of my family, would not be where it is today without access to exceptional private healthcare through my employer. Most people do not have that, and that gap sits with me.

What I built inside a global corporation showed what is possible when lived experience, strategic leadership and genuine commitment to change come together. I want to bring exactly that to the charity sector, applying the transformational leadership, governance expertise and advocacy skills I have developed in health tech to an organisation working at the frontline of the issues I care about most, where the impact on people's lives is direct and real.

Becoming a board trustee would allow me to do something I care about more deeply than anything else in my professional life: to use the platform and skills I have been fortunate enough to build to make a real difference for the people who need it most.

What am I looking for?

I would like to work with organisations tackling underserved communities in healthcare and where bias, stigma and access are problems to be solved. My deepest passions like with Mental Health and LGBTQIA+ organisations, where both my lived experience and professional skills in global strategic leadership and innovation can help organisations to drive positive change.

Employment history and examples of work Help

• View CV
• View LISA's LinkedIn

Skills

Causes