Skip to main content
Executive Committee
  1. Home
  2. About Us
  3. Leadership & Governance
  4. Executive Committee

The Executive Committee serves a dual function, acting as both the elected Board of Trustees and the executive leadership team, ensuring continuity, strategic oversight, and operational delivery.

 

Professor Ian Wilkinson

President

2023 – 2026

Ian Wilkinson is Clinical Pharmacologist, Professor of Therapeutics at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He leads the regional secondary/tertiary care hypertension service, directs the Cambridge Clinical Trials Centre, and is a Non-Executive Director of Royal Papworth Hospital. Ian's research centres on the pathophysiology of hypertension and its treatment. He has a broad research portfolio including national trials and cohort studies with a wide range of funders including the NIHR, MRC and BHF.

 

 

Professor Phil Chowienczyk

Vice President

2023 – 2025

Phil Chowienczyk  is Professor of Cardiovascular Clinical Pharmacology at the School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences, King’s College London. Phil worked in biomedical engineering before studying medicine at Guy’s Hospital Medical School. His research relates to the in vivo assessment of cardiovascular structure and function in humans with the aim of elucidating mechanisms leading to arterial disease and interventions to prevent/treat arterial disease. Phil currently leads a programme on stratified mechanisms in hypertension. He retains an interest in biomedical engineering in relation to non-invasive assessment of cardiovascular function.

 

 

Dr James Sheppard

Secretary

James Sheppard is an Associate Professor in Applied Health Research at the University of Oxford. His research focusses on better understanding the benefits and harms of commonly prescribed treatments, with a particular emphasis on medications used for cardiovascular disease prevention. James' work involves systematic reviews, statistical modelling, epidemiology and primary care based clinical trials

 

 

Dr Luca Faconti

Treasurer

Luca Faconti is a Clinical Lecturer in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at King's College London and Honorary Consultant at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. Luca completed his medical training in Pisa (ESH Excellence Centre) and started his involvement in the BIHS as the Young Investigator Representative (2019 to 2022)

 

 

Dr Helen Warren

Ordinary Member

Helen is a Senior Lecturer at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London (since 2013), working in the field of cardiovascular genetics. Her research focuses on the genetic discovery for blood pressure, risk prediction for hypertension, and pharmacogenetics for the response to both antihypertensive drugs and statins. She is the lead genetic analyst for ASCOT (Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial) and BRIGHT (British Genetics of Hypertension study). Helen is a senior leader of the International Consortium of Blood Pressure, the Genomic Investigation of Statin Therapy Consortium, and International Consortium for Antihypertensive Pharmacogenetics Studies.

She has been a BIHS member since 2014, a Trustee & Executive Committee member since 2024, and a Collaborative Research Committee member since 2017.

 

 

 

Mr Sam Olden

Ordinary Member

Sam Olden is a Physiotherapist, specialising in Frailty, working in NHS Community Services. Prior to this role Sam spent several years working in cardiac rehabilitation and preventative cardiac health management in London, which sparked his interest in Hypertension. He has carried through to his Frailty work, with particular interest in non-pharmacological interventions for blood pressure management in the older adult.

 

 

 

Dr Pankaj Gupta

Ordinary Member

Pankaj Gupta is Consultant Chemical Pathologist and Metabolic Physician at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and an Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Leicester. He runs the Hypertension Clinic (European Centre of Excellence) at Leicester, and is the lead for the Lipid Clinic. His main research is in the field of chemical detection of non-adherence and was one of the first to develop the method to detect multiple antihypertensives in a single urine sample.  This has led to the setup of the National Centre for Adherence Testing in Leicester of which he is the Co-director. 

 

 

Dr Manish Saxena

Ordinary Member

Manish Saxena, is a Cardiovascular Physician and Hypertension Specialist at Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University London. His research interest is in developing novel therapies to improve patient outcomes and prevention of cardiovascular/metabolic diseases. He is UK lead on academic and commercial studies with pharmaco-therapy and devices in dyslipidaemia, obesity, hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, inflammation and anti-coagulation. Manish works closely with Health Research Authority as an expert member and  National Research Ethics Committee Chair. He is Deputy Director for research at Barts Health NHS Trust and QMUL. He has been recognised as leading Principal investigator by NIHR.

 

 

Dr Ryan McNally

Ordinary Member

Ryan McNally is a postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Vascular Risk and Surgery, School of Cardiovascular Medicine and Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine. Ryan's postdoctoral research project was a joint clinical study between King’s College London and the University of Cambridge investigating salt-sensitivity in the pathogenesis of hypertension. He is now conducting research into personalised medicine for hypertension at the King's Health Partners Centre for Translational Medicine and is working as a pharmacist at St. Thomas' Hospital. Ryan is also member of the European Society of Hypertension Young Investigator Committee.