Each of the Cerebra management team oversees their own department within the charity.
Chris Jones
CEO
Chris graduated from the University of Wales in Economics and joined the NHS graduate trainee program shortly after. He progressed quickly to the Head of Finance at Bolton Health Authority and from there has gone from strength-to-strength professionally. At the age of 27, Chris became the youngest NHS CEO ever appointed when he joined the health authority in North Tyneside. After leaving the NHS he became CEO of West Wales Training & Enterprise Council and has been CEO of Cerebra since its inception in 2001. Chris has seen the charity develop and progress not only in the income it gains but the support and help that it provides. He is an avid fisherman and golfer with a current handicap of nine.
David Irish
Head of ITC
Father of two teenage sons David has extensive computing experience in the aerospace, medical, oil exploration and educational worlds. His formal qualifications include a BA (Hons) and MA in Philosophy. Following an extensive period of work abroad David joined Cerebra in a consultancy capacity in 1998; before Cerebra itself was formally constituted. He has helped guide the charity from a time when none of its computers were networked to the current national network of regional officers and sleep practitioners. His main professional interests are in database design and in making computers work for non-technical people. He is passionate about enlisting technology in the service of the children and families cared for by Cerebra.
Ralph Nicholls
Head of Finance & Administration
Ralph joined Cerebra in December 2007 in his current position of Head of Finance. He completed a graduate management training scheme with BT in London and it was during this time that he decided to direct his career towards becoming an accountant. After his time at BT he became a lecturer teaching accounting and business studies before following a career path of being an internal auditor. This allowed him the opportunity to travel across the UK gaining considerable experience not just of accounting but meeting and developing people where he could. He has since held a number of positions from financial controller, hospital accountant, corporate accounting analyst, finance director and even managing director. In his limited free time he has many interests and hobbies, his family and two daughters being number one, then watching sport and staying active by going to the gym and running outdoors.
Tracy Elliott
Head of Research & Information
Tracy has been with Cerebra since 2010. Before Cerebra she spent six years working as a regional consultant for Home-Start UK. Prior to that she was a senior lecturer at UWIC Business School where she spent eight years teaching and supervising student research. Her professional background combining family support, voluntary sector management and academia has been incredibly beneficial to her role at Cerebra. In addition she has a daughter with Asperger’s Syndrome so experiences first hand the day-to-day exchanges with service providers, attempts to gain access to suitable interventions and the drive to promote understanding of difference so her daughter can live her life to her full potential. She believes strongly in the benefits of research believing that through innovative and applied research at world class universities, advances in understanding are made. For Tracy, the challenge remains to translate that understanding into policy and practice and improve lives.
