board of trustees

Julian is the Executive Vice Chairman, Global Corporate & Investment Banking at the Bank of America and responsible for key clients globally within the Natural Resources space and senior client relationship across all the sectors in Emea, focusing on Ceemea and the UK. He joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch in 2010 after over two decades at Citigroup.

Julian and his wife Fiona are parents to five children, all of whom were born prematurely at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Two are autistic and one has cerebral palsy.

The Mylchreests were Founding Donors of Borne, and have personally funded and helped grow the music therapy department at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital over several years. Julian is also a member of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Development Board.

Previous trustee roles have included serving as a trustee of the children’s communication charity, I Can, and as a board member of Create, an arts and music charity for the disadvantaged and disabled.

Working in the chairmans office of Crescent Petroleum, on the companies’ business servies, legal matter and serving as a Secretary of the Dana Gas International Advisory Board.

He is a co-investigator on a Medical Research Council (“MRC”) Programme working to develop new molecules to treat inflammatory bowel disease.

Tom received a PhD in immunology from Glasgow in 1976, before completing his post-doc at the Trudeau Institute in upstate New York. Since then he has worked at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia as an Associate Professor, at Merck and Co and at Bart’s Medical College where he was appointed a Wellcome Trust Senior Lecturer, promoted to reader and given a personal chair at the University of London.

In 2000, he headed up the Division of Infection, Inflammation and Repair at Southampton Medical School before returning to Bart’s and The London in 2005 as Professor of Immunology and Dean for Research in the Medical and Dental School. He now has over 400 publications, mostly on how inappropriate immune reactions cause disease in the human gut. His h-index is 86 with almost 26,000 citations. He was awarded FRCPath in 1995 and FMedSci in 2002 and elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2002. In 2008, he received the President’s Medal from the British Society of Gastroenterology.

Tom’s notable achievements include identifying that T cells cause coeliac disease and Crohn’s disease; the role of TNF-alpha in Irritable Bowel Disease; developing ModulenIBD to treat pediatric Crohn’s disease; and identifying the critical role of Smad7 in chronic inflammation in Crohn’s disease. Additionally, he was a former associate editor of Gut and Gastroenterology and the IBD journal. He has served on many grant awarding panels and advisory groups and was a member of the review panel of NC3R’s (2011-16), Action Medical Research (2011-16), was a past member of PSMB at MRC (2007-11) and chaired the MRC non-clinical training panel (2012-16), sat on the MRC training and careers panel ( 2012-16), currently chairs the Mason Medical Foundation Awards panel and also chairs the Kings Health Partners Awards Panel. He currently serves on the oversight group of the EMINENT initiative at MRC.

Visit Tom Macdonald’s page at Queen Mary, University of London.

She holds several business Directorships, and was Director of Conferences at Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, where she was responsible for the firm’s events business.

Charlotte also supports inclusive theatre company, Chickenshed, which brings together children from all abilities and backgrounds to perform inspiring drama.

Charlotte chairs Borne’s Events Committee and is a key driver of support for Borne’s fundraising through a group of dedicated volunteers, many of whom have been touched by the effects of prematurity and want to help raise funds for future generations of families.

Charlotte and her husband Andrew actively support Borne as an expression of sincere gratitude to Professor Mark Johnson, who made a profound difference to their son’s premature start in life. It is their wish to ensure that many more mothers, babies and their families could benefit from the vital research led by Mark to prevent preterm birth.

She advises clients on board succession and development, working with quoted, private and private equity backed companies. Hetty joined Russell Reynolds in 2004, having previously worked at Whitehead Mann (now part of Korn Ferry) as a Consultant in their Board Practice, leading executive and non-executive director search projects.Hetty received her M.A. in modern history from Brasenose College, Oxford University.

Hetty and her husband Nick are longstanding supporters of Borne’s quest to understand and prevent preterm birth. They live in London with their two children who were born prematurely. Their lives were touched by tragedy with the stillbirth of Freddie at 37 weeks. Nick climbed Mount Kilimanjaro as a member of Borne’s challenge team in 2015.

Francesco began his career with Citi in 1983, and has held many senior roles with the group including Global Co-Head for Mergers and Acquisitions, Country Corporate Officer for Spain, Chairman and CEO of Citibank International plc, and CEO of Citi Transaction Services.

Francesco serves on the Boards of the Citi Foundation, CitiFinancial Credit Company, Associates First Capital Corporation, PEFCO (Private Export Funding Corporation), Mapfre International S.A. and Business in the Community (BiTC), where he is the Vice Chair of BiTC’s International Leadership Team. In addition, Francesco serves on the International Advisory Board of IESE, the Advisory Council for The Kogod School of Business at American University and the Advisory Board of the Vatican Foundation Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice. He is the Chairman of Junior Achievement Worldwide, a member of its Board of Governors, and a Board member of Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise Europe.

Francesco is a finance graduate of the American University in Washington, D.C., where he received the Stanley I. Posner Award as the graduating senior with the highest overall academic average. He obtained his M.B.A. in finance and international business from Columbia University in 1983. 

We benefit from Francesco’s extensive financial knowledge, ideas and experience. He injects passion to the cause and continues to challenge us to raise the bar on our ambition. Francesco and his wife Charlotte are Founding Donors of Borne and have two growing girls.