School of Business
Cheryl Davenport
Originally an NHS General Management Trainee and an NHS Business Manager in hospitals in Norfolk, Derbyshire and Tyne & Wear, Cheryl went on to become a healthcare consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and then worked abroad, as the Executive Director for the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. On returning to the UK, she was appointed to NHS Board Director roles in the Midlands with portfolios spanning strategy, policy, partnerships, service transformation, and commissioning. As Leicestershire’s Director of Health and Care Integration from 2014 to 2020 she planned and delivered the Better Care Fund, a multiagency health and care integration programme and pooled budget, operating jointly across the NHS, the County Council and seven District Councils.
In May 2020, Cheryl took the helm as Managing Director of the East of England Local Government Association (now Local Government East), a politically led, cross party membership organisation which advocates for the local government sector. Here she supported the leadership teams of the region’s fifty councils through the Covid pandemic, directed regional policy analysis and advocacy programmes for digital connectivity, transport infrastructure, economic growth, climate change and housing, and was the accountable officer for the Regional Strategic Migration Partnership, working with the Home Office on complex policy and programme delivery for asylum seekers and refugees, including the emergency evacuations from Ukraine and Afghanistan.
Having recently retired, she is now a Non-Executive Director at Knowledge Exchange UK and a long-standing member of the Business Advisory Board of the University of Leicester School of Business.
Cheryl has a BA (University of East Anglia) and MA (University of Leicester), both in English Literature, and was appointed an Honorary Professor of Health and Life Sciences at De Montfort University in 2019 in recognition of her role as the Director of Health and Care Integration.