Fiona Calnan is CEO of Santovia, a healthcare technology company that is working to redefine Health Education and patient engagement.
Fiona’s first roles and experience were gained in the financial services sector including as Chief Financial Officer at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson responsible globally for corporate finance and equity capital markets. She remained within the financial services sector until 2005 when an unexpected opportunity arose to take a leading role in a healthcare start up.
UKSH was created in 2005 with no premises or revenue. Starting out as the CFO for the new company, Fiona progressed to CEO in 2007. The first contract was to build, commission and run a surgical facility exclusively to treat government insured patients that would introduce world-leading evidence-based treatments. This first center was rapidly recognized nationally for the quality of its services and for its wider impact driving improvement in the surrounding healthcare economy. Fiona grew UKSH to a revenue of $100m across five centers. It became the leading privately-owned healthcare company in the UK with a reputation for delivering excellent patient outcomes. It also led the way on transparency of healthcare data through the pioneering publication of its outcome data.
In 2011 UKSH was named by Dr Foster Intelligence’s assessment of all English hospitals based on government data, as the best hospital in the country for joint replacement surgery. Fiona was awarded the Best Use of Technology Award 2012 by Laing & Buisson Healthcare and shortlisted for innovation award by the Guardian Newspaper. The organization under her leadership also received awards for excellence in Risk Management and Hospitality. In 2013, UKSH was successfully sold to a competitor.
Fiona completed two terms as a board member and Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee for the Healthcare Sector Skills Council for the UK, Skills for Health. Fiona stepped down last year as Chair of the Finance Committee and as a Trustee of The Kiln Theatre in London (previously known as The Tricycle) after serving 10 years on their board.
