Our People
Emma Bates, Founder
The driving force behind Maria’s Movement, Emma is passionate about staff wellbeing, leadership development, research and innovation, preventative and integrated care, support for unpaid carers, and advancing End of Life Care (EoLC) services.
As a Staff & Patient Associate for the NHS Leadership Academy, Emma is committed to sharing her lived experience to foster growth and improvement across health and social care. She has spoken at several regional and national forums, including National Safeguarding Week 2024, and the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Senior Leadership Apprenticeship Programme.
Inspired by her mother and her personal experience, Emma and team officially launched Maria’s Movement at NHSConfedExpo 2025, with the ambition of sparking systemic change.
She finds balance through music, an active lifestyle, connecting with people and nature, and, of course, keeping her cupboard well-stocked with dark chocolate.
Liza Collins, MA FRSA, Co-founder
Liza is an Executive Leadership Coach with over 25 years of experience leading transformation and building healthy, high-performing teams in the NHS.
A researcher and author, Liza wrote The NHS: Can It Create a Harassment-Free Environment and Non-Bullying Culture? (2002).
Her work is trauma-informed, and she is passionate about creating compassionate cultures and human-centred processes where all staff can thrive—directly impacting their ability to deliver high-quality patient care.
Andy Wilkins, Co-founder
Andy is a UK futurist, speaker, podcaster and founder of FUTURE OF HEALTH – a new think tank and systems convener exploring the long term vision for holistic health in a technology enabled 21st century.
Through the lens of human-centred value creation Andy has undertaken many research, innovation and strategy projects across Health and Care. This includes authoring high profile reports for the UK’s NHS and policy makers on whole systems approaches to the future of Health.
Andy is now on a mission to bring long term visionary thinking to the much needed transformation of health both here in the UK and worldwide. Most recently he has been working closely with Suffolk and NE Essex ICS to bring a new futures based approach to whole systems working as part of their Future Shift programme.
Andy has designed and pioneered Imperial College’s Executive Education flagship course on Leading Systemic Innovation in Healthcare and is a visiting lecturer on Public Health at UCL.