Meet our Advisory Board - Salma Yasmeen

At Huddersfield Business School, we’re passionate about providing our students with inspirational and innovative industry knowledge to enhance their learning experience. Huddersfield Business School’s Advisory Board plays a crucial role in supporting this by guiding the school with industry recommendations, curriculum development, research and general advice about directions and trends from their industry. 

Our Advisory Board is made up of leading industry experts who hold various senior positions within businesses and the public sector. The Advisory Board aims to strengthen our school’s links with industry and professions to provide input into the academic and strategic direction of Huddersfield Business School. 

As part of our ‘Meet the Advisory Board’ feature, you’ll be introduced to all our Board members here at Huddersfield Business School and learn how their professions and networks have impacted the school’s strategic direction. 

In our fifth blog, you’ll meet Salma Yasmeen - CEO of Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust. Salma brings a wealth of knowledge of health and care systems and leads innovation and change across organisations where people are at the centre.

Please can you tell us a bit about yourself? 

I’m Yorkshire born and raised. Huddersfield is a place that I feel deeply connected to and lived in, probably most of my life. It’s where I did my training to become a mental health nurse - that’s where my whole career journey started. Growing up as a minority in a community that wasn’t very ethnically diverse at the time came with its challenges, but I like to draw on the positives of how that experience has enabled me to work with difference and diversity in a really positive and constructive way. Family is at the centre of my life, and this remains important to me in terms of what I do.

Working in the health and care sector I’ve had an incredibly rich, diverse, and varied career journey. I had the privilege of stepping out of the NHS for several years to work on the development of a charity that tested out new and innovative ways of engaging people from different, diverse communities around mental health and wellbeing. Equally, I've had the privilege of leading two large whole-scale system change programmes, one in Yorkshire and one in London. I then went back into my passion for mental health as the Deputy Director at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and worked with the Professor who had written the Dementia Strategy, a policy that's quite close to my heart. I then worked in the Middle East for six and a half years as Director of Nursing and Transformation in the largest medical city in Saudi Arabia

Returning to Yorkshire in 2017, I was delighted to have been offered the post of Director of Strategy and Change at Southwest Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. This July, I took up the role of Chief Executive of Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust. My values are something I've constantly drawn on right through my life personally and professionally to help me navigate challenges and change and to help me think about what matters to me most. But fundamentally, I would say it really is the greatest privilege of my career today to have this new opportunity to lead an organisation, to lead people and to make an even bigger difference in a city where some of the disparities and inequalities are stark from one side of the city to another. 

What made you want to join Huddersfield Business School’s Advisory Board?  

The main reason I joined was because I'd got to the point in my career where I wanted to give back, especially to my community. I recognised my privilege and I thought, what better way to do that than being part of an institution where it all started for me, at the heart of the community where I grew up and was born and trained as a mental health nurse. I also thought what a privilege to have the opportunity to work with wonderful people like Dr. Steven Michael (who was the chair of the Advisory Board at the time), Professor Jill Johnes, and Professor Liz Towns-Andrews, and meet more people from other sectors and contribute to the university.

Working as a collective Advisory Board the difference we can make, and the knowledge and insights we can bring to Huddersfield Business School and the university are huge - we can influence and shape what Huddersfield Business School and the university does.

What impact do you think you can have on Huddersfield Business School's Advisory Board and what are your strengths? 

My knowledge of the public health sector can help Huddersfield Business School to understand the health and care landscape. The changing and shifting landscapes of strategic developments in health and care and the opportunities the university has to capitalise and align the work they do to not just act locally but also think globally. I am also able to bring insights and knowledge of both challenges and opportunities in public service that the University and Huddersfield Business School can help address.

What contributions have you made to the Advisory Board or Huddersfield Business School?

I was recently able to work with Professor Liz Towns-Andrews and Dr Steven Michael to help shape some of the thinking of the new Health Innovation campus, particularly around mental health, inequalities in our communities and the broader wellbeing agenda and the links with inclusive economy and economic growth in our region.

I’ve also supported the school to create better links with local voluntary and community sector organisations to benefit from the brilliant Help to Grow Management programme which is all about growing businesses and supporting local businesses to grow. It’s also about helping businesses find pathways to meaningful work activity and productivity in the local economy.

I also was able to support Huddersfield Business School to link in and capitalise on opportunities for research and funding. When Huddersfield Business School was developing the sustainability strategy I contributed and helped shape the components around addressing health inequalities and inclusion and supporting the sense of wellbeing of the diverse student population in Huddersfield Business School, given the number of international students the school has as well as focus on local communities. 

I’ve also been a speaker at one of Huddersfield Business School’s key business networking events in Partnership with Huddersfield Giants. I spoke about the topic of Mentality to Success. I’ve also presented to some post-graduate international students.

How do you think the Advisory Board can influence Huddersfield Business School’s curriculum and the student experience?

One is to ensure that the curriculum reflects and responds to, not just the current real-world challenges of businesses and the public sector, but also prepares the workforce for the digital future and to prepare the current and future workforce to deal with complexity and the significant challenges we face across industries and sectors to evolve, change and adapt is enormously important.

Another way is to address inequalities and harness the power of the communities that the university is located in drawing in people from a larger population as well as reaching global countries. Developing skills and preparing people for the workplace and to help connect people to their purpose and passion is something that the School is doing through a rich curriculum that includes creative approaches and supported links to work placements.

A final point, the university is a big anchor institution and a key partner that plays a key role in supporting a whole range of big agendas in the town, region and beyond.