October 2024 - East Cheshire Hospice

Juliette White CBE has swapped one medical world for another

Juliette White CBE has swapped one medical world for another after agreeing to become the next Chair of East Cheshire Hospice.

Her appointment comes four months after she retired from a senior role with AstraZeneca where she spent 34 years.

Juliette is acting as Chair Elect of the charity for 12 months before officially taking over from Will Spinks in September 2025. He steps down after reaching the nine-year limit as a Trustee.

Juliette, from Macclesfield, played an important role in securing the supply of medicines during the pandemic and preparations for leaving the EU.

She was awarded the CBE in 2021 for services to ‘life sciences and the medical supply chain.’

Juliette White CBE, the next Chair of East Cheshire Hospice.

Juliette said: “I’m extremely excited to be joining East Cheshire Hospice which has an incredibly strong reputation.

“There are huge parallels to AZ where I’ve spent my working life. The Hospice is a purpose driven organisation that puts patients and their families at the heart of every decision.

“You can’t spend 34 years of your life working for patient outcomes and then suddenly stop the desire to do the right thing for the most vulnerable in society.

“AZ is a long-standing corporate partner of the Hospice.

“Everything the Hospice does is consistent with what it writes down on paper that it stands for. It lives its values and purpose as an organisation.

“It accelerated the move to Hospice @Home care and has been at the forefront of wanting to innovate and evolve how it provides support to patients and families as society has shifted and changed.”

Juliette and husband Howard have three children, Callum, a veterinary surgeon, Hamish, an engineer, and Holly, a medical student at Leeds University.

Their mum’s career was spent mostly at AZ’s Macclesfield site, apart from a period in the USA.

After starting in HR, she worked mainly in the supply chain, sourcing medicines to patients and managed external commercial supply.

Latterly, she was head of sustainability, focusing on AZ’s net zero strategy.

Juliette said: “I still genuinely believe in AZ’s mission and purpose, though I also recognise that 34 years is a long time and while I’m still relatively young, fit and healthy it’s time to do other things.

“More autonomy means I can get involved with fantastic organisations like the Hospice. It’s a life choice and my No 1 priority is my family and to have more time to be present in their lives as well.”

Juliette was the company’s UK lead during the pandemic

Juliette White CBE describes AstraZeneca’s swift and effective response to Covid as one of the proudest moments of her career.

Juliette was the company’s UK lead during the pandemic.

She said: “We had to keep staff safe as we had people working in labs and factories all the way through, as well as remotely.

“We also had to adapt our safety measures as the virus and science evolved.

Will Spinks who will step down after nine years as a Trustee at East Cheshire Hospice.

“Our priority was protecting employees and patients because we had vulnerable patients with cancer and other illnesses who still needed their supply of drugs.

“We also had to source the supply of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

“It was the proudest I’ve been of anything that we ever did as a collective and as a company.

“The fact we launched the vaccine at no profit through that pandemic phase was also incredible.

“We reached the most vulnerable in society and began to vaccinate them after diagnostic tests and treatments had stopped.”

Juliette’s final role at AZ as head of sustainability also gave her great satisfaction.

She said: “We put values and impact on society at the heart of all our decisions around sustainability.

“We took bold moves and, importantly, encouraged others to up their game.

“As a big household name, you have a responsibility as a company not only to do the right thing and be ambitious for your own goals, but to help raise the games of others and get them to do more than they might have done otherwise.”