Chief Executive, Healthy Brains Global Initiative (HBGI)

HBGI work internationally (currently in the USA, Africa, Europe and India), transforming and building high-performing mental health services and systems that maximize outcomes for individuals and their communities. They provide hands-on technical support in contracting, performance management and user-centred service design. They also contract new programs in partnership with service providers and funders, using a contracting model that links payments to outcomes, as opposed to reimbursing costs for inputs. They were founded in 2020 with the support of the WHO, World Bank and UNICEF, and are funded by donors, institutions and governments. 

Last year, HBGI was asked to review the performance and contracting of Full Service Partnerships in California. They are currently working with a number of counties and providers to develop a new approach to performance management. 

Richard has been leading the transformation of services, shifting them to focus on performance and outcomes, for 25 years. Between 2000 and 2012, he ran for-profit organisations delivering outcomes contracts in the UK, assisting over 1 million vulnerable people. He then worked as a World Bank Senior Consultant, including moving health services in Afghanistan to performance-based contracts and significantly improving health outcomes, and connecting refugees with jobs in Ethiopia. He was a Senior Advisor at the Global Fund (TB, HIV and malaria), where he demonstrated how better contracting could minimize waste and increase impact. 

Richard has been the Chair of ten Social Impact Bonds (a type of outcomes contract backed by social investment), targeting homelessness, mental health, school exclusion, and refugee integration. He is currently the Chair of a Development Impact Bond in Palestine and on the Advisory Board of a new SIB in South Africa, both addressing youth unemployment. 

He studied Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Oxford.