VALIDATE Leadership Transition

The VALIDATE Network started in June 2017, under the Directorship of Professor Helen McShane (University of Oxford, UK). With the recent milestone of our 7th birthday, we would like to announce a transition of leadership within the VALIDATE Network.

At our 2024 Annual Meeting on 16-17 July, Helen will be stepping down from her position as VALIDATE Director, and our current Co-Director, Professor Samantha Sampson (Stellenbosch University, South Africa), will be stepping up to lead VALIDATE as our new Director. Helen will remain very much integral to VALIDATE, staying on as a Co-Director, and we are delighted to announce that Professor Andrea Cooper (University of Leicester, UK) and Dr Maria Adelaida Gomez (CIDEIM, Colombia) will be joining Helen as our new VALIDATE Co-Directors.

As members of our Network Management Board for a number of years, they know VALIDATE deeply, and this is an exciting expansion of our leadership team, bringing widened expertise and experiences, and broadening the shoulders the responsibility for running VALIDATE.

The VALIDATE staff team of Samantha Vermaak (Executive Manager/Co-I), Blakeley Nixon (Comms & Events Coordinator) and Tom Wright (Project Coordinator) will remain ably assisting our new Director and Co-Directors, and of course all of our members, from University of Oxford. They have been joined this June by Dr Sue Fortuin who will be our new VALIDATE Program Manager, based at Stellenbosch University.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Helen McShane for seven fantastic years of leading VALIDATE. Her Directorship has seen VALIDATE grow from a mere idea to an active community of over 750 members based in 312 organizations across 76 countries engaged in a plethora of events and activities and with funding secured to 2027. We are thrilled that Sam Sampson is taking over the mantle of Director, and know that VALIDATE will continue to flourish under her leadership.

You can find more information on VALIDATE's Leadership on our Management Team page. 

Published 22 June 2024