Benenden Health appoints Chief People Officer
Mike Hay joins the private healthcare provider, bringing significant financial, healthcare and mutual experience.
06 March 2025, by Megan Anderson.
Not-for-profit, affordable healthcare provider Benenden Health has appointed Mike Hay as its Chief People Officer, following a six-month 'interim' period in-role.
Hay will join the affordable healthcare provider from the complementary financial and mutual sector, having held the role of Chief People Officer at Saffron Building Society, Human Resources Director at Nationwide Building Society, Associate Partner at AON and Director at Deloitte where he focused on supporting the healthcare sector, including the NHS.
Hay will focus on people strategy, ensuring Benenden Health has the right workforce to support its members and foster a positive, inclusive culture with wellbeing at its heart. He will also be instrumental in supporting Benenden Health’s digital transformation rollout from a people perspective, helping employees adopt AI and other new technologies into HR and wider business systems.
Benenden Health is one of York's key employers, employing almost 500 people in its Holgate Park Drive headquarters and partnering with other key institutions such as York College for its apprenticeship scheme.
Benenden Health employees work to provide its 880,000+ members with services such as its 24/7 GP Helpline, 24/7 Mental Health Helpline, Care Planning & Social Care Advice Service, as well as its Medical Diagnostics, Medical Treatment and Cancer Support Services.
Commenting on his permanent appointment, Hay states, "I'm delighted to have been permanently appointed in my role at Benenden Health, and I'm enthusiastic about not only the direction the organisation is moving in, but also being so closely part of the development of talent here."
"The employees at Benenden Health have shown me in such a small amount of time that they are experts in their field, and they use this expertise to benefit our membership during a wavering time in the healthcare sector. The team at Benenden Health has also proven to be just as dedicated to the wellbeing of each other. We recently celebrated a 31% uplift in DE&I awareness internally, and in 2024, fundraised the most amount for local charities than we have in previous years of running our CSR. All of these things and more show an engaged and empathic workforce."
Chief Executive Officer, Tom Woolgrove adds, "Mike has been a great asset to Benenden Health’s Executive team since he joined in October last year and I’m very pleased he is now a permanent member of the team.
"Mike has wasted no time in leading in employee engagement activities, learning and development initiatives and being a positive advocate for maintaining a DE&I culture in our workplace, and in our thought leadership activity."