Harry Johns and Jeremy Hughes elected as Chair and Vice-Chair

The World Dementia Council reviews its membership once a year. This year, we also held a process to elect a new Chair and Vice-Chair to succeed, respectively, Yves Joanette and Raj Long, who have announced that they will step down for these appointments in Spring 2018. 

The appointments of seven of the Council’s Full Members were due to end in Spring 2018. All seven have been re-appointed and will continue to serve as members for a further three years.

At the same time, Alzheimer’s Disease International will join as a new Associate Member. This category of member nominates a representative to the Council. ADI’s representative will be its CEO, Paola Barbarino.

Current Full Members Harry Johns and Jeremy Hughes have been elected, respectively, as the new Chair and Vice-Chair.

Yves Joanette said, “Raj and I were privileged to take over the baton of leading the Council from Dennis Gillings when he stepped down as its first-ever Chair in February 2016. This was a key time because it was the beginning of the Council’s independent existence, having previously been created and managed by the UK Department of Health following the G8 Dementia Summit hosted by the UK in December 2013. As the inaugural Chair and Vice-Chair of the independent Council, we are proud of the progress and achievements that have been made in the past two years. We are deeply grateful to all the Full and Associate members for their support and effort. We look forward to working with Harry and Jeremy in the coming months to ensure a smooth transition in the Council’s leadership when they take up the baton next Spring.”

Harry Johns said. “I am excited to be elected as incoming Chair and to work with Jeremy Hughes as Vice-Chair in the next phase of the Council’s development. We, and the Council as a whole, hugely appreciate Yves’ and Raj’s extraordinary dedication and tireless energy in leading the Council through its evolution as an independent organisation. We now stand on firm foundations that Jeremy and I will build on with the membership. As a Full Member of the Council since its early days in 2014, I’ve experienced the commitment, knowledge and capability of our members, and the Council’s ability to produce outputs that can affect outcomes for people with dementia. We look forward to harnessing these assets and working with all our members and the wider stakeholder community to tackle the global challenge of dementia with ever more vigour.”