An interview with ...... Mark Carne, Chair of Cornwall Air Ambulance

Cornwall Air Ambulance is called to over 1000 seriously sick or injured people every year in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. When every minute matters, they can be the difference between life and death. April 2020 saw the end of the 2-year fundraising appeal for their new, state of the art helicopter which generated an incredible ￡2.8m!

Having led the appointment of several new Board Trustees in 2018 and 2019, Anna Jay MD of Public Leaders Appointments was tasked with leading the critical appointment of the charities’ new Chair and Mark Carne took the helm in April 2020.

Mark was previously the chief executive of Network Rail; during his tenure Network Rail carried out the biggest programme of capital upgrades to the country’s railway in a hundred years. More than ￡15 billion was invested in huge projects such as the rebuilding of London Bridge and Birmingham New Street stations, and the electrification of hundreds of miles of track.

Here, Anna talks to Mark about his transition to the non-profit sector, how he and the charity have managed through the pandemic and shares some of their ambitions for the future:

What motivated your interest in chairing the Board of Cornwall Air Ambulance?

My roots are in Cornwall but my business life has never been in Cornwall so firstly I wanted to get involved with life in the county, build contacts and give something back locally. Those things were key.

Secondly, I like to do things that matter, that make a difference to people’s lives. I’ve worked in some difficult and challenging places and it was always enormously important to make a difference to people’s lives. For example, when we electrified the railway line between Cardiff and Bristol which quickened the journey by 15 minutes. That meant we were giving people back an extra half hour each day. That’s a huge amount of time with which people can improve their lives and I found that very inspiring. Making a difference with the Air Ambulance is obvious – you save lives with the activity you do.

Thirdly, Cornwall Air Ambulance is an operationally intense, safety critical business. Unlike many other charities it has a very sharp end. I’ve spent a lot of time running businesses such as these so thought it was something I could add value to. I felt I could contribute in terms of strategy and the efficiency with which it’s run.

How has the role you were appointed to pre-COVID-19 compared with the reality of the role because of the pandemic and lockdown?

Because of COVID-19 we went straight into video-conferencing mode for everything – meetings with Board members, one-to-one interviews – all of which were done electronically, but I don’t think that this has materially impacted the way we work; we have adjusted remarkably well.

Much harder, though, has been dealing with the involvement of our amazing community of volunteers who are so critical to Cornwall Air Ambulance. I’ve been to our base and some of our shops only a very few times which has made it difficult to interact with people. And of course, there’s been little point in going anyway because shops have been closed much of the time and most people within our core team are working from home. I’m confident I can build strong links with people quickly once we can get in a room together, so I don’t think it’ll take me long to build links once the coast is clear.

How have you ensured that you have achieved the right balance between strategic oversight vs. getting too involved in the detail?

It is always really important to be clear about the role of the Board and the role of the Executive. In our case, we have some Board members with fantastic experience and they are able to help and support the executive. Obviously the pandemic posed some new significant challenges so we established the three things that would give the Board appropriate oversight during the pandemic;

The Executive did a superb job of setting out our financial strength, our bottom line, given that we were having to shut shops, furlough people and so on.

Secondly, we had a new helicopter and new operational contract. For us that is massive. I am incredibly proud of the fact that the team have managed the operations throughout lockdowns without losing a single operational shift because of COVID-19. And you can imagine that they had to make huge changes to the way they worked to adapt to the new circumstances.

The third thing has been considering, in an exploratory way, how charitable giving and fundraising are going to be different in the future. We need to try and anticipate the way that will happen and consider different areas of fundraising to be successful in the post-COVID-19 world.

COVID19 has increased all charities’ need for funding but has also enforced limitations on the kind of fundraising activities that can take place in what was already a challenging financial environment. How do you plan to address this?

We have not been able to rely on the physical events to the extent that we have done in the past, however, we have had great success with some digital events. An example was our on-line carol service and a series of events called the Twelve Days of Christmas. Our team are incredibly inventive and have started to adapt to the new reality very quickly. It is all very exciting!

Do you see any positives coming out of the pandemic – new opportunities for example, or initiatives that have been driven forward more quickly because of the lockdown.

We’re looking at whether we harness the strength of the brand well enough. Our holiday cottage near the base has 50 weeks occupancy, which is pretty impressive, because people want a tour of the Air Ambulance and to see the helicopter. That popularity reflects the strength of our brand. And with people working from home, we don’t use as much office space at the airbase as we planned and could instead welcome more visitors on site to help educate people about what we do and be somewhere they can see the crew running out. That is something that we will consider and evaluate in the coming months.

The other area we are very keen on exploring is the way we use our retail presence. Many of those who visit our shops are the same people, who come not just to buy something but to have a place to go, an hour out in the day. Our staff believe that we could offer these loyal customers more. So can we add to that? One possibility is providing community space in our shops that other groups can use and another is a coffee shop. Both are exciting ‘community-glue’ opportunities which will help us build and support the brand.

We are excited by the challenge to adapt and innovate. The marketplace is changing in ways we can’t fully anticipate and COVID-19 is accelerating that. We need to be prepared to experiment and move on, learning as we go what society now wants from a charity like us. The operation behind our shops and the way we use our volunteers is phenomenal, but we have the opportunity to do more with them.

We won’t be judging experiments like that in just monetary terms, though. Instead, the aim will be to provide a community-based service. We can afford now to think more broadly than just being an air ambulance. Cornwall is already the poorest county in the country and I think it lacks community cohesion in some areas. We could help with that, although it won’t become a distraction from our core purpose.

Personal contact is going to be important coming out of the pandemic. How will you manage that?

People are very understanding and sympathetic about the use and limitations of Zoom calls, because people’s expectations have been reset.

But a Zoom call can never replace experiencing what your teams are going through as part of their job. And that’s important to me as I can talk about their world with authenticity. 

Have your learnt anything about yourself, about people in general or about crisis management since you joined Cornwall Air Ambulance?

Yes. I didn’t realise how much personal energy I get from human interaction. I find it harder to be motivated without that interaction, so I’ve had to consciously compensate for the lack of it. I’m a human-orientated leader. I have a reputation for getting out and talking to people, which is very motivating to me. That’s not to say I’m not motivated, but it has made it harder.

On the positive side, the depth of talent in a diverse Board has been a real joy to me. The effort that very busy Board members have been prepared to put in has been incredibly encouraging. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to see how they’ve stepped up and how they’ve responded to the focus I’ve wanted to bring in. That’s been not so much personal learning but observational learning.

Public Leaders Appointments offers Executive Recruitment and Interim Management consultancy solutions, predominantly across the public and not-for-profit sectors. We provide bespoke services to support organisational change and growth, advising on and leading senior and Board level appointments.

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To find out more about the critical services provided by Cornwall Air Ambulance: