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Carol Ramsey
Carol Ramsey took up the post of Director of Strategic Planning Division in December 2015 in Department for Infrastructure. She is a chartered Town Planner with over 33 years experience working in both the private and public sector, including posts in the NIHE, the former DOE Planning Service and in Belfast Regeneration Directorate in what was then the Department for Social Development.
During her tenure in DSD Carol notably was responsible for spearheading the comprehensive redevelopment scheme at Victoria Square in Belfast City Centre. She was also responsible for drafting and implementing Regeneration Policy in Belfast City Centre over a 13 year period.
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Danny McQuillan
Danny joined Start 360 as CEO in October 2022. Start 360 is an innovative contributor of support services to young people and adults at risk, including their families, across Northern Ireland. Start 360 provides a range of services and interventions targeting the health, justice and employability needs of our service users. Danny was previously CEO of Social Justice charity Extern and CEO of Positive Life - Northern Ireland's only voluntary sector organisation providing dedicated support to all people affected by HIV. Prior to leading Positive Life his roles included Head of Development for the Multiple Sclerosis Society NI and Area Manager with the Alzheimer’s Society.
For 30 years Danny has worked in the community and voluntary sector holding a variety of positions both voluntarily and in paid capacities. In his current role, Danny draws on his areas of expertise which include service development and delivery, service commissioning and quality assurance, policy development, public relations, fundraising and social media development. He has considerable experience of delivering services to people affected by homelessness, Mental ill health, Refugees, individuals engaged with the criminal justice system, living, and affected by dementia, older people services, training and employment services and services for young people and young adults.
Danny is an enthusiastic believer in the positive impact of the community and voluntary sector and is particularly interested in getting young people interested in politics.
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Dr Elizabeth Mitchell
As a medical practitioner, Dr Mitchell's career in public health spanned over 30 years and covered all three domains of public health. She was Deputy Chief Medical Officer (Public Health), DHSSPS, until January 2014 when she was appointed to the Institute of Public Health in Ireland (IPH), initially as a Consultant in Public Health Medicine, and from March to November 2016 as Interim Chief Executive. she retired in November 2016 but came out for retirement during the COVID pandemic to work as the Director of the NI Contact Tracing Service.
Elizabeth is a trustee on the Management Council of Camphill Community Glencraig.
Elizabeth graduated with Second Class Honours from Queen's University Belfast in 1980. She is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh) and a Member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, of the Royal College of Physicians Ireland.
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Alistair Beggs
Alistair Beggs was appointed Director of Strategic Planning, Department for Infrastructure. in February 2018, and his Directorate is responsible for processing planning applications deemed to be of regional significance or those which may be ‘called in’ from the local councils. In addition, the Directorate carries out a plan scrutiny role as part of the two-tier planning system and oversees the regeneration of both Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast and the former barracks at St Lucia, Omagh.
A graduate of Dundee University, Alistair is a Chartered Town Planner with 30 years’ experience working in a wide range of planning posts, including 13 years with the Planning Appeals and Water Appeals Commissions. Prior to that he worked with Dundee City Council, Angus Council and Fife Council. Alistair is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Northern Ireland Executive committee.
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Professor Ruth Hunter
Professor, Centre for Public Health, Queen’s University Belfast, Ruth’s work primarily involves investigating how we can improve our urban environment for better population health, including evaluation of natural experiments (such as large-scale urban regeneration programmes).
Ruth has particular expertise in the application of systems-thinking and complexity science methods. She has secured research grants from the NIHR, MRC, ESRC and GCRF-British Council.
Ruth is a member of the Public Health Research funding panel for the NIHR and recently held a Career Development Fellowship from the NIHR on public health interventions for health behaviour change.
She is a member of the WHO expert panel on urban green space interventions, Non Communicable Disease prevention, Health and the SDGs and other aspects of urban environment and health, and an executive board member for WHO Belfast Healthy Cities.
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Michael Boyd, Chair
Michael Boyd works at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in a Senior Engagement and Communications role leading on Sport and Human Rights, Business and Human Rights, Climate Change and Human Rights, and international relations with the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions.
Michael is a volunteer Board member of the charity Street Soccer NI that uses sport as a hook to help homeless and disadvantaged people. Michael previously worked for the Irish FA for more than twenty years where he was part of the senior leadership team for sixteen years. His Football For All campaign is credited with transforming NI football, making the sport more fun, safe and inclusive. In 2016 Michael set up the Irish FA Foundation, a charity with a focus on how sport can promote:
- Peace and Reconciliation
- Crime Prevention
- Positive Mental Health
- Employability and Education
Michael has set up numerous multi-sport programmes which use sport to help empower young people and promote positive mental health. In 2018 Michael received the prestigious Ulster University Outstanding Graduate of the Year Award for his services to sport and community relations across Northern Ireland. Michael has a wealth of experience working in the Sport sector, Charity sector, Business sector and promoting Human Rights both here in NI and internationally. His main areas of expertise include developing strategy, international relations, sport and community development.
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Professor Ian Montgomery, Treasurer
Ian Montgomery is Professor of Design and Director of Brexit & Sustainability at Ulster University. Previously he was a member of the University’s Senior Leadership Team and Pro Vice Chancellor for Global Engagement following a Deanship of the Faculty of Art, Design and the Built Environment. He is Ulster University’s representative on Belfast Healthy Cities.
He was previously Head of the School of Art and Design and Director of the Research Institute for Art and Design at Ulster University. His main research interests are in the areas of design theory, knowledge transfer, and design perception and has supervised PhD students across and beyond the art and design disciplines.
Ian obtained his first degree in Design and following a period in industry, a DPhil in Design while working as an academic on Ulster University’s Belfast campus.
Ian completed two terms on the Board of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He was a Management Board member of the Higher Education Academy’s Art Design and Media Subject Centre and a member of the Executive Committee of the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD). He also served on the British Council’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee and its Going Global Steering Committee.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of the International Society of Typographic Designers and the Design Research Society. Ian has been Chief External Examiner, external examiner and chaired international panels in the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe, Mauritius, and the Far East and has established numerous international academic partnerships in the US, the Middle East, China, Hong Kong and Europe. He was awarded an Individual Excellence Award by the Chinese Cultural Confucius Awarding Body and holds an Honorary Professorship from Hubei Normal University, Huangshi (China). He is currently a Board Member of two Northern Ireland grammar schools.
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Linda Armitage, Vice Chair
Linda has 36 years of community development experience and 14 of these years have been dedicated to health improvement, health promotion and early intervention, in local neighbourhoods using a community development approach.
Linda’s current role as Health Development Director at East Belfast Community Development Agency, is to manage the Health Development Unit. To play a key role in supporting East Belfast communities via multi-agency and community partnership working, to achieve and fully implement the East Belfast Health Framework which contains the following themes: Healthy Hearts, Healthy Minds, Healthy Relationships, Healthy Bodies and Healthy Neighbourhoods.
Linda is also an active member of the Belfast Local Commissioning Group and brings a community sector perspective to this work.
The past 3 decades of leadership development has provided Linda with a continuous learning curve on how to lead in different ways with all ages and situations. Her career to date has included many great opportunities to implement community development values in local communities in NI, England and USA. These roles have included play development, family support, social justice, restorative work, youth and community work and health development.
She has a BA in Youth and Community Work and Applied Theology, ILM level 7 Leadership and Management and Level 5 Chartered Management Certificate. Linda is also a qualified coach with ILM Level 5 Mentoring and a member of the Association for Coaching.
Linda is an outgoing people-person, who embraces life optimistically, listens well, is creative and organized. Reading, art, appreciation of the outdoors, family, food and friends, laughter and adventure, are all important in her life equation.
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Dr Lizzy Pinkerton
Dr Lizzy Pinkerton works for the Belfast Hills Partnership and as Scheme Manager oversees day to day operations of the organisation along with developing plans and securing funding for new programmes of work.
Lizzy graduated from Queen's University Belfast with a degree in Environmental Biology and a PhD in Plant Science. She has worked within the Northern Ireland Environmental sector since 2005 and is a Board Member of Northern Ireland Environment Link.
Lizzy has a particular interest in increasing community engagement in local green spaces as a means of improving health & wellbeing as well as biodiversity/habitat improvements and climate mitigation measures which make up part of the vision for Greening the City.
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John Tully
John Tully is Director of City and Organisational Strategy at Belfast City Council, with responsibility for overall coordination and portfolio management of Belfast’s city strategy “The Belfast Agenda”.
John is also responsible for the Council’s Climate Team, Strategy & Policy, Performance Management and Continuous Improvement / Service Design.
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