Building Trust - Introducing Anita Pisani, Deputy CEO of our new Group

In this special audio interview, Tom meets Anita Pisani, currently Deputy CEO and Director of Workforce at Cambridgeshire Community Services, and from 1 April 2025 Group Deputy CEO and Chief People Officer for our new group.

Transcript

Handing over to Tom now, who recently spoke with Anita Pisani from Cambridgeshire Community Trust to find out more about her, her role, and her hopes for the future of the group model.

Hi, everyone.

Tom from the NCH&C Communications team here.

I'm with Anita Pisani, who is Deputy CEO and Director of Workforce at Cambridgeshire Community Services.

And from the 1st of April, we'll be Deputy CEO and Chief People Officer as part of the group board that will lead the new Community Health and Care Group, which is formally established on that date.

Anita's kindly agreed to answer a few questions, which we'll be asking all members of the new group board executive team over the coming weeks as a way of getting to know them and their roles a bit better as our two trusts come together.

So, Anita, hi.

Hello there.

Could you please introduce yourself and tell us what brings you to NCH&C today?

Okay.

So, hi there.

I'm Anita Pisani.

As Tom said, I'm currently Deputy Chief Exec and Workforce Director within CCS.

And I'm over in the Norfolk Locality today because I was meeting with our mental health support teams in North Walsham.

And then I've just caught up with Liz Cook, who is your Director of HR.

And then I'm going to be moving on in about an hour's time to get involved in our group conversation for the development of what we're creating in April.

Busy, busy.

Busy, busy today.

Fantastic.

Could you tell us a bit about those two roles that you're doing currently?

Yes.

So I've been doing the role within CCS for the last 12 and a half years, time flies.

And the sorts of things that I get involved in is I lead everything people.

So your human resources, workforce, training and education, multi-professional education, workforce planning, workforce information.

So anything that relates to creating a fabulous place to work and paying attention to all of the people, things that we need to pay attention to.

I also am the lead exec for our Bedfordshire and Luton Community Adult Services.

And I've been doing the leading on behalf of the board on strategy and business development as well.

And I've been doing the deputy chief exec role for the whole time I've been at CCS.

So that's also covering for Matthew in whatever I need to cover for Matthew across our patch.

And so you've been at CCS for 12 years.

What would you love about working there?

I just love the services that we provide, the people we work with.

I'm really passionate about making sure we create the best working environment for our people, which then, as we know, enables them to provide the fab services for our customers, patient service users.

I love the variety.

I love the diversity.

I really enjoy working across many different systems because it gets you involved with lots of different organizations.

And we've worked across Bedfordshire Luton, Milton Keynes, Cambridge and Peterborough.

And obviously we do also work across Norfolk and Waverley as well.

Great.

What were you doing before you joined CCS?

So I was Director of Workforce and OD at Hinchinbrook Health Care NHS Trust, a small district general hospital within the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough locality.

And I was there for, I think, three years.

And I was involved in some of the transfer of the services into Circle, which was the first franchise within the NHS.

And I got lots of learning from that.

And then I moved in to CCS.

Great.

What are you excited about learning and being part of once the group is fully formed?

So I think really creating a really large, vibrant community trust.

It's going to help us influence things locally, regionally, nationally.

I'm looking forward to meeting lots of new people.

I'm looking forward to getting to know and understand all of the services across Norfolk community, getting to know all of the people, and bringing together the best of the things that we do currently, which has been part of my conversation that I was just having with Liz, is, you know, we all do great things already.

Let's get the best of those two things and create something even better.

Great.

Yeah, definitely.

And if it's not too abstract a question, what are your hopes for the new role?

Hopes for the new role.

So that I keep learning.

Is this on a personal basis, Dawn?

Yeah.

So I think for me, as I continue to learn, I continue to be stretched and challenged in my thinking, in the way that I operate.

I get to know, as I said earlier, lots of new people.

I like working with people.

As you get to know me, you'll hear me say many times, always good to talk.

I'm certainly somebody who thinks there's always a solution to something.

We might not just actually see it now.

So I look forward to having those sort of troubleshooting, problem-solving type conversations with colleagues across the group.

Really making sure we make the most of our regional and national voice for community services, and make sure we do influence the sort of future plans that the government are pulling together now for the 10-year plan for the NHS.

Yeah, brilliant.

Okay, lovely.

Away from work, what do you enjoy doing in your time off?

Quite a lot of things.

So I'm quite sociable, as you've probably picked up already.

I love live music, so you'll hear me quite often talk about going to gigs.

I've been very fortunate to get Glastonbury tickets for this year.

I have been before, and it was an amazing experience.

I'm looking forward to that.

I love travelling, and I love spending time with friends and family.

Oh, and also I'm an avid Liverpool supporter.

I must mention that, as we are top of the league at the moment.

Noted.

Can you tell us a little bit about your connections at home, partner, children, pets?

Yes, yeah, I have all three.

So I'm married to Justin, and this year I would have been married 33 years, which is a bit scary, isn't it?

So, and I have two children, I have two beautiful daughters, Anna and Daniela.

They're 24 and 26.

And I have two dogs, and I have two boy cockapoos, Bertie and Bobby.

And again, for those of you who knew me six years ago, you'd be surprised that I love my dogs as much as I do, because I wasn't really a dog person, but they are absolutely amazing.

Excellent.

Thanks Anita.

Well, it was really good to speak to you, and we'll look forward to speaking to you again soon.

Fab.

Thank you, Tom.

As Tom said there, we'll be speaking to each of the new group directors in the coming weeks, and there'll be plenty of opportunities to get to know them more as we head towards April and beyond.

And you can join us for the next Building Trust staff engagement session on Tuesday, the 18th of February, 2 till 3pm, and Wednesday, 19th of March, from 4 till 5pm.