Susan Monroe

Goals: "Go everywhere. Do everything. Write about it"

Susan was appointed CEO of Freedom from Torture in September of 2014 and is responsible for over 350 staff and volunteers, working together to provide rehabilitative services to survivors of torture from our treatment centres in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle. Susan has a wealth of experience working on behalf of vulnerable people, with previous roles. She was previously Director of the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, a Director of Nursing and Patient Services at Marie Curie Cancer Care, and worked as a nurse with VSO in Uganda. After four more years as a ward sister and a year as a community liaison officer she has held a number of service management posts in the health sector.

Freedom from Torture has been the UK's leading treatment and rehabilitation charity for torture survivors since 1985. It provides clinical services throughout the UK to more than a 1,000 survivors of torture, as well as legal and welfare advice, and works to hold states that perpetrate torture accountable internationally. For example its latest report Rape as Torture in the DRC: Sexual Violence Beyond the Conflict Zone uses Freedom from Torture's doctors' evidence to expose the use of rape and sexual violence to punish women political activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Previously Ms Munroe was Director at the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust and Director of Nursing and Patient Services at Marie Curie Cancer Care, and has worked as a nurse with VSO in Uganda. She has also served as a Trustee of Freedom from Torture . Ms. Munroe was until recently a Trustee for the charity. She applied in an open competition for the post and was successful after an appointment process that involved meeting service users, and two interviews. She replaces Keith Best who retired from the post of Freedom from Torture CEO in June. Andy Keefe, Director of National Clinical Services, is the Responsible Director pending Ms Munroe's start in post in September."