Mahmud Nawaz’s journey into public service didn’t start with a job title. It started with a conversation, and a decision that went on to save four lives.
Today, Mahmud is Chair of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He also serves as a Non Executive Director at Westfield Health, and as an NHS Blood & Transplant Organ Donation Ambassador.
In this ImpactExpert QT, Mahmud reflects on the lived experience that shaped his path into public service, and what leadership looks like when your job is to listen, learn from the frontline, and make decisions that affect lives at scale.
Key Takeaways:
- Real impact isn’t impressions, it’s what someone does next.
- Organ donation decisions and conversations protect the people you love, because they’ll be the ones asked
- At scale, averages lie – you need to get out to the frontline and understand variation.
- Great ideas will eventually land when the context is right, even if your name isn’t on them.
- The Chair role isn’t status: it’s about driving belonging, because you need every bit of the jigsaw.
Tell me a little bit more about yourself, what you do and the journey that you’ve been on to get there.
My name is Mahmud Nawaz, and my story starts back in 2004 when I was working full time for Halifax Bank of Scotland, now Lloyds Banking Group. I’d moved up from London to Yorkshire with my wife Sharon, who in March 2004 died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage. I spent 36 hours at Bradford Royal Infirmary before the news was confirmed, but Sharon had spoken to me in advance about organ donation – so when I was asked, I said yes to respect her wishes. She went on to save four lives, including a little boy of one and a half who wouldn’t have made it to two without the smaller part of her liver.
That experience shaped everything that came next. From the get go, I’ve shared my story with NHS Blood and Transplant to encourage people to have the conversation about organ donation and tell their loved ones what they want – because your loved ones are the ones who will be asked, and if they say no, organ donation won’t happen.
Today, I’m Chair of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals (20,000 staff, £1.8bn budget), a Non Executive Director at Westfield Health, on the board for the British Transplant Games coming to Sheffield in August 2026, and I continue my work as an NHS Blood and Transplant ambassador – encouraging people to make a decision, tell their family, and record it on the organ donor register.
What was one of the best roles you’ve ever had and why?
One of the best roles I’ve had is probably the one I’m in now – being Chair of an NHS trust. At Sheffield Teaching Hospitals we’re talking about huge scale: 20,000 staff, a £1.8bn budget, around two million patient visits a year, and a catchment area of at least two million people.
That scale means you can make a difference to people’s lives in a tangible way every single day – not just for patients, but for colleagues too. And it’s not only about healthcare: we’re also a major employer, and the impact we can have in the local economy is huge.
Every day I feel privileged – meeting amazing people, and finding ways to help them and the organisation be even better.
What’s one decision you’ve made that helped align your work with your own values?
The key decision for me came from one source point: realising that the lived experience of losing my wife, and seeing the importance of organ donation, gave me something I could use to do good. Sharon had spoken to me about organ donation so I knew what she wanted, but I hadn’t made that decision myself or registered on the organ donor register at the time – I’m ashamed to say – and obviously I have now.
I genuinely believe when you experience a traumatic loss like that, it can go one of two ways: you can use it as fuel, or it can eat you away and you retreat. I was keen to use what I’d been through positively – and that choice led me onto the career path I’m on now, which feels purposeful and where I know I’m making a difference.
What is the biggest thing you’ve done to create or improve social impact?
Probably the work I’ve done around organ donation – and it’s been really varied, from speaking one-to-one about why organ donation is important, to conferences, schools, and even BBC Breakfast.
Organ donation is now part of the secondary school curriculum. Young people are so community-minded, and they take the conversation home – asking their family what they want, and sharing what they would like too. Even if someone’s answer is “no”, having that family conversation is powerful.
Linked to that, one of the most meaningful things I’ve been involved with is the British Transplant Games – bringing together transplant athletes (aged two to 80), donor families, and NHS staff as one community. The Games are coming to Sheffield from the 6th to the 9th of August 2026, which will be a special moment for me as Trust Chair. It’ll be the biggest ever, with 2,500+ people attending and taking part – an incredible celebration of the gift of life.
Can you share some key milestones or proudest moments in your career?
Becoming a Non Executive Director at Mid Yorkshire Teaching Trust was a proud moment for me – it’s where I live in Wakefield, and I was proud to be on the board trying to make a difference in my own community. Becoming a Chair, first at Chesterfield Royal, was another big milestone – and probably the first time I experienced real imposter syndrome. I hadn’t envisaged it as a career path and didn’t feel ready, but I’ve loved chairing an NHS trust.
Becoming Chair of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, one of the Shelford Group Trusts, has been a huge moment. I’m proud to say, but also a little ashamed, that I’m the first person of colour to chair a Shelford Group trust. It feels like a real glass ceiling moment, but it’s taken too long.
I’ve also been proud to be recognised along the way, including being named one of the top 50 influential Muslims in Europe (2024), and one of the Health Service Journal’s “rising stars” in its BAME health leaders list. It’s a team effort, but it’s nice to be recognised – and I’d love to see greater diversity in those leadership roles moving forward.
What’s one project or piece of work that taught you a big lesson about impact?
I’ve learned a lot about the power of storytelling – sharing lived experience in a personal and vulnerable way. It cuts through and helps people truly personalise a scenario for themselves.
I did an NHS Blood and Transplant celebration event for colleagues, and it really brought it home to me hearing that my story influenced people – even colleagues whose job is blood and organ donation – to go home and have that conversation with their loved ones. That reminded me that impact isn’t “impressions” or views. Impact is the behavioural change that happens afterwards. For me, scale isn’t everything – the quality of the impact and the behavioural change matters more.
What’s one piece of strategic advice you’ve found yourself giving more than once?
The advice I often come back to is this: sometimes you’ll have a really great idea, and you’ll get frustrated because people aren’t understanding it, taking it up, or acting on it.
But for really great ideas, they will happen – it might not be this time around or next time around, and it might not even happen with you getting the credit for it. Timing and context are everything. Someone senior in Lloyds Banking Group told me that years ago and it stuck with me: having faith in the idea, rather than needing it to happen immediately with your name on it, is quite liberating.
What’s one learning from delivering work at scale that you think others should know?
When you’re delivering something at scale, one of the things I always get concerned about is variation – on average, things might look good, but underneath that, there can be loads of local variation.
It’s important to understand what “really good” looks like within that variation and how you replicate those conditions elsewhere, but also where things are struggling. Go and visit the frontline, speak to the people doing the work, and don’t get too hung up on what’s written in a report. If you learn from the extremes, it’s incredibly helpful to drive improvement.
Who or what inspires your approach to creating impact through your career?
There’s a very obvious answer for me, which is my late wife, who donated her organs, saved four lives, created an incredible legacy, and inspired me to do more in that space.
I think my wife now, Sarah, also enables me to do this impact work. You need a support network around you – and she keeps me grounded and focused, and enables me to keep doing what I do. The people you love and the people close to you are really important within that network.
What’s the thing that brings you the most work joy?
It’s the impact – knowing you’re making a difference, and having the ability to listen and inspire. In my current role as Chair of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, I’m only in month four, so I’m spending a lot of time going around our five hospitals and 40 community sites, meeting our staff.
And if it wasn’t clear from my origin story around organ donation, the inspiration I got from seeing frontline colleagues during the 36 hours I spent in hospital when my wife died was awe inspiring. I now have the privilege of seeing that same compassionate care every day – and that gives me real purpose and fuel: listening, celebrating excellence, and taking away the areas where we can do better as an organisation.
What is your favourite quote you would like us to include, and why?
I don’t know if I’m allowed to cheat and have two.
From an organ donation perspective, I’m a big fan of saying: “Your organ donation decision and conversation today can save lives tomorrow.” Because that’s what it’s about – create the conversation now, and there will be impact down the line.
But my professional quote is the Maya Angelou one: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” I’m very conscious of the positive or negative impact people can have, and in a role where you engage with board members and leadership, it’s important to remember it’s still a team. Making people feel like they belong matters to me, we can’t do it without all the bits of the jigsaw.
