Trustees

Elliott Bernerd – Chair of Trustees

Elliott Bernerd has been well-known in the UK property industry for more than 30 years. He formed Chelsfield as a private company in 1986, taking the company public in 1993. From 1998-2002 he served as Chairman of the South Bank Board, and in recent years has been awarded honorary fellowships of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Trinity College of Music. Elliott has had surgery for throat cancer. He says: “People tend to forget the dramatic effect that problems of the face can cause. Saving Faces is there to do something about this.”


Patrick Magennis – Deputy Chair of Trustees

Patrick Magennis is a Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon working in Liverpool at Aintree University Hospital. He upgraded the Liverpool Head and Neck Cancer Database in 1997 and has worked with the database user group over the last seven years to generate some prize-winning research.


Simon Bentley

Simon Bentley is an experienced Entrepreneur, who started his career as a practising chartered accountant and went on to become the Chairman and Chief Executive of Blacks Leisure Group plc. He is currently Chairman of the hair brand Umberto Giannini, the Senior Independent Director of Sports Direct International Plc, Owner of Cash on The Move, the leading provider of mobile ATM services in the UK and Chairman of Domino’s Pizza Switzerland. Simon had a serious accident in January 2000 and has first-hand experience of the trauma of facial injury.


Professor Simon Holmes

Professor Simon Holmes is the Lead Cranial-Facial Trauma Surgeon at Barts Health (The Royal London Hospital). As a Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon, he is qualified in both medicine and dentistry and has an international reputation for excellence in primary and revision facial trauma surgery. In addition to his daily role in the training of junior doctors, he teaches and lectures both nationally and internationally and has contributed to several key publications in the field of Facial Trauma Surgery. Current areas of adult and pediatric practice within the private and NHS sectors include primary and revision facial trauma, scar and soft tissue injuries, complex wisdom tooth extractions and general oral surgery, as well as diseases and disorders of the temporomandibular joint.


Peter Hardee

Peter Hardee is a Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon at Barts Health (The Royal London Hospital), appointed in 2002. He has a sub-speciality in head & neck oncology, facial reconstruction and facial skin cancers. His clinical practice also includes surgical treatment of salivary gland neoplasms, thyroid surgery, surgery for facial trauma, and dentaolveolar surgery. He has also had a comprehensive specialist training in all aspects of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.


Michael Simpson

Michael is a Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon who helped create The Beds, Bucks and Herts OMFS network but now works mainly between Bedford Hospital and Luton and Dunstable Hospital. He has been Regional Advisor, TPD and Chair of the STC for many years. He has been Clinical Director for Surgery at Bedford Hospital and was awarded in 2017 The Down Surgical Prize for services to BAOMS and OMFS within the UK. He sat on council and then became Treasurer for 6 years chairing the Endowments committee. He set up and ran two Head and Neck cancer MDTs for 15 years and enjoys all types of surgery but particularly contact with the patients.

“Professor I Hutchison talked me into playing waterpolo as an undergraduate (my 6 sons all now play) and he has done the same with Saving Faces. I am sure it will prove to be an honour and a privilege.” – Michael Simpson


Atul Setia

Atul is a senior professional in the world of finance with over 20 years of experience in both developed and emerging markets. Atul used to be an investment banker at Deutsche Bank in London and later was a partner at Altima Partners (alternative asset management group with AUM of circ $5 billion in 2008).

Atul has advised on M&A, PE, privatisations, equity and debt transactions of circa $200 billion and invested/advised on investments of over $900m (both private and public equity, across sectors). He is a UK qualified Chartered Accountant and has an MBA from London Business School. He also is on the Board of a $500m Real Estate Private Equity Fund.


Austen T Smith

Austen has been a Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon for 20 years at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Barnsley NHS Trust UK. Having trained in Cardiff, Leeds, Manchester and London, Mr Smith’s main interests are Head & Neck Oncology and Reconstructive surgery, Microvascular techniques, Laser surgery and collaborative Skull Base and IntraCranial revascularisation procedures. His input to the Birmingham Trauma Skills Course for dentally qualified junior OMFS is over 21 years.

He has awards for work involving microvascular improvement of brain blood flow and the improvement of NHS funding and coding for surgical procedures.

Mr Smith, currently Honorary Secretary, is a Trustee of the British Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons (BAOMS), having been a Council Member for 6 years. He is an elected member of the Specialist Advisory Committee (SAC) of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for OMFS, charged with training of OMFS Registrars to Consultant status. Mr Smith is also a BAOMS Representative on the Head & Neck Training Interface Group overseeing fellowship training in Head & Neck for OMFS, ENT and Plastic Surgery career surgeons.

Mr Smith is President Elect of BAOMS for the year 2021 and is involved in the planning for the BAOMS and International Conference on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (ICOMS) meetings due in the UK that year.