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Biography
Dr Nikki Kanani is a GP in south-east London and is currently Medical Director for Primary Care for NHS England and NHS Improvement. Prior to joining NHS England as Deputy Medical Director of Primary Care, she was Chief Clinical Officer of NHS Bexley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
Nikki has held a range of positions within healthcare to support the development of innovative models of care, highly engaged clinical, patient and public leadership and is passionate about supporting primary care, improving service provision and population well-being.
She is a member of The King’s Fund General Advisory Council and holds an MSc in healthcare commissioning. With her sister she co-founded STEMMsisters, a social enterprise supporting young people to study science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine. She has two young children.
First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership?
For me, at a time like this—even more than at other times—the most important messages are the simple ones. How much we, as leaders, need to be kind and compassionate. We have to believe in ourselves, our values and our integrity, those being the most important things we can commit to and stand behind.
It’s based on a concept that comes from my father. He came as a refugee from Uganda in 1972, and met my mum at Sunderland Polytechnic. They are both community pharmacists who have been strongly connected to their local population for decades, and grew in me the values I hold closely today. He always says our actions should be ‘dil thi ne’ (pronounced dil-ti-ne), meaning ‘from the heart’. I believe that leaders should act from the heart. Whatever we put out comes back to us—so if we put out positive energy, that is what we get back. Putting out positive energy is an important aspect of how I try to lead.
Tell us a little bit about your leadership role and how it is changing as a result of the pandemic?
I have been …
Footnotes
Twitter @tony_berendt
Contributors NK provided all the content as this is her interview responses. ARB was the interviewer and wrote up the interview.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests ARB reports being an organisational consultant and coach offering services to NHS organisations and staff. ARB is also the Commissioning Editor of BMJ Leader.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.