Jane Dawson

Ella Dawson Foundation

Over the past 30 years, I have had the privilege of leading and working with many fantastic teams within the manufacturing and engineering industry. My passion is growing and developing people and organisations, and I have extensive experience in sales and marketing, general management, managing director, and non-exec director roles across a number of corporate, privately owned, and private equity-owned manufacturing and engineering businesses.

In 2019, life was turned upside down when my 22-year-old, Ella, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Following a challenging two-year treatment pathway, Ella sadly died, aged 24 years old, from progressive disease.

While Ella received excellent medical and clinical care from the NHS, she felt that individualised wellbeing support tailored to the unique needs of young adults was sadly lacking in the UK. Because of this, she used her diagnosis to create a wellbeing blueprint to help other young people with a cancer diagnosis.

Her legacy is the Ella Dawson Foundation, a charity we founded in 2022 to deliver tailored psychological, physical, nutritional and wellbeing support to young adults with cancer and other terminal illnesses. Having established relationships with over 40 NHS trusts across the UK, we are growing rapidly. We are proud to deliver high-quality, impactful wellbeing support, helping to make a difference to the lives of others.

‘Our life force is love, love is energy, and energy can never be destroyed’ – Ella Dawson, 2021.