Dr James Gough MBBCh

James leads the David Nott Foundation as our Chief Executive. He oversees strategy and culture, while ensuring the organisation stays true to its core mission and meets its stated commitments to beneficiaries, donors, and our people around the world.

James is a former military and aid doctor, having served with the British Army and international aid groups around the world. Since leaving medicine he has built a depth of experience in commercial and diplomatic environments. He is a social entrepreneur with a passion for using novel technologies to solve intractable challenges in humanitarian contexts. This has included the design and delivery of virtual reality mass casualty training in Syria and Yemen, the use of AI to find illegal weapons in Africa, and most recently the implementation of deep tech training for Ukrainian software engineers. He is also a McCain Institute Global Leadership Fellow, bringing with him a rich network of global changemakers.

James lives on the coast in South Wales with his wife and three young children. He enjoys trail running, sea swimming and reading non-fiction. He is also doing a terrible job (his own words!) of learning to surf and speaking Welsh.