Suffolk Mind welcomes third patron Peter Basford

Suffolk Mind is delighted to welcome our third patron Peter Basford, a long-term advocate for Suffolk Mind and a successful businessman.

Peter has been passionate about supporting our organisation and our work since he was first introduced to The Mental Health Toolkit, our workplace wellbeing programme, in 2015. At that point, Peter was Area Director, Commercial Banking for Suffolk at Lloyds Bank and used the learning to help his team and contacts.

Peter has since started the Business Growth Coaches Network and more recently, co-founded Innovation Labs, a business Jon and the team work closely with him on.

Peter meets with many companies through his coaching, mentoring and non-executive work. He is also an advocate of supporting business owners and their teams with both their mental health and their business growth plans. 

Peter’s patronage of Suffolk Mind is a perfect fit. He has seen first-hand how stretch can turn to stress at work through demanding situations and wants to prevent this happening to others.

Jon Neal, CEO at Suffolk Mind says: “Peter has been an advocate for Suffolk Mind for a long time, so we are delighted that he’s become our third official patron. His contacts, experience and knowledge from his many years operating in Suffolk will be invaluable in helping us to spread the word about what we do. We’re looking forward to continuing our work with Peter, helping us to make Suffolk the best place in the world for talking about and taking care of mental health.”

Wendy Sheppard, Corporate Relationships Manager at Suffolk Mind said: “I am thrilled that Peter has agreed to be our new patron at Suffolk Mind. I had the privilege of meeting and working with him recently, and could instantly see, hear and feel how passionate he is about supporting local business with their growth plans, while maintaining good mental health in the workplace. He really understands the importance that a healthy workplace brings in terms of retention, attraction, productivity and growth. He is very well connected, and has a ‘can do’ approach. So, I am really looking forward to working with Peter more in the future.” 

Visit our team, trustees and patrons page to find out more.