JDRF boss wins top award after research successes

JDRF’s Chief Executive in the UK has been crowned Charity Leader of the Year 2015 for her inspirational and successful leadership of the Type 1 diabetes charity.

Karen Addington beat 800 other nominees from across the UK to the Charity Staff Foundation’s award, receiving it at a prestigious ceremony Thursday evening in central London.

She said: “I’m delighted to accept this award on behalf of JDRF’s amazing supporters throughout the UK and the wider world. 2014 was a very special year for breakthroughs in the Type 1 diabetes research that we fund.”

Karen added: “The most brilliant non-profit organisations always have much in common with the most successful businesses – and vice-versa. They combine head and heart; strict efficiency and focus, alongside real passion for meeting people’s needs. Families affected by Type 1 diabetes need a cure. That day will come.”

Reacting to her award, Mark Flannagan, CEO of Beating Bowel Cancer, described Karen as “one of the sector’s outstanding achievers, fiercely focused on improving the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes, who has transformed the charity and the sector.  She’s a great team leader on top of it, someone to be emulated.”

The 400,000 people in the UK who live with Type 1 diabetes – including 29,000 children – rely on multiple insulin injections or pump infusions every day just to stay alive. A child diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of five faces up to 19,000 injections and 50,000 finger prick blood tests by the time they are 18. The condition is not linked to lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise.

JDRF is funding first class research that could revolutionise the treatment of the condition – such as smart insulins and the artificial pancreas. Earlier this year, JDRF funded researchers at London’s Royal Free Hospital found the immune system cell responsible for triggering the destruction of insulin-producing cells in Type 1 diabetes.

Karen became Chief Executive of JDRF in October 2005 and since then has overseen the growth of its voluntary income from just over £1 million to just under £5 million. Her Charity Leader of the Year award comes after a spectacular 12 months for supporters of the charity both in the UK and internationally, in which:

• JDRF-funded research at Harvard won headlines around the world by announcing a ‘giant leap forward’ towards creation of a stem cell-based treatment for type 1 diabetes
• UK Prime Minister David Cameron turned his focus to JDRF’s work, announcing the charity’s major research collaboration with the British Council, and giving his own endorsement of type 1 diabetes research
• A host of celebrities publically backed JDRF as it significantly raised awareness of the condition through the media
• A JDRF-supported ‘smart’ insulin moved closer to reality
• A JDRF-supported inhaled insulin was launched
• JDRF researchers discovered the cell responsible for triggering the onset of type 1 diabetes
• The Home Secretary, Theresa May, gave the charity her personal support following her own diagnosis with type 1 diabetes