Karlene Davis

Dame Karlene Davis, DBE, Hon. DSc is General Secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Midwifery, Regional Representative for Europe in the International Confederation of Midwives, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of the Wellbeing Council at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Born and raised in Jamaica, Davis emigrated to the UK to train as a nurse and later as a midwife before going on to teach midwifery. Her goal is to see midwives acknowledged as the “lead professionals in maternity care, working together to enhance the wider public health both nationally and internationally”.

She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of Greenwich. She has become one of the most senior black women in the health profession and the UK's first black woman trade union leader.