RNID: For deaf and hard of hearing people.

John McCaffrey will be in charge of income generation and Susan Osborne will lead on PR and profile raising for the campaign, which will seek to make wearing hearing aids as acceptable and desirable as wearing glasses.

Susan Osborne comes from a background of national newspapers, BBC broadcast journalism and communications management. She joins RNID fresh from running her own successful communications consultancy and prior to that was Executive Director of Communications at Cancer Research UK, where she oversaw the merger of Britain's two largest cancer charities.

John McCaffrey joins RNID from the V&A, the world's leading museum of the decorative arts, where he was Director of Development for three years and headed a team which raised over £35 million. Before that, John was special advisor on corporate reputation and sponsorship for Lord Browne at BP. He also spent three years as the Executive Director of Cambridge University's US office in New York, during which time he was responsible for bringing in what is still the UK's largest ever charitable gift, the $230m donation from Bill and Melinda Gates establishing the Gates Scholars at Cambridge University.

The Joint Directors of the campaign will work alongside RNID Trustees, including HRH the Countess of Wessex, a high profile Appeal Board and senior staff within the organisation.

Chief Executive of RNID, John Low, says: "I am delighted to announce RNID's exciting plans for a major new campaign which will, quite literally, seek to change the world for millions of deaf and hard of hearing people in the 21st century. We are pleased to have John McCaffrey and Susan Osborne on board and will have more news on the launch of the campaign in the coming months."

For more information, please call, RNID Head of Media, Kate Sidwell, telephone: 020 7296 8139

Notes for editors:
RNID is the largest charity representing the 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK. As a membership charity, we aim to achieve a radically better quality of life for deaf and hard of hearing people. We do this in the following ways:

  • Campaigning and lobbying to change laws and government policies.
  • Challenging negative perceptions around deafness and hearing loss.
  • Providing information and raising awareness of deafness, hearing loss and tinnitus.
  • Training courses and consultancy on deafness and disability.
  • Communication services including sign language interpreters.
  • Training of interpreters, lipspeakers and speech-to-text operators.
  • Seeking lasting change in education for deaf children and young people.
  • Employment programmes to help deaf people into work.
  • Care services for deaf and hard of hearing people with additional needs.
  • Typetalk, the national telephone relay service for deaf and hard of hearing people.
  • Equipment and products for deaf and hard of hearing people.
  • Social, medical and technical research.