Nicola, who lives on the Island, brings with her a wealth of experience from a career that bridges two very different worlds, financial services and professional football.

She is a lawyer by background and has spent more than 35 years working in the financial services sector and currently sits on a couple of boards while running her own consultancy business supporting private equity funds.

Alongside this, Nicola and her husband Mark Palios are the proud owners of Tranmere Rovers Football Club.

Having spent over two decades living in Island communities (first in Jersey and now in the Isle of Man) Nicola understands how vital it is for medical teams to reach critically ill and injured people quickly and transport them to specialist hospitals.

When her youngest son was born, he was seriously ill for the first few years of his life and required the support of an air ambulance three separate times.

She said: “It made me appreciate the life-saving work that air ambulance services do.”

Nicola has also personally seen the impact of GNAAS after her colleague’s son was involved in a very serious motorcycle incident and our critical care team attended to him.

She said: “In an Island famous for the TT Races, where accidents are unfortunately common, not only with the racers but with the many thousands of visitors who come to watch and ride around the world-famous course, I think everyone is very aware of the critical importance of air ambulances.”

With a strong public profile through her involvement in football, Nicola plans to use her platform to shine a spotlight on our charity and encourage people to support our life-saving service.

She’s also looking forward to getting to know the people behind GNAAS, after previously working as a community first responder, which gave her a keen interest in pre-hospital care.

She said: “As well as profile-raising, I hope to help GNAAS raise the crucial funds needed to ensure the service can continue to flourish in the future.

“None of us ever know when we might need the services of the air ambulance, but it could happen to any one of us at any time, and GNAAS can quite literally be the difference between life and death.”