As chief executive of one of Britain's top paediatric hospitals, Paul O'Connor is acutely aware of the importance of forming relationships with private sector businesses.
By April 2005, when he was appointed boss of Birmingham Children's Hospital, the 48-year-old had already turned around the fortunes of an ailing London hospital which was "at the bottom of every league imaginable".
Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Trust has since been given a clean bill of health, and Mr O'Connor has in the past two years improved the profile of the Children's Hospital.
Less than a year after his appointment, in February 2006, the hospital was awarded foundation trust status giving it financial independence from the Government.
Clinical advances and the development of the hospital's new £19 million Burn Centre, set to open in October, have also progressed apace as a result.
Mr O'Connor, who was born in Castle Bromwich and educated in Birmingham, is modest about his achievements.
"I am exceptionally privileged to have a job which is made much easier by the calibre of staff who work here, not just in clinical care but also senior management.
"Birmingham for me feels like a really dynamic city. It has big ideas and wants to achieve them, so I'd like to see a cross-party agreement on some city-wide issues particularly concerning health."
He is keen to stay with the trust, which treats two-thirds of children in Birmingham who require hospital care, for "some time yet".
Now he wants the hospital to become the heart of a proposed Children's Quarter, possibly linking up with private-sector partners outside the NHS.
"This idea really excites me and there's fantastic potential over here to work with multiple partners outside the NHS to develop ideas.
"Young people want a safe place to go to meet their friends and hang out, get advice, to learn, to develop, in the heart of their home city.
"That would be a model that no other city in the UK has, with us at its hub, that makes it something really special.
"We thought there would be a way of redeveloping hospital services without having to go down the PFI route, it's not right for us and we've got the potential to raise funds outside the NHS that other trusts don't have."
As chief executive, Mr O'Connor has already agreed a deal with Ronald McDonald Houses Charity for a 60-bedroom family accommodation block to replace the existing 35-bed Edward House facility.
Wellcome Trust has also invested £1 million in a paediatric clinical research facility, the first of its kind in the UK, at Birmingham Children's Hospital.
"I want to continue taking the best doctors and staff into the future. Those roles will be changing as we change the way that they work, which will make us a hospital of the future rather than relying on traditional work models.
"There is a role for specialist hospitals like us that have a responsibility to spread that knowledge to the wider community."
