Frances Reid

Frances Reid has been the Programme Director for the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition since 2017. In that time, Frances devised and led the peer-reviewed Every Woman Study™ (2018) charting global experiences of women with ovarian cancer. Findings from this study informed her work as the lead on the Coalition’s Global Ovarian Cancer Charter, launched at the Presidential Plenary of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society Annual Meeting in September 2020. Frances is now leading the newest version of the Study – The Every Woman Study™: Low- and Middle-Income Edition.

Her work with women who have ovarian cancer began in 2003. In 2008, Frances co-founded Target Ovarian Cancer in the UK where she worked as Director of Public Affairs and Services. The power of patient experience and voices are fundamental to her work, and have been transformative in bringing together patient, clinical and policy viewpoints. She developed the Target Ovarian Cancer Pathfinder Study, the results inspiring the establishment of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Ovarian Cancer, and informed a raft of policy decisions and targeted interventions to improve survival and quality of life for women.

Frances has what she would describe as a ‘blended career’, including 14 years at the BBC primarily as a radio programme maker, an entrepreneur with a home-based micro-bakery and teaching bread making skills, and as a freelance consultant centred on patient experience and impact reporting.