Tony Rudd was a Stroke Consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital, the National Clinical Director for Stroke with NHS England and the London Stroke Clinical Director until retiring in 2019. He is Professor of Stroke Medicine at Kings College London and chaired the Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party at the Royal College of Physicians for over 20 years which was responsible for developing the National Clinical Guidelines for Stroke and running the National Sentinel Stroke Audit programme. He chaired the NICE Guidelines Group for Acute Stroke and TIA and the NICE Stroke Quality Standards Development Group. His research interests are stroke rehabilitation, organisation of care and quality improvement and he has over 300 peer reviewed publications. He has worked with NICE International in China and Vietnam on supporting the development of stroke care in rural hospitals. He is a past president of the British Association of Stroke Physicians and is Hon Vice President of the Stroke Association. He was awarded a CBE in the Queens birthday honours in 2013