Our Management

Dr. Knight is a practicing physician and works as a Respiratory Consultant at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, following several years at the Royal Free Hospital, and the Chest Clinic, Northwood. Dr. Knight is not an employee of Penrose Care but serves as a non-executive director of the company. In addition to his work as a physician, he has spent many years engaged in voluntary work for young adults in north London and has helped with fundraising in Kenya and in India.

In 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his service to the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Knight holds a BSc (hons) in Neurosciences and MBBS (merit) in Medicine from the University College London. He holds the Diploma in Internal Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians, London, and holds full membership of the Royal College. He has sat on the national trainees committee of the Royal College of Physicians from 2011.

Mr. Padron is a healthcare industry expert and former public servant known for starting the Living Wage movement in British social care (2012), getting the National Minimum Wage Law enforced in UK home care (2014), successfully revitalising a former dead high street – Belsize Village in north London (2019) – and starting the UK’s al fresco dining experiment (2020).

Prior to starting Penrose Care in 2012, he was a healthcare research analyst at Merrill Lynch (2010-12), which he joined from Barclays Capital/Barclays PLC (2007-10). From 2003-2006, he served as a commissioner of the City of Berkeley, USA. Mr. Padron also worked for a number of years as a research assistant to eminent epidemiologist Prof. Alison Galvani of Yale University.

In 2019 and 2022, Penrose Care was rated Outstanding by England’s health and social care regulator, the CQC, an attribute of only 2% of home care providers in London. During the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21, Mr. Stephenson-Padron led Penrose Care through having zero COVID-19 cases among service users and having zero staff deaths.

In 2014, Mr. Padron was named the UK’s Most Outstanding Leader in the Care Sector [acceptance speech] for his pioneering work on establishing Penrose Care, the UK’s pioneer in ethical home care. Mr. Padron received the honour again with respect to the year 2016. Under Mr. Padron’s leadership, Penrose Care was named “The Most Outstanding Innovative Homecare Provider in the World in 2019” and “The Most Outstanding Homecare Provider in the World in 2017.”

Mr. Padron was one of the early consultants to the creation of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard, launched in 2019, and Penrose Care was one of the first 16 private businesses in London to be accredited under this landmark standard for ethical organisations.

Mr. Padron has participated in numerous efforts to help improve and reform the UK’s health and social care sector, exemplifying the wise words of Robert Phillips of Jericho Chambers: “The more trusted organisation of the future looks more like a social movement than a traditional hierarchy. Leaders – business and civic – need to think and behave like social activists. “

Under Mr Padron’s leadership, Penrose Care became one of the first UK home care providers to become an Accredited Living Wage Employers in 2012 and from then onwards he actively campaigned for the Living Wage in British social care. The late great Neil Jameson CBE, founder of the Living Wage movement in the UK, recounted on June 2022 that Mr Padron “led way in improving social care sector and first to champion [the] Living Wage.” Following Penrose Care being a Living Wage Champion in 2016 and 2018, in June 2019, Mr. Padron served as one of the judges and hosts of the 2019 Living Wage Champion Awards. In January 2017, Mr. Padron joined 74 other British leaders in calling for the Prime Minister to set up a cross-party process to address the UK’s unprecedented crisis in its health and social care system.

In March 2016, Mr. Padron presented to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee on methods to improve the working conditions of home care workers – a predominately female profession. In March 2014, Mr. Padron contributed to Baroness Denise Kingsmill’s review into the home care sector.

In January 2014, in an industry changing action, Mr. Padron worked successfully with Margaret Hodge MP in improving enforcement of the national minimum wage in the home care sector. Following Mr Stephenson Padron’s successful lobbying of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in 2014 to request the National Audit Office (NAO) to crack down on the HMRC’s then-poor enforcement of the NMW in home care, NMW violations drastically reduced. By 2016, the NAO estimated NMW violations in social care to be no more than 12.9% of the workforce (a stark drop from c. 48%+ in FY10/11-12/13). Mr. Padron therefore had a transformative impact on social care in the UK. This change also allowed Penrose Care to fairly compete with its peers.

Mr. Padron’s innovations and leadership in implementing ethical workplace practices in home care in the UK have garnered international attention. In 2015, Mr. Padron hosted a research delegation from the Japanese Government and a research visit from the home care association of Ontario, Canada, demonstrating the international nature of the OECD’s ageing crisis. Subsequently, Mr. Padron hosted two further research delegations from Japan in 2016 and a health research delegation from Shandong, China in April 2018. In June 2019, Mr. Padron hosted research delegations from the municipality of Gwangyang, South Korea and a large research delegation from the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, Government of Thailand. In February 2013, both Mr. Padron and Penrose Care’s co-founder Dr. Matthew Knight delivered a guest lecture to the nursing students of the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain titled “Promoting dignity in times of crisis.”

Due to a commitment to cultivating the social care leaders of tomorrow, Mr. Stephenson-Padron has provided guest lectures at the University of East London sociology department in January 2018, as well as serving on its academic review board in April 2018; and in February 2018 at Kings’ College London’s Social Care Workforce Research Unit’s Home Care Research Forum. He also served on a panel  on home care held at Birkbeck University in June 2019, participated in a large workshop on “Reconceptualising inclusion at work” at Leeds University Business School’s Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC) in July 2019, and participated in a study on Brexit and its impact on social care by the University of Kent in July 2019. Mr. Padron was a speaker at “Equal Pay @50” of Leeds University Business School and DLA Piper in Leeds in December 2019.

Mr. Padron was elected to the Hampstead Business Association governing board on March 6, 2014 and served on it until its conversion to a Business Improvement District (BID) zoned out Belsize Village in September 2016. In October 2018, Mr. Stephenson-Padron established the Belsize Village Business Association (BVBA) with Aya Khazaal of Pivoine Nail Spa in an effort to revitalise Belsize Village which had experienced an economic decline from 2014-2018. As of October 2019 – the project has been hailed as a success with Belsize Village being successfully revitalised. In 2022, Belsize Village filled its last high street shop vacancy after starting with a nearly 20% vacancy rate at the end of 2018. In his capacity as the co-head of the BVBA, Mr. Padron organised and is the event manager of the very popular Belsize Village Streatery started on July 4, 2020, the first al fresco dining event on a public space in London after Lockdown 1 of the Coronavirus pandemic. The success of the Belsize Village Streatery led to a comprehensive revitalisation of Belsize Village and garnered Belsize Village’s first ministerial visit in modern history as reported in the Ham & High and Camden New Journal, eliminated environmental blights that mired Belsize Village for over 10 years, saved over 100 hospitality jobs, increased the number of Accredited Living Wage Employers in Belsize Village, created a new town centre in north London that did not exist prior to the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21, and prevented any business losses in Belsize Village during the Coronavirus pandemic and in fact led to the addition of three new businesses. Under Mr Padron’s leadership, despite the severe economic headwinds of the Global Pandemic, spending in Belsize Village rose 111.6% year-on-year in August-October 2020 according to Camden Council thanks largely due to the Belsize Village Streatery. In addition, under Mr Padron’s leadership, the number of Accredited Living Wage Employers in Belsize Village increased to four in 2023 from one in 2020. A comprehensive consultation by Camden Council in 2021 found over 90% of local residents supported the Belsize Village Streatery scheme. Originally started as a way to allow the elderly and disabled to safely dine after Lockdown 1, as the pioneer of the UK’s al fresco experiment, Mr. Padron’s work with the Belsize Village Streatery sparked the al fresco movement in London, especially across the Borough of Camden and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. In February 2022, the Belsize Village Streatery was made permanent by Camden Council, the first scheme of its kind to be made permanent in British history. This was followed by Richmond Council making a streatery in Barnes permanent.

Mr. Padron holds a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley and a Master in Economics & Finance from the Universidad de Navarra.

Mr. Padron also holds a QCF Level 5 Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care and Children and Young People’s Services (Edexcel), Action Counters Terrorism (ACT) Awareness E-Learning certificate (Highfield), Level 2 Award in the Principles of Nutrition and Food Production (City & Guilds), QCF Level 3 Award in Inducting Others in Assisting and Moving of Individuals (NOCN), Level 2 Award in Health & Safety in the Workplace (RSPH), Foundation Certificate in Food Hygiene (RSPH) and Level 3 Certificate in Investments (SII).

Mr. Padron is an avid animal lover and enjoys taking his pet parrot out for walks in north west London. Mr. Padron is the pet handler of the well-known London cat, Quita the Kitty. Mr. Padron is a long-standing advocate of workers’ rights, having worked alongside labour unions since age 15, and is a member of UNISON, the British labour union that covers social care managers and social care workers.

MANAGER