Lea Milligan obituary

My friend and colleague Lea Milligan, who has died unexpectedly at the age of 38, worked for charities his entire career. He was passionate about improving the lives of others, and especially about giving people the healthcare they deserved, whether it was delivering surgical care in West Africa through his work at the international development organisation Mercy Ships, or later as CEO of MQ Mental Health Research, where he facilitated ground-breaking research into a range of conditions and treatments.

Through Mercy Ships, he joined a team that co-founded the Harvard Center for Global Surgery Evaluation in 2018, which aims to increase access to surgical care and inform surgical policy on a global scale. As part of this project, he oversaw the launch of a Supplement to the British Medical Journal on safe surgical access, which has already saved countless lives.

Lea, the son of Charly Milligan, a shipbuilder, and Joanna Wisner, a civil servant, was born in Glasgow. The family moved to Joanna’s native Northern Ireland when Lea was a baby and he was at Foyle College in Derry. He turned down a place at university to volunteer for the YFC (Youth for Christ) charity in 2003, working with young offenders in prisons. He remained in the charity sector, quickly rising to his first CEO role, at Mercy Ships, at the age of 30. He took up his most recent role, as CEO of MQ, in 2020.

Lea was a sports enthusiast, supporting Ireland at rugby, Europe at golf and England at cricket, which he went to watch at every opportunity (usually over a pint). He was at home in every situation, whether talking to policymakers at Westminster, chatting to professors at Oxbridge or playing Lego with his two young sons, Jesse and Joel, whom he loved dearly. Lea had a passion for people and for life that was infectious.

The tall Northern Irish man with a booming voice and a quick wit was often the centre of attention, whether at work, on the golf course or at home with friends and family in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. Lea will be remembered as a fun, kind man, generous with his time and advice, who mentored many of the current and future leaders of the charity sector.

Lea had many mantras that she lived by: “If you support me, I’ll support you,” “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” and, perhaps most importantly, “Do what you want.”

He is survived by his partner, Amba Swain, Jesse and Joel, the sons from his marriage to Jennie Seager, which ended in divorce, and by his parents and his brother, Andy.