The Board members are drawn from a variety of higher education institutions and have the ultimate collective responsibility for the strategic direction and performance of the Leadership Foundation.
Sir Andrew Cubie was appointed chair of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education in October 2010, succeeding James Ross, the inaugural chair.
Sir Andrew was for much of his career the senior partner of a leading Scottish law firm. He continues as a consultant to that firm and also holds a number of non-executive directorships in public and private companies ranging from investment trusts to corporate finance and manufacturing. He is also the chair of Quality Scotland, an organisation committed to the promotion of business excellence. He is a former chair of the Confederation of British Industry in Scotland.
He has been engaged in education issues throughout his professional career. He is currently the chair of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework and of the JNC of the USS. He is a Board member of the Inspectorate of Education in Scotland. He is a former chair of George Watson's College, the Court of Edinburgh Napier University and of the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) for the UK.
He is the chair of VSO in the UK, and a Trustee of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and of Common Purpose, Chair of Scotland’s Garden Trust and of the Centre for Healthy Working Lives and vice-chair of the Northern Lighthouse Board.
Dr Atkins holds the post of the first independent Service Complaints Commissioner for the Armed Forces. A report of all the first year of the new Service Complaints System was published on 4 March 2009. She is also a non executive director of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and of the Quality Assurance Agency.
She qualified as a solicitor in local government and was a law academic for 12 years, with a national and international reputation in anti-discrimination law. She joined the civil service in 1989 and held a range of policy and operational jobs, particularly in the fields of criminal justice, personnel and diversity. In 2003 she was appointed by Ministers to be the first Chief Executive of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, She has a track record in working successfully with different operational organisations, including the health service, police, prisons and probation service, particularly working with organisations undertaking huge operational, structural and organisational change. She has a wealth of experience in HR and diversity, including Deputy Chief Executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Departmental Equal Opportunities Officer for the Home Office and Director of the Women and Equality Unit with the Cabinet Office.
Susan has held a number of non executive posts, including Visiting Professor at Southampton University, non executive member of the Board of Strangeways prison and school governor at a comprehensive school in Portsmouth.
Drummond Bone (MA Glasgow; DLitt hc, Chester, Liverpool, Lancaster; DUniv, Glasgow) was a Snell Exhibitioner at Balliol, and went on to teach English and Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick, before returning to Glasgow where he became Professor of English Literature, dean of the Faculty of Arts, and senior vice-principal. He was then successively principal of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, and vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool. He was president of Universities UK from 2005-7. He has been involved in business and University interaction and in economic regeneration as a member of the CBI’s Science and Innovation Committee, as chair of the Northern Innovation and Industry Group, and as chair of the Liverpool ‘European Capital of Culture’ Company. In 2008 he was commissioned by the then UK government to write a report on the internationalisation of Higher Education, and since then has been a consultant on internationalisation to Universities both in the UK and overseas. He is a founding editor of the journal Romanticism, was the academic editor of the Byron Journal, has served on editorial boards of academic journals in Italy and Germany as well as the UK, is the author of Byron in the Writers and their Work series, and the contributing editor of the Cambridge Companion to Lord Byron. He was elected Master of Balliol in 2011.
Geoff Dawson joined the Board of Sheffield Hallam University in 2006, becoming chair of its Finance Committee in 2009, and chair of its Board of Governors in 2010.
He is also a member of the Board of UCEA, the HE/FE Employers Association, where he is chair of its Finance and Audit Committee, deputy chair of the Committee of University Chairs (CUC), and chairman of Sporrance Ltd, a management consulting company.
Geoff’s career started in technical roles with British Rail, GEC and British Aerospace, before he joined Scicon Ltd, the IT subsidiary of BP. Following secondment to a Whitehall Department, where he designed and implemented the first strategic planning system in the Public Sector, Geoff returned to Scicon and took up his first director level role, in the sales and marketing of complex IT services.
Wide national and international business experience followed, all at senior management/director level, including five years as a regional director for EDS. On his return to the UK in early 2000, he became one of the managing directors of EDS UK, managing the Energy and Utilities, Travel and Transportation, and Retail Industries business.
After leaving EDS in 2006, he re-entered university life as a student and, having studied Classics at school, he obtained an MA in Ancient History from University College London.
Professor Anthony Forster has responsibility for the strategic leadership of a number of major cross-institutional issues including Human Resources; Diversity and Equality; University IT; Durham's activities within the Matariki International Network of Universities; Employability and Enterprise; and University partnership working with Durham Students' Union. He works closely with the vice-chancellor and other members of the senior management team on planning issues. He is also responsible for all aspects of the education and student experience for Durham's undergraduates and postgraduates, and serves as an ex officio member of Durham University's Colleges Board. With the vice-chancellor he is an Executive Committee member of Durham University Council.
Anthony is a political scientist and he has written widely on security policy issues notably the duty of care owed by the government to British service men and women. Following a first degree in Politics from the University of Hull and a short service commission in the Army, he undertook his research degrees at the University of Oxford and has held posts at the University of Nottingham, King's College, London and Bristol. He then moved to Durham to take up the post of Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health and then Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education.
Anthony has held a number of visiting and external posts, and between 1999 and 2002 was the Special Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Common Foreign and Security Policy. He is currently a member of Hefce's Widening Access and Participation Strategic Advisory Committee. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Society of Arts and an elected Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Dr Grant became vice-chancellor of Cardiff University in October 2001 and previously he performed leadership roles in a number of international businesses. He commenced his career as an engineering student apprentice with the Reyrolle Parsons Group of companies and after qualifying in Electronics Engineering, he won a company scholarship to the University of Durham where he gained his PhD in Engineering Science in 1974. Following a period with Reyrolle Parsons Automation designing power station control and instrumentation systems, Dr Grant was appointed Technical Director of a European subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation where he was responsible for the development of production-line and automated test systems for the automotive industry.
In 1984 Dr Grant took up an appointment as managing director of London-based Dowty Electronics Ltd., and in 1988 he became Technical Director of the Dowty Group with aerospace, hydraulics, electronics and polymer materials businesses. His last industrial appointment commenced in 1991, as Technical Director of GEC plc with responsibility for engineering, research and technology development in an £11B turnover international company employing 25,000 engineers and spending £1.2 B per annum on product development and technology. Business sectors included power engineering, rail transportation, aerospace and defence, telecommunications, consumer products, industrial products and professional electronics.
Dr Grant is actively involved in engineering professional development and has been a Council member and Vice President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE, now IET). He was awarded the IEE's Mensforth Gold Medal in 1996; was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1997, and in the same year was made a CBE for his contribution to the UK’s Foresight Programme. Dr Grant was a Council member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council from 2001 until 2006, and in August 2006 was elected to the Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering as Chair of the Academy's Standing Committee for Education & Training. In 2007, he became a member of the Technology Strategy Board.
Alan Howarth has extensive senior executive experience in a range of national and international organisations in both the public and private sector. Early management experience was gained with Bass followed by periods in Hewlett Packard and John Swire & Sons before spending nearly two decades in Ernst & Young as one of the founding partners of the Management Consulting practice in the UK.
For the last seven years he has been managing a portfolio of Non Executive appointments. He has been Chairman of fully listed companies, AIM listed and private organisations in the UK, US and Far East in a significant number of sectors. His current Non Executive interests include Cerillion Technologies, Chamberlin plc, Sift Group, CRF Inc and MPL Systems. He was Chairman of an NHS Trust for nearly 7 years. He has co-written several papers including the 'Intelligent Board' and facilitates numerous management programmes for organisations.
David Llewellyn was appointed Principal, of Harper Adams University College in September 2009. His earlier university career involved posts at Queen Mary, University of London, King’s College London and the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London.
David joined Harper Adams in 1998 as the Director of Corporate Affairs. In this role he helped implement a wide range of projects and developments across administrative and academic areas of the University College; worked as a consultant on higher education strategic planning in an agricultural higher education institution in Brazil; and undertook research on UK higher education governance.
David was an undergraduate at University College London and a postgraduate student at Birkbeck, University of London. He holds a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) in Higher Education Management from the University of Bath. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers.
In 2009 David served as a member of the BBSRC/Food Research Partnership’s Working Group on Skills and Capacity in the Agri-Food Sector. Amongst other appointments he is currently a member of the West Midlands European Advisory Panel, a Trustee of LANTRA, the Sector Skills Council for the environmental and land-based industries, a board member of Landex, the representative body for specialist FE/HE institutions in land-based subjects, a member of the Telford Business Board and a Council member of GuildHE.
Mike Hudson is the director of Compass Partnership, a consultancy that specialises in the leadership, governance and management of third sector organisations. He was administrative director of Friends of the Earth during its formative years before gaining an MBA from London Business School. Following this, he worked in the UK and USA for a business strategy consultancy.
He has worked as a consultant to the chairs and chief executives of a wide range of national and international organisations for 20 years, including Citizens Advice, WWF, Oxfam, Shelter, Unicef, Macmillan Cancer Support, Sight Savers International, VSO, Christian Aid, The Princes’ Trust and RNIB.
He has also worked with Ministers in the Home Office and the Cabinet Office on policy and strategy for the third sector. Mike is currently a Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School in London and a member of the Editorial Board of Governance magazine. His book, Managing Without Profit, is widely acknowledged to be the leading general management text in the UK for board members and managers of third sector organisations.
Professor Colin Riordan was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Essex in October 2007. He came to Essex from Newcastle University, where he had been pro vice-chancellor and provost of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences since August 2005. Before joining Newcastle University, he taught at the University of Wales, Swansea, and Julius-Maximilians Universität-Würzburg in Germany.
Professor Riordan is a Board member of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, of the Haven Gateway Partnership, Equality Challenge Unit (ECU), Edge Foundation and UK NARIC. He is chair of the International Policy Network of Universities UK. In 2009 he chaired the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s enquiry into teaching quality. He was chair of the Board of University Campus Suffolk from February 2009 to October 2011, and remains a Board member.
A Germanist by academic background, Professor Riordan has published widely on post-war German literature and culture, including editing books on the writers Jurek Becker, Uwe Johnson and Peter Schneider. Other research interests include the history of environmental ideas in German culture.
With effect from 1 September 2012 Professor Riordan will become vice-chancellor of Cardiff University.
Lynne is currently chief executive of the 157 Group and is advisor to Whitehall on a range of projects including leadership, innovation capability and community cohesion. She is also a consultant and coach in public and private organisations.
Lynne was chief executive at The Centre for Excellence in Leadership, the national leadership college for the learning and skills sector. Prior to this role Lynne was principal of Guildford College, vice-principal of Croydon College, head of Croydon Business School, and head of Curriculum Services at Hackney College following a range of Marketing and Curriculum posts in Further Education. She is passionate about leading learners and learning, and has worked also in higher education, the adult, community and voluntary sectors and in secondary schools.
Lynne has held many non-executive posts including vice-chair of Croydon Health Authority, and Chair of the UK Interfaith Seminary. She is currently director of four Educational Companies, the Talent Foundation, the National FE Faith Forum and the City and Guilds Quality and Standards Committee. She was a Council member of the University of Surrey of which she is a Senior Fellow. She was a member of the FE National Bureaucracy Review Group, chaired the FE Success for All National Advisory Group and has sat on numerous national Public Sector Committees.
Lynne has an MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies. She is a Chartered Marketer and was awarded the CBE in 2004. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a fellow of the Institute of Directors.
Indi Seehra has been the director of Human Resources for the University of Cambridge since September 2008. He is an affiliated Lecturer with Cambridge Executive Education, and has been an HR practitioner for over 20 years.
Indi has held director level roles within HR across the public and private sector organisations – these include United Assurance Group Plc, Crown Prosecution Service, Department of Work & Pensions and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. He was also the International HR Director of Crawford & Company (1998-2000), the largest independent claims management company, based in Atlanta. Indi is an adviser on the People Management Editorial Board, which publishes the UK’s Chartered Institute and Personal and Development (CIPD) journal, and is a fellow of the CIPD.
Indi’s portfolio of responsibilities at the University includes HR Operations, Equality & Diversity, Leadership and Management Development, Pensions, Health & Safety, Welfare and Occupational Health.
Indi is passionate about leadership theory and organisational behaviour, and studying the relationship between staff engagement and organisational success. His speaking engagements in 2009 include the Universities Personnel Association Conference, CIPD Conference, as well as international engagements which include UAE and India.
Previously senior vice-principal at Royal Holloway University of London (2006-08) Andrew was responsible for strategic planning, the College's financial resources and its estate, leading the development of Royal Holloway's Corporate Strategy 2005-2010, developing strategic collaborations, and overseeing a £100 million capital programme. He led its Music Department to a 5** in the 2001 RAE.
He is currently chair of the regional higher education association, Universities for the North East, and in this capacity is a member of the CBI Regional Council. Andrew is deputy chair of the University Alliance and chair of the Student Finance England Stakeholder Forum. He was chair of the Music Sub-Panel in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, and was also active in the 1994 Group of Universities, chairing its Strategic Planning and Resources Group.
Andrew is a Fellow of the Industry and Parliament Trust, of the Royal Historical Society, of the Royal Society of Arts, and of the Society of Antiquaries. He is a governor of Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a Board member of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and of the Centre for Life, 1NG and NGI.
Professor West was educated and trained in London as a Podiatrist and Podiatric Surgeon and worked clinically in the NHS and private/commercial sector from 1980. He entered academia in 1984 as a lecturer, and in 1992 was appointed Dean of the School of Health and Behavioural Science at Huddersfield University.
Professor West moved to Bristol in 1995 as the Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Care at UWE. In 2007 he was appointed Acting Vice-Chancellor at UWE and in May 2008, at the age of 46, appointed Vice-Chancellor.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He serves on a number of national education and research committees advising on the future funding and contracting for health-related programmes and research in England and has continued to develop his research interest in the Diabetic. He is Vice-Chairman of the South West Strategic Health Authority, a member of the Hefce Healthcare Education Advisory Committee, Vice-Chair of UUK Health and Social Care Policy Network and a member of UUK International and European Policy Network.
Steve Egan, Deputy Chief Executive
Hefce
Andy Westwood, Chief Executive Officer
GuildHE
Professor Craig Mahoney, Chief Executive
Higher Education Academy (HEA)
Greg Wade, Policy Adviser
UniversitiesUK (UUK)