Council Code of Conduct
Code of individual conduct for members of Council 1. Introduction 1.1. This Code describes the…
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The University Executive Committee is responsible for all matters associated with the development and management of the university.
Last updated: 10 February 2025
Members of Council as of July 2024
Student Member of Council
Member of Remuneration and Human Resources Committee
Bobola was born in Nigeria and raised in the southwest region of the country. He pursued his education at Ekiti State University and the National Open University of Nigeria before coming to the UK. At the University of Gloucestershire, Bobola earned an MSc in Data Science.
Throughout his academic journey, Bobola has been a passionate advocate for students and youth, consistently serving in various leadership roles, including Mr. Campus, Welfare Director, Welfare Officer, and Youth Internal Auditor. His dedication extends beyond the university, as he is also a member of the CYMG, the official youth mechanism to the UN Environment Programme.
Driven by his commitment to representing students, Bobola ran for the position of Welfare and Diversity Officer in 2023 and was successfully elected. His dedication to improving the student experience led to his re-election in 2024. In his role, he aims to ensure that all students enjoy a fulfilling university experience by leading impactful campaigns through the Students’ Union.
Bobola is the Vice Chair of the Students’ Union’s Board of Trustees. He collaborates with fellow elected officers to advocate for all students. He actively addresses student concerns by directing them to the relevant authorities, organizes events to build a strong sense of community, and ensures that the student’s voice is heard across a range of committees, groups, and forums.
External Member
Member of Governance and Nominations Committee
Ingrid Barker is Joint Chair of University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust. She was Chair of Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust and its predecessor NHS Trusts between 2011 and 2024. She was previously a Non-Executive Director on the Board of NHS Gloucestershire for 5 years.
For eight years she was a Trustee and board member for NHS Providers, elected to represent the Community Trusts across the country. Ingrid has undertaken national policy and service development roles through the Centre for Mental Health Services Development. She has held a number of NHS executive roles, transforming institutional services to community provision. A qualified social worker, Ingrid established a service for young homeless people in Central London and was Regional Director of MIND. She is proud to have co-led the creation of the first mental health Patients Councils and Advocacy projects in Britain.
External Member
Thomas is a director of several public and private companies, including Chairman of Propel London Ltd (digital new media recruitment), Director of Northern 2 VCT plc (venture capital trust) and until July 2024 Senior Independent Trustee of The Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS). Until March 2018, Thomas was Chairman of First Utility (now Shell Energy) and until January 2018, Thomas worked with the University of Surrey, having been Treasurer for four years until 2016, and a member of Council for nine years, also until 2016.
Thomas has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Durham University. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, an Associate of The Association of Corporate Treasurers, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary Doctor from the University of Surrey.
Having trained as an accountant with Price Waterhouse, he worked in corporate finance with Kleinwort Benson and with the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development. Thomas was Chief Financial Officer for Robert Walters plc, for First Telecom plc, and then for Symbian plc. Symbian was the creator/developer of the first mass market smartphone operating system, being a joint venture between the major mobile phone handset manufacturers. Whilst at Symbian, Thomas led the software engineering development, and then the sale of Symbian to Nokia Oyj in 2008.
External Member
Member of Audit and Risk Committee
James is a Partner with Gate One, a digital and business transformation consultancy. He started his career with Ernst & Young where he trained as a Chartered Accountant before moving into advisory services working across London and Melbourne, Australia. He joined Gate One in 2015 and has helped grow the business from 30 staff to nearly 300 today with offices in the UK, Ireland and the US.
James has always worked with multiple clients across both public and private sectors, and he now leads Gate One’s Higher Education practice. A career highlight was winning the 2019 MCA Award for Strategy Project of the Year – for his work done with the leadership team at UCAS to redefine the 5-year strategy.
James has held various Board positions over the last 10 years, his most recent being the Board Member (without portfolio) for the UK National Governing Body of Ultimate Frisbee – a sport for which he has represented Great Britain and still remains a passionate supporter of.
James is a values-driven leader who is passionate about coaching and mentoring to create high performing teams.
External Member
Member of Audit and Risk Committee
Member of Honorary Awards Committee
Paul has been around the University since it transitioned from College of Higher Education. He was a student back then and has supported the development of the business and cyber schools since leaving. He has been awarded a Fellowship of the British Computer Society, and is a Fellow of the University as well as an External Member of Council.
He has lived and breathed the world of Information Security for most of his working career dealing with Incidents across the globe with many companies, driving strategy for BT Security Globally and has recently joined Serco UK and Europe as their CISO.
Paul spends a lot of time working towards a world that benefits from the neural diversity at all levels and understand how we can develop our ways of working and learning can be maximised.
Outside work his family is top of the agenda being a family man and part-time cricket coach.
Chair of Council
Chair of Governance and Nominations Committee
Member of Honorary Awards Committee
Member of Remuneration & Human Resources Committee
Nicola is passionate about social impact, and in particular the relationship between education, health and housing and their role in driving change at the individual and community level.
As Chair of Council, she is an advocate for education as a means of transforming people’s lives so that they can make the world a better place. She is also a strong voice for the civic role the University plays in its community. She is Chair of the UK’s University Chairs’ representative body, the CUC.
Nicola serves as Vice Chair and Senior Independent Director of the Gloucestershire Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust, and also as Senior Independent Director at Connexus, a rural social housing group in Shropshire / Herefordshire. She serves on the Lord Chancellor’s South West Advisory Committee for magistrate selection and is a Member of Court and Junior Warden for the Honourable Company of Gloucestershire.
In the private sector, Nicola chairs the Reference Committee for the Premier Miton UK Responsible Investment Fund, with a remit to advise on the fund’s investment policy and scrutinise investment decisions from the perspective of sustainability and ethics.
Previously, Nicola worked in the financial services sector as a global transformation lead. She also spent several years as a freelance management consultant majoring in strategic and complex change across a number of sectors in the UK and Europe.
Nicola has lived in The Cotswolds for 20 years with her husband Julian, two sons, two cats and a dog.
External Member
Chair of Finance & General Purposes Committee (from 1 January 2025)
Vice-Chair of Remuneration and Human Resources Committee (from 1 January 2025)
Ruth is a Chartered Accountant who has been in practice in Gloucestershire for over thirty years. She was a tax partner in Grant Thornton before she joined Hazlewoods where she now provides forensic accounting services. Ruth was part of GFirst LEP since its inception in 2011. This has involved many roles including being on the Growth Hub Board and she was Chair of the GFirst LEP Board from 2021 to 2024. She is now on the Gloucestershire Economic Growth Board and the Board of the Western Gateway.
She read modern history at Pembroke College Oxford where she also coxed the women’s Blue boat. After a ski season, Ruth joined Mars Confectionary as a Key Account Salesperson. She changed course to accountancy when moving to Gloucestershire to get married. Her first three years were in audit, but she has been a tax practitioner for most of her career until moving to forensic accountancy.
Ruth has had considerable involvement with the University of Gloucestershire due to her roles at Hazlewoods and at GFirst LEP, especially those relating to the Growth Hub. She has lectured to undergraduates on forensic and tax accountancy as well as giving talks on her own career to students. She was appointed as a Visiting Fellow in the School of Business and Technology on 1 May 2019.
Ruth has done several marathons and triathlons as she likes a challenge. She also enjoys sailing, diving, skiing, snowboarding, field sport, music and the theatre.
External Member of Council
Member of Remuneration & Human Resources Committee
Chris is the Co-Founder of Lunch.Co, a peer-to-peer marketplace platform for colleagues to buy and sell home-cooked lunches from each other in the workplace. Lunch.Co is reinventing the workplace lunch and unlocking the potential of togetherness by connecting colleagues through the passion of food and cooking.
He is also the former CEO of Crussh Fit Food & Juice Bars, London’s leading juice, smoothie and healthy eating chain with over 30 sites and a NED/Board Advisor/Investor in a number of disruptive high-growth potential Food/FoodTech and Education/Edtech businesses.
His background spans consulting at Bain & Co across the Sydney, Stockholm and London offices to having previously studied Manufacturing Engineering and Industrial Design.
Alongside a number of Board Advisor/NED roles in Food and the Food Tech space he has joined the University of Gloucestershire as an External Member of Council with his longstanding interest in education and using education as a force for good. He joins the University of Gloucestershire as an External Member of Council with a longstanding interest in education and using education as a force for good. With his two young children, the future of education and the way we shape extraordinary educational experiences for the next generation of young adults is an area of high interest
He attended the University of New South Wales in Sydney studying Manufacturing Engineering winning a full scholarship as a Co-Op Scholar for his undergraduate degree and also completed his Master of Science (Industrial Design) at UNSW with an exchange semester at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign within the Master of Fine Arts (Industrial Design) programme.
External Member
Vice-Chair of Finance and General Purposes Committee
Steve lives in Stroud, he is married to Lisa and has one daughter just finished at the University of Bristol studying Criminology and another daughter at Stroud High School about to start sixth form.
After beginning in the hospitality industry Steve quickly moved into retail management where he spent the majority of his career with several retail businesses. Steve recently left The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) after 25 years in senior commercial roles leading many branch operations, as well as taking on multi-site roles. Steve predominantly commercial roles included assessing, coaching and mentored senior leaders throughout the JLP.
In addition to his operational leadership roles in the JLP, Steve also spent nine years (three terms) as an Elected Director on the JLP Board, building a comprehensive experience in business governance and executive leadership. Since leaving the JLP Steve has developed a small portfolio of diverse Employee Ownership Board roles because of his passion for the EO business model as a better way to do business. He currently chairs the Trustee Boards at Useful Simple Trust (a small engineering, design and architecture business in London), he chairs the Trust Board at NC-Squared (a small multinational App design business) and lastly he recently joined the Trustee board at Ecctis based in Cheltenham who moved to the EO business model of ownership very recently.
Student Member of Council
Member of Council, Foundation and Chaplaincy Committee
Vanessa was born in Kuwait and had lived abroad until moving to the UK in 2013. Vanessa has always shown an interest in creative subjects and even expanded on her creativity into her studies. She studied Interior Design at University of Gloucestershire with a background in photography, textiles, and graphic design. During her studies at the university, Vanessa took part in the Netball club. This experience has allowed her develop skills in leadership through being the 3rd and 4th team captain and the Netball Club Captain in her final year.
Being so involved in the Students’ Union, she felt that running for the Activities and Opportunities Officer would allow her to represent the student voice and improve the student experience. She was successfully elected and intends to amplify the student voice in activities and extra-curriculars, as well as campaigning to support students through drink and drug awareness.
As a member of the Students’ Union Board of Trustees, she works with other elected officers at the SU to represent all students.
Vice-Chancellor
Member of Finance and General Purposes Committee
Member of Governance and Nominations Committee
Chair of Honorary Awards Committee
Clare joined the University in September 2023 following six years as UCAS Chief Executive. She is passionate about delivering reform and value in public services, and particularly, the benefit education can bring to both an individual’s overall life chances, and creating a more productive society. She is privileged to lead the University during this time of considerable change in the education sector and have the opportunity to work with so many brilliant colleagues to further build its reputation in enabling great student careers and demonstrating how it can drive skills development in Gloucestershire, the UK and internationally.
Clare started her career within manufacturing, before moving to management consultancy with Deloitte, then central and local government, latterly as Chief Executive of Worcestershire County Council. She graduated from Hull University in 1993 and gained a MSc from the Open University in 1998. She has lived with her family in the region for nearly 20 years and loves running.
External Member
Chair of Audit and Risk Committee
Member of Remuneration and Human Resources Committee
Pam is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and Administrators and a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute. She has strong governance, financial and commercial experience having worked for a high profile publicly listed company with well-known brands and aspirational products. She has significant legal, intellectual property and corporate social responsibility experience.
Pam started her career in the insurance sector. On relocating to Gloucestershire in the mid 1990s, Pam studied at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education graduating in Business Management and Human Resources Management in 1998. This enabled her to forge a career in the engineering and manufacturing sector with Glynwed International plc and she subsequently became company secretary of Aga Rangemaster Group plc in 2004. She worked on a number of merger and acquisitions transactions, including the sale of the company completed by a scheme of arrangement in September 2015. She is a pension scheme trustee.
Pam has a real passion for education and is a trustee of a local secondary school. She has other charitable and community interests in Gloucestershire.
External Member of Council
Member of Governance and Nominations Committee
Member of Remuneration and Human Resources Committee
Member of Honorary Awards Committee
Elonka is a diversity and inclusion specialist who works with companies in the broadcast media and associated creative industries. She is a former BBC journalist and programme maker. As Editor Diversity and Communities, she ran the BBC English Regions network of specialist community programmes and partnerships with Arts Council England and the Community Media Association.
Elonka left the BBC in 2016 having spent two years working in the Director General’s office developing and delivering an innovative Corporation wide diversity action plan. She is currently engaged in projects with UK and European creative organisations where her particular interest is in the portrayal and media participation of minority communities.
Vice-Chair of Council
Chair of Council, Foundation, and Chaplaincy Committee
Chair of Remuneration and Human Resources Committee
Member of Honorary Awards Committee
Robert is the Bishop of Tewkesbury sharing with the Bishop of Gloucester in the oversight of the work and ministry of the church in diocese which covers the whole of Gloucestershire and parts of South Gloucestershire. He is chair of the Diocesan Board of Education overseeing the work of its 116 church schools. In the wider church he is chair of the Archbishop of York’s Youth Trust.
Before moving to Gloucestershire Robert, who studied business before reading Theology at Nottingham and undertaking postgraduate studies at Kings College London, was Rector of Wanstead, in East London. He was also Area Dean of the London Borough of Redbridge and an Honorary Canon of Chelmsford Cathedral. Prior to this he served as a curate in Colchester and then Basildon, parish priest in South Ockendon, Thurrock and as Area Dean of Thurrock.
Robert is married to Helen, who is a primary school teacher and they have two adult daughters.
General Staff Member of Council
Joe has worked at the University for over 16 years across a variety of student support roles. His current role is within the International Student Services team, where he specialises in the provision of immigration advice and guidance to international students. In addition, in his capacity as Convenor for the workplace trade union, UNISON, Joe provides specialist help to Professional Services staff and leads on negotiations with university management regarding staff terms and conditions.
Joe has degrees from Cardiff University and University of Bristol, and is passionate about the vital role higher education can play in advancing public purpose and democratising society.
Outside work, Joe enjoys spending time with his family, campaigning on a range of local and international issues (notably in support of Palestinian rights), long walks in the countryside, and pretending he can still play competitive football.
External Member of Council
Vice-Chair of Audit & Risk Committee
Member of Council, Foundation, and Chaplaincy Committee
Member of Governance and Nominations Committee
Julie has worked in higher education since 1995. Originally starting as a University Counsellor, she worked at the University of North London /London Met, ARU, the Royal Agricultural University and the University of the West of Scotland. She has been a senior manager with oversight of the student experience in a range of professional services and cross institutional roles at Director, Executive and Board levels since 1999. She has also served on a number of Boards and was on the AMOSSHE Executive for nine years including two as Chair. She has also been the Deputy Chair of Exeter University Students’ Guild, a role that supports the President/Chair as well as wider External Trustee responsibilities from 2020-2024.
Julie worked for three years as Executive Director of Academic Partnerships for the JS Group, a company that partners with universities to provide study-related resources and services for their students and in October 2023 took up a role at Cardiff University as interim Director of Student Life where she is currently working. Prior to working in HE, she worked in the voluntary and private sectors, was an LGBT activist and in co-founded a community therapy centre that is still thriving in Holloway, London.
External Member of Council
Senior Independent Governor
In attendance at Governance and Nominations Committee
Peter is a former chairman of several PLCs, private companies and public bodies, most recently he was chairman of The Royal Mint and Cobalt Health. He is a past chairman of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Previously in his executive career he worked in a variety of industrial sectors finishing as Chief Executive of Nuclear Electric (based in Gloucester).
Peter read Engineering and Economics at Oxford University and is an Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Peter was a member of the original Cheltenham & Gloucester College Advisory Board which supported the College’s application for university status. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University in 2017.
Peter is married with one daughter and has lived in Cheltenham for the last 25 years. He spends his spare time doing Archaeology (in which he holds a PhD).
Academic Board Member of Council
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