Board of Governors

Meet the members

Independent governors

Mark Burch Chair
Janey Walker Deputy Chair
Marc Allsop
Trevor Beattie
Dr Robert Coles
Jeff Cronkshaw
John Gill
Andrew Grainger
Jacqueline Minor
Paul Robb

Ex officio

Vice-Chancellor Professor Debra Humphris

Co-opted governors

Peter Houghton

Staff governors

Alan Baser
Andy Davies
Dr Nichola Khan
Dr George Tsekouras

Student governors

Sufia Begum (Students’ Union President)
Ilia Mirsky Katz (Students’ Union Education Officer)

Independent governors

Mark Burch (Chair)

Mark combines over 30 years of working in financial services with extensive non-executive experience in the education and creative industries sectors.

Mark began his executive career at American Express before moving to Kleinwort Benson as Assistant Director, where he oversaw a number of public company mergers and acquisitions. He later joined ING Barings, where he became first Head of Corporate Finance and then Head of Private Equity and established and led an investment group. He joined private equity investment firm ARCIS Group in 2002, serving as a Managing Partner until 2022 and overseeing the management of more than $600 million in private equity assets. He continues to act as a Consultant to ARCIS.

Away from his financial services career, he has held a number of non-executive posts, including at the Hackney Empire, Charleston Trust, Arts Educational Schools, Royal Society of Sculptors, Chiswick and Theatre Investment Fund (Stage One). Since January 2022, he has also served as a Director of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, having been nominated to the role by the Committee of University Chairs.

Mark has an MA in Modern History from New College, Oxford and an MBA from Columbia University, New York.

Janey Walker (Deputy Chair)

Janey has been Deputy Chair from 1 August 2016, and one of the independent members of the Board, a member since 1 August 2014. She is a member of the Finance and Infrastructure Committee.

Janey was a non-executive member of the content board at Ofcom advising on editorial standards and regulation in broadcasting.

Previously Managing Editor and Head of Education at Channel 4, she has senior editorial and commercial experience in television, digital media and education. She was Managing Director of the Indie Training Fund, a not-for-profit organisation providing TV training for production companies and freelancers, and she developed and launched IGGY (a global online network for gifted students aged 13 to 18) at the University of Warwick. She graduated from the University of York with a degree in history/politics. She has won a number of awards including an international Emmy and the Fellowship of the Royal Television Society. She is a Trustee of the University of Brighton Academies Trust.

Marc Allsop

Marc is one of the independent members of the Board, a member since 1 August 2015. He is Chair of the Finance and Infrastructure Committee and a member of both Nominations and Remuneration Committees. He is an alumnus of the university, having graduated in 1998 with a BA(Hons) Management Studies with French.

Marc is currently Chief Commercial Officer and Director at Bink, and UK based fintech. He has previously served in senior global management roles, including as Senior Vice-President – Head of Global Business Development at Aimia Inc. In this role, he led the team who executed the expansion of Aimia’s strategy into new territories worldwide. Prior to joining Aimia, he held various posts at American Express, including Vice-President and Head of Business Development for their European business, from graduation in 1998 until March 2013.

Marc is a resident of Brighton & Hove, having remained in the city following his graduation from the School of Service Sector Management.

Trevor Beattie

Trevor is one of the independent members of the Board, a member since 1 August 2014. Trevor is currently Chief Executive of the South Downs National Park, with an in-depth knowledge of the environment, planning, housing and regeneration and a long track record as an Executive Board Director.

He graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in Economics and Politics, taking urban economics as a specialist subject. He spent 10 years (1988-1997) as Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Local Government and Inner Cities, having entered the Civil Service in 1978 (Department of Transport). He was a member of a small core team which established English Partnerships and subsequently became its Southern Regional Director. He is also a member of the Greater Brighton Economic Board.

Dr Robert Coles

Robert is one of the independent members of the Board, a member since 1 May 2021. He is also a member of the Audit Committee.

Robert is the Director of Cumberland House Consulting Ltd, specialising in audit, risk and cyber security strategy, programme delivery and Non-Exec and Board Advisory roles. He holds a number of commercial board positions including Chair of the Crossword Consulting Ltd Board, Non-Executive Director of Crossword Cybersecurity PLC, and board advisor to Think Cyber Ltd and the Government of Singapore Ministry of Health. Robert has over 35 years of audit, risk and cyber security experience and has held a number of senior leadership positions, including for the NHS and health and care system, GSK, National Grid, Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland, and he was an audit partner at KPMG.

Robert is an Honorary Professor at UCL and is an executive sponsor for the Cyber Masters Programme at Cranfield University. He was awarded a PhD in psychology by the University of Leeds for his work on the perceptions of information and IT risk and has published and presented on this and other topics. He continues to undertake research in these areas. He was also awarded an MBA from Manchester Business School.

Robert is a resident of Worthing.

Jeff Cronkshaw

Jeff is one of the independent members of the Board. He is Chair of Audit Committee. He is an alumnus of the university, having graduated in 1998 with a BA(Hons) Computing and Information Systems degree. 

Jeff is the Group Managing Director for LanciaConsult, a senior technology advisory firm based out of Singapore and with offices in Germany and the United Kingdom. Jeff has been working within large technology delivery programmes for approaching 20 years. The first six years of his career were spent in the pharmaceutical industry with Eli Lilly and Company, followed by almost ten years with Accenture in their technology consulting practices in London and Singapore before co-founding LanciaConsult in 2012.

In his role as head of LanciaConsult he is responsible for the global growth, team development, and client value propositions for the firm globally.

Jeff and family recently relocated to Hamburg (Germany) after over 8 years living and working in Singapore and South East Asia.

John Gill

John has been an independent member of the Board since August 2016. He is a member of the Staff Appeals Committee, the Gift Oversight Group, and the Theatre & Galleries Advisory Group. He is also a member of the Joint Board of Brighton & Sussex Medical School. John holds degrees from the universities of London and Sussex. In 2015–16 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard.

John has 40 years’ experience in major arts organisations in the public sector as director and curator. He initiated and developed an innovative, accessible and culturally-diverse programme of exhibitions, music and events at the South Bank Centre, and has since curated many exhibitions of contemporary art in a wide range of venues in the UK. He has been instrumental in the establishment of several arts organisations in the UK and has an in-depth knowledge of the creative industries in the south-east region. Locally, he has chaired the Boards of Photoworks, Brighton Photo Biennial, Lighthouse and The Westgate Trust. Until recently he was Chair of the Board of Camden Arts Centre, and was a founder-member of the Stuart Croft Foundation, John continues to advise a variety of arts organisations on policy development and strategic planning.

Andrew Grainger

Andrew joined the Board in October 2018 as one of independent members. He is also a member of the Finance and Infrastructure Committee. Andrew is a chartered surveyor with over 35 years experience in property across several sectors including higher education, the airline industry, urban regeneration and the drinks industry. For 9 years, until summer 2018, Andrew was Director of Estates for University College London (UCL) with one of the largest and most complex university estates in the UK. Andrew led the £1.7bn transformation of UCL’s central London estate and its expansion onto the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Andrew is the sole external member of Trinity College Dublin Estate Policy Committee. Earlier in his career, Andrew was Head of Property with British Airways PLC for 6 years, culminating in the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5, he also spent 10 years engaged in the regeneration of London Docklands with the London Docklands Development Corporation.

Andrew is a trustee of Street Action, a small charity supporting and working with African Street Child projects.

Jacqueline Minor

Jacqueline is one of the independent members of the Board, a member since 1 August 2014. She is Chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Employment and Staff Appeals Committees.

Jacqueline was the Head of the European Commission's Representation in the UK, responsible for representing the European Commission and reporting to it until February 2017. She had overall responsibility for the UK Representation and the activities of the three offices in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and is the Commission's Spokesperson in the UK. A lawyer by training she began her career in the European Institutions at the Court of Justice in 1984. She moved to the European Commission in 1987 to work on the recognition of diplomas and later had a second spell at the court working as referendaire to two British judges. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Birmingham in 2016 and became a honorary Senior Fellow of Regent's University, London in 2017.

Paul Robb

Paul is one of the independent members of the Board: he has been a member since 1 August 2017.

Paul is a Chartered Accountant by profession and since qualifying has spent over 25 years working in the technology and professional services sectors. He went to Loughborough University, graduating in 1984 with a BSc(Hons) in Accounting and Finance.

Paul has significant experience in the outsourcing business having personally led and contributed to many large, including several landmark, programmes while working for some of the leading organisations in the field. He has held senior management and board roles in commercial, business development and delivery functions. Recently he has also worked on the consulting side of the business as a partner at one of the major global practices.

Currently Paul is a non-Exec Board member of an innovative IT business and his local golf club.

Paul is married and enjoys high-handicap golf, ‘white-knuckle’ horse riding and scouring the countryside looking for Ben his very fast greyhound.

Ex officio

Professor Debra Humphris

Our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Debra Humphris, is responsible for leadership and management of the university, within the policies laid down by the Board of Governors of which she is an ex-officio member. This includes line management for the Deputy Vice-Chancellor; Pro-Vice-Chancellor – Learning and Teaching; Pro-Vice-Chancellor – Research; Chief Operating Officer; Registrar and Secretary. Debra is a member of the Employment, Finance and Infrastructure, Nominations and Remuneration Committees of the Board of Governors.

More about Professor Debra Humphris.

Co-opted governors

Peter Houghton

Peter joined the Board as a co-opted member in April 2022.

He has had a long career in senior management in the NHS and Senior Civil Service, including chief executive positions at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon; South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust; and Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority. During his time at the Department of Health he was Regional Director of the Eastern Region of the NHS and Director of the National Leadership Network. He has also carried out senior roles in strategic planning, leadership development and innovation.

Peter graduated in Literae Humaniores from Keble College, Oxford University, and has professional qualifications in health care administration and health economics.

Peter, who was born and raised in South Yorkshire, has lived in Brighton and Hove since 2007. Since retiring from the NHS, he has undertaken consultancy work, and provided support to local health and social care voluntary organisations. Amongst his interests are a love of classical music and opera, writing poetry, and spending time at his holiday home in Languedoc.

Staff governors

Alan Baser

Alan started working at the university in 2003 after a period at the University of Sussex. He has had several different roles, his current job as Risk & Compliance Manager means that he works on every campus of the university and gets to meet colleagues from many diverse areas. He is also a Residential Advisor living in halls providing pastoral support to resident students. He is an active member of the LGBT+ staff network group.

For eight years, Alan was a member of both the Governance Board and the Sector Advisory Group of the Universities UK Code of Practice for Student Accommodation Management. He has represented UUK to central government and has been the UUK representative to the committee of management of the Accreditation Network UK.

As a World Sailing International Judge and International Umpire Alan officiates at pinnacle level sailing competitions throughout the world including the London and Rio Olympic Games. He has been a member of or has chaired several committees at the national governing body for sailing, and has represented it on the council of Sports Officials UK.

Alan is Chair of the Board of Directors of Actually Community Interest Company, whose principal function is to run the Brighton & Hove Actually Gay Men’s Chorus. In addition to ensuring the good governance of the CIC, Alan loves to perform with the chorus and as Chair represents them throughout the Brighton & Hove LGBTQ community.

Andy Davies

Andy was elected to the Board in 2022 as one of the academic staff members. Following ten years as a secondary history teacher in Oxford and Dorking Andy joined the university in 2009 as a member of the School of Education where he is currently the associate dean for academic operations. During his time at the University of Brighton Andy has collaborated and worked with a wide variety of committed and inspirational staff and students in a number of roles including lecturer, deputy head, assistant head and course leader as well as wider roles such as membership of the Academic Board and exam board chair for partner colleges. Andy is a graduate of the University of Brighton (MA Professional Development in Education) and before that studied at the University of Oxford (MSc Educational Research Methods and PGCE Secondary History) and the University of the West of England (BA History).

Outside of the university Andy is a member of the University of Brighton Academies Trust Education and Standards Committee and external examiner for Liverpool John Moores University. In his spare time Andy enjoys spending time with his family and playing music with Brighton’s The Crucks.

Dr Nichola Khan

Nichola was elected to the Board in 2020. Nichola is an anthropologist who joined the university’s School of Applied Social Science in 2008. She studied for her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex as an ESRC-doctoral student, following her MPhil in Cross-Cultural Psychology which she also completed at Sussex.

At the University of Brighton she is the Director of the Centre for Research in Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics (2019-21). Her major research projects concern relations of war, violence and migration in Pakistan’s mega city of Karachi, and among Afghan refugees in England. Her latest project is about colonial trauma and respiratory illness across the South China Sea. She is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and the Royal Asiatic Society, an Associate Fellow and a Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society. She has held visiting scholarships at the National University of Singapore, and Harvard Medical School.

Dr George Tsekouras

George was elected in the Board in November 2021. He is the Director of CENTRIM, the Centre for Change, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, a Centre of Research and Enterprise Excellence at the University of Brighton. He is also the Innovation Chair of the British Academy of Management (BAM).

His research focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship in themes such as open innovation for SMEs, enabling innovation through peer-to-peer learning networks, innovation coaching for entrepreneurship, new product development, university-industry links and public-private partnerships for entrepreneurial innovation, and innovation for non-high tech SMEs.

George has raised and managed research and enterprise projects worth over £20m while he has been the lead partner of three major research consortia. He has been the Academic Lead in a number of major enterprise projects such as the BRITE project with Plus X, the project that developed innovation coaching currently used in the EIC Accelerator programme etc. He is also the founder of the Profitnet programme which supported more than 2,000 SMEs in UK, Ireland and South Africa and worked closely with the Green Growth Platform to enable SMEs to take advantage of the sustainability agenda.

Student governors

Sufia Begum

Sufia is currently in her first term as Union President at Brighton Students’ Union. She graduated from the university after studying BSc Biomedical Sciences, where she found a passion for immunology and did a nationwide study on the direct impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vaccine hesitancy and acceptance. As a student, Sufia was actively involved with the union and societies to represent the student voice. She was the founder and president of the Mature Students’ Society and a member of the Societies Association Committee. Through this, she was able to gain insight and raise awareness about the issues faced by non-traditional students, such as commuters, mature students and student parents.

She is passionate about raising awareness about discrimination and campaigning for equal opportunities for students to help close the degree awarding gap between the different student groups.

Ilia Mirsky Katz

Ilia is currently in his first term as Education Officer at the Brighton Students’ Union after graduating from the University of Brighton with a Biomedical Science BSc(Hons) degree. During his time as a student, Ilia was committee of the award-winning society ‘BioSoc’, that successfully led to all students that attended the society’s revision sessions to pass their assignments. Ilia also founded the ‘Medic-Link’, a society that gives assistance and support to students wanting to pursue a career in medicine by creating a network of information with quick access to prospect doctors and by keeping information up to date for applicants. Ilia also represented his cohort as a course rep for two years, which led him to develop a strong relationship with the BSU and untimely gave incentive to become an Education Officer.

Ilia is passionate about representing students in their journey through higher education by ensuring they have the best experience while developing important skills throughout their studies. Ilia aims to maximise the opportunities provided for students so that they can achieve their goals.