Advisory board

Board members share their strategic insight with the business school, contributing to our education and research agendas. Members share our values and our commitment to make a real difference to people, practice and society by advancing, supporting and shaping responsible enterprise for a fairer society. Their guidance ensures that we comply with best practice in ethics, responsibility and sustainability.

We work with our advisory board to ensure that our courses remain relevant and up-to-date, and that our graduates have the skill set needed for professional practice, employment or to start their own enterprises.

They also bring opportunities for the school to partner with industry and professional practice on research collaborations, mentoring and work experience for students.

Who's on the board

• Gladis Araujo
• Sam Baker
• Sarah Birkbeck
• Malcolm Brabon
• Stuart Brittle
• Justin Butler
• Ana Christie
• Rosemary French
• Julia Gallagher
• Tor Hatton

• Matt Knight
• Alan Larkin
• JP Omari
• Milan Patel
• Tanya Petherick
• Adrian Phillips
• Veronica Povey - Chair of the Advisory Board
• Damian Ward
• Richard Womack

Gladis Araujo
Global Quality and Supply Chain Vice-President
Mattel Inc.

An accomplished board member, C-level, and senior leader, Gladis is an astute strategist specialising in global sustainable supply chains, procurement, manufacturing and quality. Her progressive career has seen her posted to different territories and cultures from APAC and EMEA to the Americas/LATAM. She’s considered an industry thought-leader and is an active public speaker around the globe.

Her vast experience in different sectors and disciplines, cross-cultural experience, and extensive academic record help her to provide a unique and holistic perspective of business challenges.

She currently works at Mattel Inc. as Global Quality and Supply Chain Vice-President overseeing the business' end-to-end quality, driving the company's digital transformation, nearshoring initiatives in LATAM, and global value networks. 

Gladis is currently a member of various boards for businesses around the world, and is passionate about social responsibility. She works tirelessly with communities in Mexico, LATAM, Malaysia, the UK, USA and Canada supporting women, girls, and children; acting in the full spectrum from board seats of several non-profit organisations, hands-on volunteer, and as President and Founder of her own foundation. 

Sam Baker
Managing Director
OSTC Brighton

Graduating in 2003 from the University of Brighton my first role was a graduate trader for OSTC. I went on to assist in training graduates in the Bromley headquarters before launching OSTC Brighton. OSTC Brighton is one of 14 OSTC group offices worldwide that recruit and develop graduates to trade on the world’s leading exchanges. OSTC Brighton has forged strong links with the university since its opening in 2011, sponsoring the Trading Room at Mithras House and hosting the annual Brighton versus Sussex Trading Challenge.

Sarah Birkbeck
Partner
Irwin Mitchell LLP

Sarah is a partner in national law firm Irwin Mitchell LLP, based in its Gatwick office. Sarah has lived and worked in Sussex for twenty years and is passionate about encouraging people from the local community from all walks of life into a fulfilling career in law. Sarah specialises in resolving commercial disputes, particularly those involving intellectual property, breach of confidence, defamation and privacy.

Malcolm Brabon
Head of Services
Coast to Capital

Coast to Capital is the strategic economic partnership that drives the economic strategy for the area including Greater Brighton, East Surrey, Croydon and West Sussex. 

Coast to Capital has recently published its Strategic Economic Plan, Gatwick 360. We also provide a fully funded business support service though the Growth Hub which has supported 9,500 small and medium sized businesses. Coast to Capital’s Enterprise Adviser Network service strategically links schools and colleges with business leaders in order to develop careers education and progression routes.

As the Head of Services, Malcolm is responsible for business support operational delivery at Coast to Capital including the Growth Hub, the Growth Champion network and the Coast to Capital Escalator Programme. He is responsible for foreign direct investment working with local partners and is a key partner in the delivery of international export trade support in partnership with the Department for International Trade.

Malcolm has experience of working with companies of all sizes from start-up firms to multinational organisations. Prior to joining Coast to Capital, Malcolm led his own consultancy, specialising in connecting UK and overseas business service providers with potential clients. He has been a Partnership and Stakeholder Manager for Business Link London based in Croydon and an award winning Business Adviser.

Malcolm is a keen advocate of entrepreneurship and has been Start-Up Champion in Croydon, a Young Enterprise Business Adviser, a volunteer mentor and Business Adviser for disadvantaged individuals including entrepreneurs with disabilities.

Justin Butler
CEO
Ambiental Technical Solutions Ltd

Justin is the CEO of Ambiental. He has over 15 years of experience innovating and commercialising digital mapping and software / data products, as well as delivering and managing complex risk mapping and modelling projects internationally. Justin is responsible for charting the strategic direction of the company, in support of our international growth plans. Overseeing the commercial and technical roadmaps for Ambiental’s ever-expanding suite of disruptive predictive analytics tools, probabilistic models, high-resolution mapping and forecasting products and data / software services, Justin has a passion for technical innovation and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows.

Ana Christie
Chief Executive
Sussex Chamber of Commerce

Ana Christie has substantial business experience both in the UK and internationally. Her career began in ground operations in aviation working both at Gatwick and Heathrow airports before progressing into hospitality for Marriott and Whitbread hotels and subsequently managing the London Aquarium.

Ana was executive vice president of an executive recruitment and human resources consultancy in the Philippines before working for the British Deputy High Commission in India in entry clearance (visas and immigration). On her return to Britain, Ana joined the pharmaceutical industry managing a team of project managers. Ana then joined the Sussex Chamber of Commerce in 2014 as Chief Executive.

Rosemary French
Non-Executive Guest Editor
Freedom Works and Dynamic Magazine for Women in Business

Rosemary spent 24 years in corporates and SME’s followed by 16 years in not-for-profit economic development and business support. Her retail buying and marketing career included John Menzies and Boots plc, joining the plc board of Ryman, Athena and Dillons Bookstores as Group Marketing Director at only 32. She then became Managing Director of a £20m stationery and card manufacturing company in Oldham with 120 employees. She has led a £13m Management Buyout and two smaller Management Buy In’s as MD and shareholder within venture capital owned small businesses. In the 2000’s Rosemary was CEO of Business Link Surrey where she championed the business support and training needs of women. Between 2006 and 2009 she sat on the Advisory Board of the University of Surrey School of Management. She is currently Executive Director of the Gatwick Diamond Initiative, a business led economic partnership driving economic growth.

Rosemary is also a Governor at East Surrey FE/ HE College, Board Director of Enterprise First and President of Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce. Her OBE, awarded in June 2014, is for services to women in business.

Julia Gallagher
Head of Sales, Marketing & Partnership - VisitBrighton

Working in partnership with over 500 member businesses, VisitBrighton is the city’s official tourism organisation, enticing 12m visitors to the city each year who create £975m of economic impact and support 18,000 FTE jobs.

With over 30 years experience in the visitor economy, working domestically and internationally in B2B and B2C environments, Julia has wide experience of both private and public sector partnership working. In her current role she  is responsible for developing long term strategies to optimise both leisure and business visitor awareness, ensuring that the visitor economy is represented locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, creating long term economic prosperity for Brighton & Hove.

Having studied at Sussex University and now working, living and bringing up a family in Brighton, she is committed to supporting the local community and delivers guest lectures to tourism students across the south-east. She is also a member of the NHS Genomic Medicine Service Project Advisory Team and ARID1B Syndrome Research Group.

Tor Hatton
Lawyer / Founder of Tor’s Law / Career and Mindset Coach

A University of Brighton Law Graduate and now Senior Commercial Dispute Resolution Lawyer. Having spent well over a decade in the Legal industry, (mostly in the City of London), Tor has experience working on small, large and complex matters, for a range of business clients that span the globe.

The Founder of Tor’s Law – a Career and Mindset Coaching Service, helping Lawyers & All, to live life happy and be better than yesterday. Tor welcomes everyone who is ready to move forwards with their career and/or their way of thinking. Working with Junior / Mid-Level / Senior Lawyers, Management, future lawyers, and more; Tor’s Law offers tailored 1:1 Coaching support to a variety of individuals and organisations, in the Legal sector and beyond. 

Passionate about good mental health, social mobility, diversity and inclusion, Tor has also formed a network of lawyers that collaborate to provide talks (to people all over the world), with the purpose of motivating and inspiring – whatever level you’re at.

Matt Knight
Managing Director, Akro Valve

Matt joined Akro Valve in 2017 to take over the leadership role in the company. He has previously worked for British Gas and Shell in operational engineering roles, principally offshore on drilling and production platforms in the North Sea. He also worked in research and development for the Ministry of Defence, where he worked on the various rocket and missile programmes in the UK and US. He holds a BEng. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hertfordshire and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University College London. He is a volunteer STEM ambassador and Enterprise Advisor in East Sussex.

Alan Larkin
Head of Innovation & Technology/Director
Family Law Partners

Alan Larkin has worked as a family lawyer for over 20 years. During this time he has achieved accredited expert status with Resolution for family finance work and advocacy in children cases at court as well as training to become an accredited collaborative model lawyer. Nowadays, Alan largely spends his time developing innovative projects within family law. Alan started a blog in 2011 aimed at litigants in person who could not afford legal advice. The requests for assistance generated by the website persuaded Alan that digital self-help tools could be part of the answer. Alan created a child maintenance calculator in 2013 designed to promote transparency and communication between co-parents. It is still widely used today and a second version of that application has been refined as a University of Brighton student final year assessment in 2018.

Alan created and launched a family law triage application called Engage in 2014 and it has been used by nearly 600 clients of Family Law Partners, free of charge, to instruct the firm. The resultant data has been analysed by Alan on the IBM Watson Analytics platform to determine the drivers of cost and case duration for future family law clients. That novel work has been profiled by IBM in a discrete case study.

Alan’s firm has a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of Brighton supported by Innovate UK to apply AI and machine learning to applications in the family law sphere.

Alan has spoken at events hosted by the Law Society and Resolution to stimulate digital working and innovation amongst legal practitioners.

JP Omari
Founder
Streetfunk

JP Omari is a multi-award-winning Hip-Hop dancer, teacher and choreographer who has worked hard and extensively to become one of the leading and widely respected Hip Hop dance figures in the UK.

As a professional dancer, he has entertained audiences across 5 continents and worked with chart topping artists such as Sean Paul, Dizzee Rascal and Orbital. JP became the UK’s first boy (breaker) to take part in a reality TV dance show, when he took part and became a semi-finalist in the BBC’s Strictly Dance Fever in 2006.

JP has created a dance community in the city of Brighton & Hove where his name is synonymous with dance. He has nurtured and trained dancers who have firmly established themselves in the dance industry internationally. He has 25+ yrs. experience in teaching dance to all ages and owns one of the most successful streetdance schools in the UK - Streetfunk. Streetfunk dancers have won countless South Coast, South East, Southern, UK, European and World streetdance championship titles.

JP has also created a successful and award winning fitness brand - FunkFit - the Number 1 and only dance fitness class in the world which, at its core, uses Funk, Soul, Disco and Motown music. With FunkFit, JP entered the fitness world and, within a short amount of time, he is regarded as one of the top fitness presenters in the UK. JP knows no boundary and is intent on spreading his love and passion of dance, energy and fun worldwide.

Milan Patel
CEO
Dotdigital

Tanya Petherick
Director
Club Central

Tanya Petherick is a cross-sector business consultant, trainer and mentor who specialises in leadership and management, strategy development and marketing.

Prior to setting up as a consultant, she spent 15 years co-leading a Brighton-based childcare company that employed more than 150 staff in 16 locations.

Adrian Phillips
General Counsel
441 Trust Company Ltd

Adrian Phillips started his career at Simmons & Simmons in the corporate department where he concentrated on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and insolvency. In 1995, he joined Visa in London becoming General Counsel and a member of the excom of Visa CEMEA in 1996. He subsequently became Head of Risk and Legal Affairs in 2000. In 2006/7 he, together with his team, was responsible for the merger and IPO of Visa Inc on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Adrian moved to San Francisco in 2007, where he became Deputy Chief Risk Officer and was a member of the excom of Visa Inc. In 2010, Adrian joined Amadeus as Head of Legal IT and Privacy based in Madrid and subsequently Nice. He left Amadeus in the summer of 2014, and was involved in a number of activities including setting up a compliance SaaS company and acting as a special counsel for Jones Day. He is today GC for 441 Trust Company Ltd, a company representing the interests of many banks in Europe in relation to their sale of Visa Europe to Visa Inc. for $20 billion dollars.

Veronica Povey CBE, FCMA - Chair of the Advisory Board

Veronica joined the Advisory Board in October 2018. After graduating with a physics degree from Aston University in Birmingham she specialised in optical engineering, working in the aerospace and defence industry before making a complete career change and joining the fast-stream civil service. She trained as a tax professional in HMRC, joined the senior civil service and became a qualified accountant (FCMA). She went on to hold many Finance Director and leadership roles across Whitehall, become Director of Public Spending at HM Treasury, and more recently she was Finance Director at the Ministry of Defence.

Veronica is a keen supporter of a range of diversity networks and a champion of management excellence, giving her time to mentor and coach people at all stages of their careers. She is passionate about supporting women and under-represented groups to succeed and become influential leaders in the workplace; leading allyship groups, supporting networks and mentoring. She also volunteers widely in her local community and beyond.

Veronica was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List 2023.

Damian Ward
Professor and Dean of Hertfordshire Business School
University of Hertfordshire

I have a background in economics and 20 years’ experience of working in higher education at a number of institutions. I am currently the Dean of the Hertfordshire Business School leading 300 colleagues and 3500 students. I also retain active engagement with scholarship including research, authorship of a leading textbook and teaching at international business schools. I have experience of developing and successfully implementing strategy within business schools. I am also a member of the Board of Governors for the London Institute for Banking and Finance.

Richard Womack
Managing Director, Manns of Cranleigh

Richard spent his early years working in France, being lucky enough to work in personnel at the French metro company RATP and also teaching at the Sorbonne. On returning to the UK Richard worked his way up to national Sales Manager of a kitchen and bedroom manufacturer before moving on. He then went back to France and opened a distribution company while also starting a chain of shops for a franchising opportunity in the UK.

Looking for a change of direction he completed an MBA at City University and was asked to be involved in his father’s department store, Manns of Cranleigh, business to sell it. Richard ended up buying out the shareholders and has run the company for the last thirty five years. Richard will soon be retiring.

Richard would now like to give back some of that experience he gained. He is particularly keen on areas such as product selection. department launch, business development, team motivation and leadership, especially mentoring. Richard has been lucky enough to hear many great speakers in the last 10 years through professional CEO groups. Most of all he enjoys connecting people to new opportunities.