Board Members

Ram Gidoomal CBE

Appointed as the new Chair of the OIA from July 2009. Ram Gidoomal has previously been the Chair of the Employability Forum, helping refugees into employment, and a member of the UK Border Agency Complaints Audit Committee. He also chaired the Anti-Discrimination subgroup of the Better Regulation Task Force and has had Non-Executive roles at Imperial College London and St George's University of London. He was appointed in a national recruitment campaign under rules of fair and open competition. He follows Professor Norman Gowar who served as Chair for two terms since the OIA's inception.

Dr Cecilia Wells OBE

Appointed March 2005 and Deputy Chair from 2008. Cecilia is co-owner and Director of Astar Management Consultants Ltd. She has experience of working both strategically and operationally in the private, public and voluntary sectors. Cecilia is currently involved in equality and diversity strategy, policy development and implementation and is a Non-Executive Director of the Office of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

Margaret Doyle

Appointed November 2005; reappointed November 2008. Margaret is a consultant and researcher on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and an independent mediator. She has a Master’s in Research in Law and Sociolegal Studies from Birkbeck, University of London, and has conducted research for a wide range of government departments and voluntary sector organisations. Margaret is also an independent director of the Office for Legal Complaints. She is an independent mediator specialising in disputes involving discrimination, including those in higher education, and mediates with the Disability Conciliation Service as well as with the Kids Special Educational Needs and Inclusion Mediation Service.

Mark Emerton

Appointed September 2004. Mark is a barrister, investigating miscarriages of justice as a Commissioner at the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He also sits part-time as an Employment Judge and Immigration Judge, and as a Legal Assessor for the General Medical Council.

Terry Price

Appointed June 2008. Terry is an accountant currently performing a number of non-executive roles for government bodies and housing associations. He is also Chair of Governors at Esher Sixth Form College and St Lawrence Junior School. Previously Terry was Director of Strategic Finance at the Metropolitan Police and Director of Resources at Sport England, and he has thirty years experience in local and central government.

Hugh Smith

Appointed September 2004; Deputy Chair of the Board 2006-2008. Hugh is Director of Tetragon, an HR consulting and project management business. He was previously Head of Graduate Recruitment at BT and Director of Training with Concert joint venture. He contributed to the Dearing Report and was a founder director of the Quality Assurance Agency. He has worked with careers advisory services and students and with Enterprise in Higher Education, and is a director of Graduate Prospects.

Colin Wilby

Appointed June 2008. Colin has a varied business background in the food manufacturing and engineering industries, working for large companies, including Lucas, Associated British Foods, Nestle and RHM in personnel, operations and general management roles. Most recently Colin was Managing Director of a business unit within RHM plc. He is now a Non-Executive Director of Medway NHS Foundation Trust.

Pauline Aldous

Nominated by GuildHE

Appointed May 2007 as an Alternate Director and in March 2009 as a Nominated Director. Pauline is Registrar at York St John University. She leads the Academic Registry, which embraces all student administration and the Quality and Standards Unit. She is a member of the University Executive Group and chairs the University’s Strategy Group. Pauline also serves on the Executive of the Academic Registrar’s Council and represents York St John on the AHUA.

Dr Chris Turner

Nominated by Higher Education Wales

Appointed July 2009 and previously an alternate Director for AHUA. Chris is a career University Manager and is currently Director of Registry, Governance and Students at Cardiff University. He is Chair of the Welsh Secretaries Group and is also a non-executive Director of Cwm Taf NHS Trust.

Steve Denton

Nominated by AHUA

Appointed July 2009. Steve graduated in Law from Lancaster University in 1986 following which he spent a further year as a sabbatical officer at the students' union. In 1997 he became University Secretary to the Board at Thames Valley University. In May 2001, Steve relocated to Yorkshire becoming University Secretary and Clerk to the Board as Leeds Metropolitan University. In February 2004, Steve became Registrar and Secretary of the University He was made a Pro-Vice-Chancellor in November 2005. Steve is also Chair of UNIPOL Student Homes, Honorary Treasurer of AHUA and a member of the Board of Trustees of the AUA.

Usman Ali

Nominated by the National Union of Students

Usman Ali was appointed in June 2010 and is the Vice President (Higher Education) previously being elected on the NUS National Executive Committee, Block of 15 in 2009 and is now the first Muslim Vice President in the history of the National Union of Students. He was also the Chair of the Communications Scrutiny Committee and the Nominations committee whilst being on the ‘block.’ Prior to the NUS, he was the President and Vice President Activities at the University of Salford, where he studied Business Information Systems with a 1 year industrial placement. As Vice President (Higher Education) he will be on the OIA Board of Directors, National Student Survey (NSS) Steering Group, the National Student Forum and the Higher Education Academy Academic Council as well as others. His hobbies include playing football, cricket and socialising with friends and family, especially over food.

Professor Michael Thorne

Nominated by Universities UK.

Appointed August 2007. Michael has been Vice-Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University since the start of 2007. For the previous 5 years he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of East London. Prior to that he held appointments at University College London, Cardiff University, Sunderland University and Napier University. Most of his academic output has been in mathematics and computer science but most recently he has contributed to the education policy debate internationally. He currently chairs the government's Advisory Council on Libraries, is a Parliamentary Skills Commissioner and is a member of the Board of the Learning and Skills Network. His passion for music has seen him conduct all of Wagner's major operas in the last 7 years.

Peter Hermitage

Nominated by CUC

Alex Bols

Alternate Director for the National Union of Students

Appointed November 2007. Alex is the head of Education and Quality at the National Union of Students. Previously he was Senior Campaigns and Conferences Officer at Universities UK. Between 2001-2004 he was Secretary-General of ESIB - the National Union Of Students in Europe (now European Students' Union) based in Brussels. He is also a school governor in both Primary and Secondary sectors.

Jenny Share

Alternate director for GuildHE

Appointed in May 2009. Jenny has had 20 years experience working in HE, both in departmental and central roles. 10 years in a large institution and, latterly, 10 years in a small GuildHE institution. The majority of her responsibilities have been "student centred", although working in a small institution at strategic level also give a clear overview of policy and processes in other areas such as governance, finance and learning & teaching. Her current portfolio as Vice Principal (Registrar) includes Academic Registry, Student Support and Discipline, International Development, Equality and Diversity, Institutional Performance, HE Policy Advising and Secretariat. Past roles at Leeds Trinity have also included Clerk to the Governors.

Ben Elger

Ben joined the OIA as its first Chief Operating Officer in September 2008. He combines the role with that of Company Secretary. Ben is a member of the Management Team with key responsibility for finance and human resources management. Before joining the OIA Ben spent 15 years working with students, for the last 10 years as Chief Executive of Reading University Students' Union, and before that at the Students’ Unions at Winchester, King's College London and South Bank Universities and as National Secretary of NUS.