Meet the Governors
INDEPENDENT GOVERNORS
MIKE ASHTON
CHAIR OF CORPORATION
The new Chair of the Corporation is Mike Ashton who is the managing director of ABCG, a training and consulting company with clients in the UK Europe and Russia. ABCG specialise in MBA-level executive training with particular focus on business strategy, marketing and customer experience.
Mike’s commercial experience includes senior roles with Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Hilton International, where he was Senior Vice President, marketing & customer experience and a member of the board for nearly 10 years.
He is an experienced NED and business adviser. Recent appointments include 7 years as trustee of UK charity Revitalise, 5 years as chair of digital marketing agency LHM Media, and 2 years as strategic brand advisor to the Welsh Assembly Government.
Originally from Birmingham, Mike and his family have lived in Buckinghamshire for more than 20 years. He’s a keen musician, playing drums with Beatles tribute band, the Dung Beatles. Mike has an MBA and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Mike is delighted to be joining The Henley College Corporation Board and is looking forward to contributing to the exciting plans and continued development of the college.
REBECCA CHANDLER-WILDE
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Rebecca Chandler-Wilds holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Henley Business School and a degree in Physics from Imperial College. Professionally she has widely varied relevant experience in education having been an academic and senior manager directing and teaching post-graduate qualification and executive programmes for over 20 years at Henley Business School and Buckinghamshire New University. A trustee and chair of the finance committee of the Clare Foundation which was founded to help other charities develop and become more efficient in what they do.
Rebecca believes passionately in the power of education to change lives for the better and am co-founder and Trustee of the Basotho Educational Trust which provides educational grants for vocational education to low-income students in Lesotho enabling students to earn a living.
SATWANT DEOL
PRINCIPAL/EX OFFICIO
Satwant Deol joined as the college Principal in 2016 from Highbury College in Portsmouth. She is an innovative senior education professional with extensive experience of internal and external strategic relationship building in both the Further and Higher Education sectors. Her professional career began in software development and she went on to become both the first woman to lead an all-male development team and the youngest Head of Department at Coventry University. From Higher Education, she moved to the FE sector in London where she developed a reputation for effective change management and for her inclusive, collaborative approach to leadership.
Whilst at Highbury College, Satwant pioneered new approaches to teaching and learning, involved employers closely in the design, development and delivery of curriculum and created opportunities for students to be closely involved in developments through a newly formed Student Forum and most recently set up the new Solent Marine Academy.
BRIAN FENNELLY
VICE CHAIR/INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Brian has joined the Board coming from the retail sector where he has spent more of his working life. Brian was employed by Boots since 1988 and has held a wide range of positions involved in multi-site, regional and store based operations. Within these roles he has led a number of major projects including new store openings, management development programmes, education/business partnerships and city centre management schemes. Passionate about developing others, Brian has extensive experience in the recruitment and development of a wide range of people such as healthcare professionals, store managers, consultants, security personnel and field roles.
Outside of his working environment, Brian has enthusiastically involved himself in additional roles having been active in Town Centre Partnerships with local councils and landlords where he has held both Director and Chairman roles in these organizations.
Brian is the Chair of the Audit committee.
DR TIM LINCOLN
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Dr Tim Lincoln brings a wealth of professional experience and personal skills to the board. His initial career was in information and communications technology in IBM where he worked as a senior consultant in business strategy and later as the European Consulting Principal. He then became Chair of Impact Management Research e-business development group before becoming an Independent Consultant specialising in Healthcare and IT strategy. Tim joined the board of the Royal Berks NHS Foundation Trust in 2000 as a Non-Executive and then Deputy Chair and in 2007 was appointed Chairman of Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Latterly he has just finished two terms as an Independent Governor and Vice-Chair Abingdon and Witney College. He has vast experience of public and private sector governance together with extensive knowledge of public sector committees and the health and higher education sectors. He was invited to become a member of the court of Brunel University in 2010 and has been a Member of the Research Ethics committee of Reading University since 2012.
Tim holds first degrees in Physics and Philosophy and a PhD in Nuclear Physics plus a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance. Tim lives locally with his wife and is very much involved with Henley life and welcomes the opportunity of getting involved in the College.
Tim is Chair of the Quality & Standards committee.
JAMES LINGARD
VICE CHAIR/INDEPENDENT MEMBER
James Lingard is an accomplished strategic leader working for the UK’s leading food retailer, having previously lead one of the largest stores in Europe with a team of over 700 staff. James is now a Regional Manager in Central London leading over 35 stores with a team of over 3,000. He has considerable experience in building and engaging with strong teams, delivering cost control improvement and excellent quality standards across a diverse and varied retail environment. His role involves being a key transformation and change ambassador overseeing the change implementation strategy and plan as a key stakeholder through an ever changing business and service model.
James would say that he has benefited from some of the great programmes offered through apprenticeships gaining his degree in Business Management from Manchester Metropolitan University. His passion for trying to help and encourage young people in business has resulted in him working closely with the College resulting in a very successful and now annual “Dragon’s Den” event. He fervidly believes that contributions from external sources can add value and maximise the opportunities for those young people looking at going into business when they leave college.
James is the safeguarding governor.
VINCE MALTESE
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Vince Maltese, Canadian born, is an independent Sales Consultant with almost 30 years of experience as a sales professional and executive for companies in the IT/Telecommunications industry. His professional career began with Nortel and encompassed not only engineering, design and operations but also project management, marketing, sales and senior management. In 2010 Vince joined the Miller Heiman Group as a Senior Consulting Partner, designing and delivering tailored sales performance consulting and sales training programs, courses and seminars to organizations who want to improve sales effectiveness.
Vince has a degree in Engineering/Computer Science from The University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada and holds both Canadian and UK citizenship and is fluent in both English and Italian.
CHRIS MURRAY
INDEPENDENT GOVERNOR
Chris Murray, a qualified accountant is currently the Chief Financial Officer for OXIS Energy Ltd. located at the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire. Originally from Boston, USA, Chris has lived in the UK for the past 27 years where he became a UK citizen. He has held several international roles during his career including working with Siemens for over 17 years. In addition, during the last 20 years he has worked for technology SMEs in the UK, Sweden and the USA. Chris currently resides in Lightwater, Surrey with his wife and 13-year-old daughter.
LIZZIE WATTS
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Lizzie Watts is the Director of Accreditation and Standards at Pearson (Edexcel) and works across Vocational and Academic qualifications in the examination board part of the organisation. She runs a small division of experts looking after the design of assessments; the regulatory compliance of qualifications that have been developed; the standards set in Academic qualifications such as GCSEs and A levels, Vocational qualifications such as Apprenticeships, Functional Skills, BTECs and T- Levels as well as some English Language tests and international qualifications. Prior to this Lizzie ran large operational teams delivering assessments – whilst enjoying technical, detailed work Lizzie is a pragmatist at heart and as a senior leader often has had to deal with problems with some ingenuity as well as mobilising others to get the job done.
Lizzie has a passion for learning and believes that good education provides the foundation to enable individuals to reach their potential in life. She is specifically committed to the development of good vocational education policy and provides her with an opportunity to see first-hand how students engage with curriculum and assessments and to gain better insight into the challenges of running a large college.
CHARLES WIGGIN
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Charles Wiggin is a highly experienced chartered accountant and business adviser. He qualified with KPMG and worked in a variety of audit and financial management assignments before moving to Europe with Price Waterhouse Coopers where he was responsible for due diligence and M&A work across a number of industries and territories. After working in industry for 10 years, he set up his own practice and now specialises in providing financial solutions to growing and challenged businesses including cash, profitability and financing issues. In 2003, he developed the award winning Accounting Services Online especially for the SME market. Charles' passion is to help businesses achieve their targets - he is a former rowing Olympic Medallist.
Charles is Chair of the Finance & Resources Committee.
CLAIRE BOVILL
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
Claire Bovill is Chief of Staff & Senior Director Customer Success AMERICAS Cisco Customer Experience (CX). She is also Strategic Advisor to the SVP of CX AMER in the strategy, vision, and execution of the organization to accelerate customers’ success and profitable growth for Cisco and Partners, by delivering the best customer experience in the industry.
Claire is an experienced sales and marketing professional with over 25 years’ track record of excellence specialising in the IT/Mobile technology sectors, holding Global and Regional management positions at the Economist, AOL, Vodafone and Cisco.
Claire is a visionary, tenacious, authentic, results-oriented leader – with the ability to take something conceptual and lead both the strategy and execution. She cares passionately about people, creating an inclusive culture and enjoys building highly engaged, diverse teams.
Claire is married and the proud mum of 2 boys (now 19 and 17). She is passionate about tennis which is not only a wonderful sport to keep fit but has also helped her from a business perspective.
“Power of We” is something I stand by
RENA RANI
INDEPENDENT MEMBER
PARENT GOVERNORS
JO-ANNE ELLIOTT
JACKIE WILCOCKS
Jackie Willcocks’ daughter successfully completed her A Level studies at THC in 2021 and her son is currently in his first year of BTEC study. She has over 30 years’ experience of working in the education sector, and currently works as an English Adviser in Reading’s schools. She passionately believes that every student should have access to the highest quality education and is keen to offer support with teaching and learning through engagement with the quality and standards committee. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, country walks and visiting new places, especially with her family.
STAFF GOVERNORS
ANDREW UNSWORTH
STAFF GOVERNOR
With a BA in Marketing and a further degree qualification in Professional Studies - Rugby, Andrew Unsworth first taught at the nearby Langtree school, which was part of the Oxfordshire/ Bucks partnership in associating with Oxford University. He later joined the College as a teacher of Public Service and Social Studies. He has brought innovation into this area and is an enthusiastic participant in additional activities for students, often seeking new ways in which to promote the College, its students’ courses and programmes. He has taught football and is a qualified rugby coach with many years’ experience across a wide variety of state and independent schools. He was a county coach at the Oxfordshire/ London Wasps School of Rugby for the under 13s to under 16s elite and development groups. In his free time he still enjoys playing rugby at Henley and has now ventured into American Football playing for the Berkshire Renegades since 2018.
ASMA JAHAN
STAFF GOVERNOR
Asma started her career at The Henley College after a break of 8 years in dedicated motherhood, teaching Criminology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.
She is an experienced sales and marketing professional with over 11+ years’ in the food industry, with a track record of excellence specialising in the Seafood Industry Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
She thrives in a diverse culture and believes we all have a unique capacity for contribution.
A long-time advocate of compassion, parent of a wonder child and a community volunteer, Asma's collaborative approach is to skillfully identify how to nurture the seed of goodness while simultaneously provide students with all the tools required to flourish in the twenty-first century, to educate a generation that can be challenged and trained to create solutions to problems.
Her aspiration as an educator for young people is “The World Becomes What We Teach” Zoe Weil.
CO-OPTED MEMBERS
CHRIS REEVE
CO-OPTED MEMBER (FINANCE & RESOURCES)
Chris Reeve studied at The Henley College for his A-levels and retains an affinity, with his daughter currently studying an art diploma there.
A Chartered Surveyor specialising in real estate investment Chris worked as Head of Commercial at Bidwells, shaping financial strategy for Oxford and Cambridge College endowment funds, including Trinity College Cambridge developing their Science Park.
Subsequently, Chris joined the University of Reading as Director of Property Services, managing Whiteknights, London Road and Henley Business College campuses, and leading on the private sector partnership at Thames Valley Science Park. Chris is now Director of Buildings and Facilities at Eton College. He lives in Reading with his wife and two daughters.
STUDENT GOVERNOR
THERE ARE TWO STUDENT GOVERNORS ELECTED BY THE STUDENT BODY IN APRIL OF EACH ACADEMIC YEAR
LUCY FOX
PIP GOODMAN
