International Advisory Board

Bill is based in Newcastle and has chaired the Advisory Board since 2015. He was a partner in PwC for 25 years until retiring in 2020 and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He worked with the Business School on the Flying Start degree programme run in conjunction with PwC and ICAEW for over 10 years.

During his career with PwC, Bill held the following roles:

• PwC UK Ethics Partner with oversight of professional ethics matters.
• Member of the Supervisory Board which is PwC’s governance body that holds its executive management to account. As part of this role, Bill:
• chaired PwC’s own Audit and Risk Committee
• served on PwC’s equivalent of a remuneration committee
• was a member of the Partner Affairs Committee which dealt with partnership matters
• Newcastle office senior partner. Leading PwC’s 300 strong Newcastle office, which provides a full range of professional services in the North East.
• Assurance North people partner – responsible for all people related matters across this 700 person business.
• Audit partner – Bill has led the audits of a wide range of listed and private companies.
• Earlier in his career, Bill worked overseas for five years spending two years in New York and three years in Dubai.

Bill is a Non-executive director of The Newcastle-upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and of NewcastleGateshead Initiative. NGI is a public-private partnership and seeks to promote the region as a place to invest and visit. Bill joined the Council of Newcastle University in 2020.

He is a member of the Ethics Board of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, having previously served on its Student Education Committee. 

He is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and was previously an external advisor to its Accountancy degree programme.

Stuart leads a regulatory and scheme engagement team. This is for the domestic digital and international payments processing of Lloyds Banking Group.

He oversees the investment portfolio and early design phases of payments regulatory change, as well as risk management and control.

Stuart has broad experience of international banking. He was relationship head for the overseas payments network of the bank in key geographies.

He developed the operating model for the bank’s global transactional banking business. He has a strong record in innovation and strategic business development.

In addition, Stuart has a number of independent business interests, which focus on the opportunities brought about by digital transformation.

Stuart is a graduate of Newcastle University in History (1985) and has maintained firm links with the North East.

He helps promote the Benefactors’ Fund for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. This supports student scholarships in the Business School and the student business START-UP programme.

Sameena has over 30 years of HR experience. She has previously held several Global Executive HR Director roles with General Electric (GE).

She has led major transformations across multiple GE sectors such as:

• oil and gas
• power and renewable energy
• healthcare
• capital (financial services)

Sameena left GE in May 2020 to set up her own consulting business specialising in executive coaching and leadership development. She enables successful leaders to excel and have a greater impact on their teams, business and career.

Sameena is a BSc Honours Psychology graduate, with a postgraduate diploma in HR (Fellow of CIPD since 2002). Sameena also has an MBA from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Lynn graduated from Cambridge University with a MA in Geography. She followed up with a Postgraduate Diploma in Human Resource Management, achieved with Distinction, from Northumbria University. She is a Chartered Member of the CIPD.

Lynn started her career in accountancy training as a Chartered Accountant with KMPG. She then worked in sales with a leading FMCG company, PepsiCo, before moving into recruitment/headhunting.

She previously joined Nike UK in Human Resources, where she has enjoyed a variety of roles. She moved into the HR Director position in 2013, responsible for the UK/Ireland business. This involved multi-site responsibility with more than 2,000 employees working across wholesale and retail.

She is now the Senior Director of Human Resources, Europe at NZXT Inc.

In her personal life, Lynn enjoys spending time with her family and friends. She loves the outdoors, walking with the dogs and keeping fit.

Susan successfully lead Waterstons LTD, a business and technology company, over a 6-year period as CEO and 9 years on the board.

During her tenure, the business enjoyed profitable international growth, tripling turnover and profitability whilst also tripling the number of talented consultants worldwide. The team continuously developed customer-centric service offerings for their expanding global client base, including 24/7 support and cyber operations from new offices in Sydney and Glasgow, to accompany the expansion of Waterstons' existing presence in Durham and London. 

Susan’s passion and specialisms are in transformational and modern leadership, company culture and embracing progressive approaches to liberating people and companies through inclusive and diverse teamwork. Trust, integrity and partnership are the key to success and a fundamental belief in adding value and benefit in every interaction. 

Prior to Waterstons, Susan’s career started as a COBOL, CICS, DB2 programmer in the NHS, progressing to leading many global and enterprise projects within UBS Investment Bank. These projects ranged from scalable and resilient identity and access management solutions, to the transition of services to offshore outsourcing companies.

Wilf Blackburn is Regional CEO, Insurance Growth Markets at Prudential Corporation Asia, a
position he assumed with effect from February 2020. In this role, he is responsible for steering
16 markets across Asia and Africa towards greater growth. Prior to this, Wilf was the CEO of
Prudential Assurance Company Singapore (Prudential Singapore), a position he held for four
years.

Wilf is an industry veteran with close to three decades of diverse life insurance experience,
having lived in seven Asian countries over the past 18 years.
He joined Prudential Corporation Asia in 2012 and initially led new market initiatives out of
Hong Kong. This role included overseeing the launch of Prudential's business operations in
Cambodia and the establishment of Prudential’s representative office in Myanmar and Laos.
In July 2014, he was appointed CEO of Prudential Vietnam, and subsequently as Vietnam
Country Head, where he also oversaw the asset management and consumer finance
business.

Prior to joining Prudential, Wilf was with Allianz for over 11 years, where his roles included
CEO of their life insurance joint ventures in China, Thailand and the Philippines and Regional
GM, Life & Health Insurance for Asia. Before Allianz, Wilf worked in the United Kingdom for
three life insurers after commencing his career with a firm of consulting actuaries.

Wilf, a British national, qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (FIA) in 1995. He has
an MBA from the University of Bath and a BSc (Mathematics - 1st Class Hons.) from the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne (his home town). Wilf has been a postgraduate student at
the City University (now CASS), SAID Business School (Oxford University) and Harvard
Business School.

Hannah has worked with Civil Society Organisations and government in the UK and Global South.

In the early stages of her career, Hannah worked for the UK Government Women’s National Commission. She focused on violence against women and girls.

She has since worked for humanitarian and development non-governmental organisations in the UK and Global South. She also worked for the British Embassy in Addis Ababa where she worked on Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somaliland.

Hannah lived and worked for six years in Ethiopia. She specialised in conflict, gender, human rights, community-based development, humanitarian programming and economic empowerment.  

Hannah focused on conflict and gender in her Master’s degree at King’s College London. She has a BA in Politics from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.

David has extensive experience across the lifecycle of company growth and business development with expertise in technology and consulting.

David works at Caylent, a California based cloud native consulting and services company that enables organizations to leverage digital technologies to innovate, increase agility, improve operational efficiency and mitigate risk.  As a member of the Leadership team, David wears many hats(!) but has primary responsibility for driving business development, leading the Alliance and Marketing teams.

Previously, David worked at Cloudreach, an Amazon and Blackstone backed consulting firm.  Having joined the company as a 30 person London centric start-up, David went on to build an international book before relocating to New York to lay the foundations for the North American business, then moving to Seattle to establish both a West Coast operation and build the Alliance & Partnership function.  Upon acquisition by Blackstone, David then pivoted to establish and lead Cloudreach’s Private Equity Practice.

Prior to Cloudreach, David spent 4 years at IBM in London, working in a number of commercial and operational roles in the consulting and services practice, advising FTSE 100 companies.

David is also actively involved in his community in New York, currently serving on the Board and Committees of two cultural and charitable societies.  In his spare time, David enjoys staying active, and tries to find time for(!); cycling, sailing, skiing and golfing.

David graduated from Newcastle University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics & Business Management.  He competed nationally for the Boat Club, earning University colours and competed at Henley Royal Regatta.

Rebecca graduated from Newcastle University with an MSc in Economics. Her career spans technology, food, non-food, consumer and B2B.

Rebecca began her career on the graduate scheme for Pepsico. She then joined the healthcare business Reckitt Benckiser in the UK. She followed this by working across Northern Europe to focus on centralising the business operating model.

In 2010, she joined Dyson where she led their B2B business unit before setting up the international sales structure.

Rebecca is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Pure Electric. Pure Electric is a specialist electric scooter and electric bike retailer, tackling some of Earth’s biggest issues and creating a meaningful change.

Sandip Ghose is based in Mumbai , India and is a Member of the Advisory Board and Chair of the India Advisory Board.

Till recently Sandip was Director of the National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM), an educational initiative of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). He provided strategic leadership to NISM’s seven Schools of Excellence engaged in Securities Education, Research, Certification of Market Intermediaries, Corporate Governance, Investor Education and Financial Literacy. He also oversaw the School of Regulatory and Supervisory Studies which acts as a staff training college for SEBI officers.

Prior to taking over as Director of NISM, Sandip was Head of Human Resources in the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).  A central banker by profession, Sandip worked with the RBI for more than three decades.

He was Chief of Staff and Advisor to three successive RBI Governors - Dr. C. Rangarajan, Dr. Bimal Jalan, and Dr. Y.V. Reddy - over a period of nine years, i.e. 1996-2004. He was also the Principal, Bankers' Training College, Mumbai , now CAFRAL , between 2004-2007 where he was responsible for grooming and capacity building of the top management of the commercial banks in India. He has also served as Principal of College of Agricultural Banking, Pune and Regional Director of the RBI, Delhi.

His knowledge of the financial sector and the various job markets, combined with his experience both within the country and abroad, provide a comprehensive perspective to institutions in formulating policies on the future of work and organisational effectiveness .
 
During his career, Sandip has received several prestigious awards including an Honorary Doctoral Degree by the EIILM University , Sikkim. India.

Sandip is currently Member on the boards of national and international business schools and Non Executive Director on the boards of companies.

Stephen trained as an ICAEW Chartered Accountant with Ernst Young in London. He worked in audit on a diverse range of companies before moving into a career in industry.

In his business career Stephen gained broad experience in transformational initiatives including:

• restructuring
• outsourcing
• major IT systems implementations

He spent the majority of his career with Avon Products Inc. This included 10 years based in New York city, latterly as GVP Corporate Controller.

Prior to joining Venator, he was the Director Commercial and Business at the ICAEW. In this role, he was the spokesman for the ICAEW on business matters and was interviewed on both the TV and radio numerous times.

As VP Controller at Venator Material PLC, Stephen leads the finance and accounting team responsible for:

• SEC and internal reporting
• accounting shared services
• financial planning and analysis

Mark Ligertwood joined Dunedin in 1999. He was a key member of the fundraising team that raised the £300m Dunedin Buyout Fund III in 2013.

He was also involved in the buyouts of Kee Safety, Weldex, Steeper, Zenith, Gardner, ABI and Goals; and the exit of Capula.

He is an honours graduate in Business Management from Newcastle University. He qualified as a chartered accountant at Ernst & Young, working in corporate finance.

Mark enjoys swimming, cycling, tennis and skiing as well as trying to keep up with his three energetic boys. He is also single-handedly constructed his own treehouse.

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne and educated at Royal Grammar School, John has 28 years’ experience as a lawyer in private practice. He handled commercial disputes through litigation, arbitration or mediation.

He was also on the board of the firm, now known as Womble Bond Dickinson. He held senior management positions running the firm from 2010 until he left in 2016.

John now has a portfolio of non-executive roles as well as acting as a consultant.

John is Chair of NewcastleGateshead Initiative, the public-private partnership that delivers economic growth for Newcastle-Gateshead and the wider region.

Its mission is to inspire people to visit and to live, learn, work and invest in and around NewcastleGateshead. It  was the key delivery partner of Great Exhibition of the North in 2018.

He is a non-executive director of North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (and its subsidiary) and North East England Chamber of Commerce. He chairs an Advisory Board for regional property firm Bradley Hall & Partners. He is Chair of Trustees for Newcastle United Foundation.

John also chairs the Development Committee for the Prince's Trust in the North East. He is Vice Chair of Trustees at Northumberland Church of England Academy Trust in Ashington, including the largest primary school in England. He is also a College Tutor at St Chad's College, Durham.

Chris Parsons is currently General Manager of Mayborn Group North America – the owner of the Tommee Tippee brand. Tommee Tippee supplies feeding, soothing and hygiene products to consumers across the globe.

Tommee Tippee is the current number 1 brand of infant and toddler feeding products in the UK. It is one of the fastest-growing brands in the global baby essentials market. Available in more than 40 countries, Tommee Tippee has experienced strong growth in North America, Europe and Asia.

Before joining Mayborn Group, Chris was the Senior Vice President of International for the NFL (National Football League). He was responsible for the commercial and fan development activities around the globe. During his tenure, Chris contributed to:

• the growth of the NFL fanbase in core focus markets
• expanding marketing activities
• increasing media exposure
• securing record revenues for the NFL’s international business 

Prior to joining the NFL, Chris was Vice President of Reserve Brands (Ciroc, Don Julio, Johnnie Walker Blue) for Diageo plc. In this role, he established Diageo’s first luxury operations, which included the highly successful co-marketing collaboration of Ciroc with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Chris has also served as the Vice President of Johnnie Walker. Under his direction, the Johnnie Walker brand expanded into broad cable advertising distribution and celebrity event marketing. This resulted in record revenues and profits.

During his 10 years at Diageo, he also served as the Vice President of Beer, winning several marketing excellence awards in the U.S. for his work with the Guinness and Red Stripe brands. He was also responsible for Diageo’s US marketing training and development programmes.

Chris grew up in Manchester, UK. After graduating from Newcastle University, he held various sales and marketing positions at Bass plc, before moving to the US with the Diageo organisation.

Sarah is a regulatory specialist with 15 years’ experience in investment banking. She's worked as a consultant, independent contractor and most recently spent more than eight years working for UBS.

She's progressed to Executive Director level and managing the MiFID II Programme as part of the COO, and then strategic regulatory initiatives. Prior to managing MiFID II, she managed the EMIR Programme, and before that the regulatory programme focused on becoming Dodd Frank compliant.

At the beginning of 2017, Sarah moved to Bank of Nova Scotia as a Director of Regulatory Compliance.

Sarah graduated from Newcastle University in 2002. She started her career as a consultant working with Business Intelligence technologies, moving on to working within capital markets as a consultant for Accenture and Capco.

She has managed change programmes throughout investment banking functions. She has been responsible for interaction with the regulators at both a UK and European level. She is also a keen participant in many of the Trade Association discussions focusing on regulatory change.

Outside of work, Sarah concentrates on looking after her two children, aged 3 and 4. When she has time, she participates in running events in and around London.

Until September 2017, Roy was Director of the £40m National Innovation Centre for Ageing at Newcastle University. He remains engaged with the University as Professor of Practice in Ageing Science and Innovation.

In addition, he led the development of the regional innovation strategy for North East England. He was the founding chair of the North East Learning and Enterprise Partnership Innovation Board.

Roy spent 31 years with the Procter and Gamble company holding global research and development positions in the UK, Europe and Asia. He led innovation programmes across the world. He has several applied patents. One of his inventions is a $150m business in the US.

Nationally, Roy is president of the Royal Society of Chemistry Industry Council. He chairs the National Smart Specialisation Hub and sits on the BEIS Advisory Board for Science and Innovation Audits.

He holds visiting Professor positions with both Newcastle and Northumbria University Business Schools, Cranfield University and Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design, London. He chairs Northern Accelerator, the research commercialisation programme across the four NE Universities.

Roy sits on the regional committee of The Prince’s Trust and is a trustee at the Centre for Life, the leading public science centre in Newcastle. Roy is an Operations Board member for the Great Exhibition of the North 2018. He chairs the Data and Insights Board at Tees and Wear Reform Prisons.

In education, he has been a board member at the national awarding body, NCFE. He is a governor at Seaton Burn College and North East Futures UTC. He is currently a governor at The Beacon School in Sunderland.

Roy was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2017 for services to science, innovation and skills.

Dennis is senior advisor to Sun Capital Partners and founder of Core Strengths Management Consulting.

He's a C Suite, board level HR executive with considerable experience:

• at industry leading companies
• with Private Equity (AEA Investors, Bain Capital, Hellman & Friedman, The Carlyle Group)

He has senior leader experience working at several industry leading firms (Retired Officer at P&G, Chief HR Officer at Walt Disney, Kellogg, Scripps Networks Interactive and NXP Semiconductors). He played key leadership roles in over a dozen acquisitions ranging from 3B to 54B in size. 

Dennis is experienced in developed, developing and emerging markets. He lived and worked in the United Kingdom, based in London, for several years.

He consults on a variety of subject areas, including:

• strategy development and deployment
• large scale organisation change
• mergers and acquisition integration
• executive coaching

He serves on two additional university boards - Board of Visitors - The University of Alabama, Kansas State University and Durham University in the United Kingdom, where he is also a Visiting Professor.

He's moderator of The Strategy Session Podcast, devoted to exploring strategy, leadership and organisation with C Suite executives.

He graduated the University of Alabama in 1979 holding a Master of Arts in Industrial Relations (summa cum laude) and State University of New York at Oswego in 1978 with a Bachelor in Business Administration and minor in Economics (magna cum laude).

Alison has enjoyed a long and varied career in the English education system. She is Vice-President of the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER). NFER is the leading independent provider of education research and insights. Alison is also the Founder of North East Futures UTC.

Alison studied Modern Foreign Languages to postgraduate level at the University of Leeds. She also did her PGCE at Leeds.

She has occupied senior roles in several secondary schools in England, 11 years as headteacher. She specialised in shaping and growing curricula. Combining academic rigour with real-world experience and relevance. 

Currently, Alison is working at the interface between education and business. Alison's work involves:

• University colleagues
• global businesses
• SMEs

This is to enhance progression for students through their education. As well as equipping them with skills to make informed, future-facing decisions about their entry into a dynamic labour market.

She is particularly interested in the way the digital sector affects human experience. Alison's also interested in the future of work and the workplace.

Alison supports and advises businesses and charities and is a mentor to several entrepreneurs.

Alison was the 2018 Goldman Visiting Professor in Innovation and Enterprise.

Vicki Tan is a business professional with more than 18 years of international experience in:

• value chain planning
• information technology
• finance

She has well-rounded knowledge of business transformation, value chain management and information technology management in various regions including:

• North America
• Asia-Pacific
• Europe, the Middle East and Africa

She has taken on vital leadership roles with Fortune 500 companies including Capgemini, IBM and Nike, in sectors including:

• retail
• consumer goods
• automobile

Her current role is the Head of Retail Inventory Management in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for LEGO Systems.

Margo Thomas, PhD's career spans more than two decades as a senior official at the World Bank Group.

The World Bank Group is the world's premier development organisation. Margo has provided policy advice to more than 50 national and sub-national governments.

Margo holds a doctoral degree in public policy and private sector development from the University of Manchester.

Margo’s areas of focus include:

• trade and competitiveness
• women’s economic empowerment
• business environment reform
• regulatory reform
• investment policy

David Thompson is Chief Strategy Officer at Envision Pharma Group. He was Partner and Managing Director at Alligent BioPharm Consulting – now part of by Envision Pharma Group (EPG).

He is a veteran of the medical communication industry. He spent 17 years with Gardiner-Caldwell – now the KnowledgePoint360 Group. He has held various leadership positions in Europe and in the US and currently sits on EPG’s board.

In 2002, David moved to the US from the UK to set up Gardiner-Caldwell’s US division.

David continued to run this arm of the company, as well as several other agencies across the US market. He also worked with medical affairs and marketing clients from offices across the US.

David spent his early career with PricewaterhouseCoopers, before working in education.

David earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and German from the University of Newcastle. He did postgraduate work in Education at the University of Manchester.

Mick Thompson was a Senior Partner at KPMG Newcastle and was Office Senior Partner for 9 years before retiring in March 2018.

He was an audit partner for 20 years, and worked with leading private, public sector and plc organisations.

He also worked with:

• higher education institutions
• further education colleges
• academy schools

He has extensive knowledge across many sectors, including:

• retail
• construction 
• social housing
• education
• charity sectors

In his work with charities, strong governance and robust reporting were of critical importance to his clients.

Mick currently holds a range of positions:

• Non-Executive Director of Newcastle Building Society
• Regional Treasurer of the Lord’s Taverners Charity
• Trustee of the Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust
• Trustee of Greggs Foundation
• Trustee of NUFC Foundation

He also helps organise events for NE Youth Charity.

Mick was a School Governor for 17 years until March 2019. Strong governance, committed corporate social responsibility and career counselling remain close to his heart.

Mick attended Newcastle Royal Grammar School and graduated in Economics at Durham University. He is a Fellow of the ICAEW after qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1986.

Charlotte Valeur has extensive experience in financial markets as an investment banker. She is an experienced Non-Executive Director and Chair.

Charlotte's a regular public speaker and has delivered training in corporate governance globally.

She advises boards on corporate governance through her company Global Governance Group.

Charlotte has significant board experience as Chair and Non-Executive Director of FTSE350 companies, such as:

• Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate Plc
• Renewable Energy Generation Ltd
• 3i Infrastructure Plc

She also serves on the boards of private companies such as Laing O’Rourke Ltd and NTR Ltd. She is the Chair and founder of Board Apprentice and Chair of Institute of Directors.

Jo Wakeman joined Inland Revenue (IR) in 1985 as an Inspector of Taxes. She worked in a number of roles within the department before joining the Oil Taxation Office (now part of Large Business) in 1997.

Jo had a spell as head of IR’s National Minimum Wage compliance team. She went on secondment to HM Treasury, where she led the North Sea Tax Policy team from 2004 to 2006.

Jo returned to HMRC, and was promoted to the Senior Civil Service. She took on the lead for Business Change and Stakeholder Engagement within the Carter Programme. The programme implemented Lord Carter’s recommendations for universal online filing.

Jo has more recently worked in roles within Large Business, including as a Customer Relationship Manager within the banking sector and sector leader for Oil and Gas and Utilities.

Following a period as Deputy Director of London Financial LB Region in 2014, Jo was appointed as Acting Director of LB in March 2016. Her position was formalised in July 2016.

Jo was awarded an OBE for services to the Taxation of Financial Services in the 2016 Birthday Honors.

Sarah is a Business Consultant at Travel Trade Consultancy which helps travel businesses find solutions to complex regulatory, financial and strategic problems to save them time, finances and resources.

Previously, Sarah worked as Director in PwC's IPOs and M&A group. She delivered complex, high profile and key strategic projects for business, including IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and reorganisations, both domestic and cross border.

Sarah's experience includes clients in various sectors, such as:

• airlines
• pharmaceuticals
• real estate and lodging
• natural resources
• consumer goods
• labelling and packaging
• technology
• telecommunications sectors

Sarah graduated in 2006 from Newcastle University Business School’s 'Flying Start' Business, Accounting and Finance programme.

Our Flying Start degree is a collaboration with PwC and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).