Who's who on the board of governors

‌‌David Willan (Chair of the Board of Governors)

David joined the Board in 2016 and was elected Chair in March 2023. He is a member of Infrastructure and Finance Committee, Nominations Committee, Senior Postholders and Vice-Chancellors Remuneration Committees.

David is an entrepreneur and B2B marketing specialist, having founded and overseen the growth of a number of marketing consultancy companies. He was formerly a main board director of Portsmouth Football Club and is currently a director of the Heritage and Advisory Board and Chair of the Presidents Group.

Bahram Bekhradnia

Bahram joined the Board in August 2020 and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Currently, Bahram is President of the Higher Education Policy Institute, a member of the Higher Education Commission and a member of the Higher Education Authority of Ireland. Formerly, Bahram was the founder and Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and Director of Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Roger Burke-Hamilton

Roger joined the Board in February 2018 and is a member of the Infrastructure and Finance Committee. Roger is co-founder and managing director of DigiThreadz and a non-executive director of a number of companies who specialise in the citizen-centric transformation of public services, health and social value, including non-executive director at Portsmouth Hospitals Health Trust.

He is a former senior civil servant with experience in information solution architecture, supply chain and software intellectual property, particularly for human centred/citizen enabled services, data and cloud-based technologies.

Madeline Denmead

Madeline joined the Board in October 2022 and is a member of the Infrastructure and Finance Committee and Nominations Committee. She has over twenty years’ experience in leading organisations to deliver substantial benefits as part of complex strategic transformation programmes.

Madeline is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (FCA). She has held a variety of board level executive roles in the not-for-profit sector, including at the BBC and Cancer Research UK. She is currently a Trustee of Wessex Archaeology and External Adviser to the Royal College of Nursing.

Penny Emerit

Penny joined the Board in August 2022. She is the Chief Executive of both Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and Isle of Wight NHS Trust, and has worked at director level in the NHS for over ten years. Her areas of expertise focus on strategy and performance management where she is passionate about embedding continuous improvement methodologies to ensure delivery of the best possible health care for local people. Prior to her roles at PHU, Penny held national and regional roles in London and the South East.

Claudia Iton

Claudia joined the Board in December 2017 and was elected Chair of the People, Culture and Engagement Committee in 2019. Claudia is also the Chair of the Senior Postholders and Vice-Chancellors Remuneration Committees.

Claudia has over 25 years of experience working as an HR Director in matrixed, multinational and corporate environments. She is currently an HR Consultant, providing solutions to clients in the areas of Talent Management, Team Effectiveness and Diversity & Inclusion.

Liz Jolly

Liz joined the Board in August 2020 and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Liz is Chief Librarian at the British Library and an executive board member and a Trustee of SCONUL (the UK National and University Library Directors’ group). She has over twenty years’ experience in the modern university sector, most recently as Director of Student and Library Services at Teesside University. A Principal Fellow of the HEA, Liz is a Fellow both of CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) and the RSA.

Alan Lees

Alan joined the Board in March 2024 and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. He is a Fellow of the ICAEW, qualifying in 1983. He has held senior positions in major accounting firms, including as Senior IT Audit Manager at Coopers & Lybrand (now PWC), and as Partner at both Robson Rhodes and Grant Thornton where he led the not for profit and public sector internal audit teams.  

Alan has worked with higher education sector clients for over 25 years. His current role, as Chief Executive of KCG Audit Limited, which he has held since 2015, extends his involvement in the sector. The company provides internal audit, risk and governance services to over 20 institutions ranging from small, specialist schools and colleges to multi-faculty universities. He is trustee of the National Registers of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD) and has previously worked as a trustee at two other organisations. He is a parish councillor.

David Madoc-Jones

David joined the Board in August 2020 and was elected Chair of the Infrastructure and Finance Committee in October 2022. David is a former Partner at KPMG, where he spent 20 years as a corporate debt adviser working with a wide range of public and private companies and not for profit organisations. Prior to KPMG he had a number of roles in retail and corporate banking. He is a Trustee of The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and is a member of the NFER Audit Committee.

Stacey Parrinder-Johnson

Stacey joined the Board in November 2023 and is a member of the Infrastructure and Finance Committee and People, Culture and Engagement Committee.  She has spent the past two decades working in the Financial Services industry, most recently serving as Chief Investment Officer of Investec's UK Wealth & Investment division.  As well as an investment focus, she brings significant experience working with sustainability and risk management, and has a particular interest in building collaborative and diverse partnerships. She has also worked as a pension trustee, and is a graduate of the University (Business, 2002).

Professor Sandy Pepper

(Deputy Chair of the Board of Governors)

Sandy joined the Board in October 2022 and was elected Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee in July 2023 and is a member of the Senior Postholders' and Vice-Chancellor's Remuneration Committees.  He is currently Emeritus Professor of Management Practice at the London School of Economics, where he worked full-time from 2008 until September 2022. Prior to this he had a long career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he held various senior management roles, including as Global Leader of PwC's Human Resource Services consulting practice from 2002 until 2006.  He trained as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) and spent most of his career in practice working in tax and human resource services.  His academic background is in organisational behaviour, management theory and new institutional economics.  His research interests include executive pay, corporate governance and business ethics.

Mark Readman

Mark joined the Board in November 2023 and is a member of Audit and Risk Committee and People, Culture and Engagement Committee.  He is CFO of Synamedia, a technology company that supports the broadcasting and streaming industry.  He has worked previously at IBM, Misys and Worldpay in various senior finance roles.  He is married with two daughters and has lived in the Portsmouth area for over 40 years.

Sukkanya Siva

Sukkanya joined the Board in March 2024 and is a member of the Infrastructure and Finance Committee.  She has worked in residential development for 20 years.  She began her career in social housing in Kent and London and went on to work for private residential developers in London.  She is currently Development Director at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.

Having worked in both development and construction she has experience of estate regeneration and the delivery of mixed-use developments.

‌‌‌Christopher Williams

Chris joined the Board in February 2018 and is a member of the Infrastructure and Finance Committee and People, Culture and Engagement Committee. Chris is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and is a retired senior property executive with over 30 years working within and leading the real estate functions for major retail businesses including WHSmith plc, Tesco and Marks and Spencer as Group Property and Development Director.

Chris has previously held non-executive roles as a Board member of the British Council of Shopping Centres (BCSC); the Chair of the National Conference of the BCSC; a Board member of the British Property Federation and of the New West End Company.

Becky Miles

Becky joined the Board in January 2022 and attends the People, Culture and Engagement Committee. Becky is the Professional Services Staff Governor, elected by and from University of Portsmouth professional services staff. Becky is the Business Development Liaison Officer in the Faculty of Business and Law.

Dr Michelle Hale

Michelle joined the Board in March 2024 and is the Academic Staff Governor, elected by and from University of Portsmouth academic staff.  She attends the Audit and Risk Committee and is the Head of the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University.