Andrea is a very experienced Higher Education leader. She has a credible, well-known reputation across the sector, having worked in it for her entire 27-year career, spanning 5 diverse universities (Russell Group; Post-92s and smaller/specialist institutions). In her most recent role, she was part of the University Executive as Secretary & Registrar and Clerk to the Governing Body. Prior to this, she was an Academic Registrar and also worked at progressive levels of responsibility across a range of university business areas (including medical schools, quality assurance, planning, students services, faculties and registry).
She has a significant depth and breadth of expertise and a proven track record of providing strategic and operational leadership across a diverse portfolio. Andrea has worked successfully at an executive level for seven years. Areas she has held a leadership responsibility for have been extensive; including wholesale transformations, collaborative provision (in the UK and overseas), academic and corporate governance (including leading the process to recruit two Vice-Chancellors), regulatory and statutory compliance, developing a corporate strategy (with underpinning KPIs and risks) and business continuity, incident response and recovery. In her last role, Andrea led the entire organisation through the pandemic; orchestrating and steering, at pace, the cessation and pivot of operational activities and then the transition back to campus, post and prior to the national lockdowns. The recommendations on her LinkedIn profile evidence the extent of her impact.
Throughout her career, Andrea has benefitted from the opportunity to work with a diverse range of multi-disciplinary teams and stakeholders with various approaches and personal styles. She builds positive working relations with the appropriate influence in order to achieve operational and strategic objectives.
Andrea has been a Chartered Manager for 13 years and a Fellow of the AUA for 11 years. She has an MBA with distinction and completed the Advance HE’s Top Management Programme in 2022. She has led conference sessions, workshops and blogs for the AUA and sat on a number of panels at national HE sector events. She has served as a NED outside of the sector, and currently sits on a number of boards (including the Advance HE Leadership and Management Strategic Advisory Group) and has held additional roles during her career advising the OIA (as a member of the HE Advisory Panel) and mentoring and then examining on AUA’s PG Certificate in Professional Practice (HE Admin and Management).