The Henley College is delighted to announce the appointment of Simon Spearman as its new Principal, bringing with him a distinguished career in education, marked by academic excellence and a deep commitment to traditional values.

With over 29 years of experience, including an 11-year tenure as Principal of Christ The King Sixth Form College in East London, Simon will guide The Henley College through its next phase of growth, ensuring that quality and integrity remain at the heart of the College’s ethos.

"I am honoured to take on this responsibility at such a respected institution. The Henley College has a long-standing reputation for academic rigour and a focus on nurturing independent, resilient students. My priority is to build on this legacy, ensuring that we continue to offer the highest standards of education while staying attuned to the evolving needs of our students."

The 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.

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 organisations.

Rebecca Chandler-Wilde 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.

Paul is an ACCA qualified Audit and accounts partner/director, working at Craufurd Hale. With over 15 years' experience, he specialises in providing support to a wide range of commercial clients, charity/not-for-profit clients and has a high level of experience with FCA regulated entities, schools and academies. As well as advising entrepreneurs with business strategy, he assists clients with their complex reporting requirements.

In his spare time Paul, a New Zealander, enjoys playing and watching rugby and is an avid All Blacks supporter. He also enjoys running, music and of course BBQs.

Eva is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accounts and a graduate of Economics. Currently working for Proftech Training Solutions, Eva provides business support services to small to medium-sized enterprises including training and work placement opportunities for learners to further their industry knowledge and experience. 

Eva has extensive experience working at senior levels for various companies including CARE Internal UK, Hampshire Cultural Trust and Smit International Ltd. Impassioned about further education, Eva has also worked for several colleges where she has been responsible for the finance, funding, IT systems, planning and risk and estates redevelopment and successfully led the financial recovery of two of these establishments. 

Eva is also the Co-founder and Chair of BAME Support Network whose aim is to support BAME communities living in Hampshire and surrounding areas and a Trustee of The Word Forest Organisation a charity that plants trees, builds classrooms, facilitates education and supports a women’s empowerment group in Kenya. 

After graduating with a degree in Chemical Engineering Gillian started her career in manufacturing with the American owned multinational Mars Incorporated. After 8 years in operations, she moved into her first HR role as UK learning and development manager. Since then, she worked as UK HR head for both Mars’ Petcare and Confectionery businesses, European Talent and Organisation Development Director and HR Vice President for the European Confectionery business before being appointed as the Global head of HR for Mars’ Petcare business in 2009. In her role as global head of HR Gillian was a member of the Petcare executive leadership team and had regular connections with the board of Mars Inc.

Gillian’s passion is developing organisations to enable them to realise their strategic ambitions. During her time as global HR Vice President she was a key member of the leadership team which doubled the turnover and profitability of Mars’ Petcare business. She was instrumental in building Mars Petcare’s purpose and bringing it to life and helped the business build the new capabilities needed to achieve its strategic goals. Building these new capabilities required her to make changes in the businesses approach to talent management and to evolve the culture to enable an increasingly diverse group of associates to operate at their best.

After over 33 years’ service with Mars, she retired in January 2020. Gillian qualified as a coach in 2019 and has a particular interest in education and in supporting the development of teenagers and young adults. Gillian holds a school governor post and currently serves as a member of an academy trust.

Kellie was born and raised in Henley and lives in the town with her family. Kellie is currently the Mayor of Henley, a position she also held in 2017-2018. Kellie was the Henley Residents’ Group and Henley’s youngest-ever Mayor at the age of thirty-one and that same year she was voted “Young Councillor of the Year” by the National Association of Local councils. Largely known for her work with Park Services and the Recreation & Amenities committee chairing it for many years, her passion is ensuring that Henley has the best facilities and open spaces. Kellie is also a member of the District Council since 2019 where she has taken on significant roles initially as vice-chair and chair of the licensing committees and recently vice-chair of the council enabling her to gain a greater understanding of the district and what needs to be done to improve it as a whole and for Henley.

When she is not doing her council work or replying to people on social media, Kellie is likely spending time with the kids or playing with her many hamsters.

James Lingard is an accomplished strategic leader working for the UK’s leading food retailer, having previously led 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 maximize the opportunities for those young people looking at going into business when they leave college.

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 organisations that 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.

Rena is a senior leader and consultant within the further education sector. She has over 15 years’ experience in General Further Education & Sixth Form, having expert knowledge of curriculum planning, AEB funding, 16-19 funding, Ofsted framework, and quality assurance marks. Rena also brings experience of working with the charity sector, including as chair of a charity board of trustees.

Rena has a passion for ensuring ambition and aspiration for young people. Rena’s skillset includes governance, charity law, strategic planning, change management, data, and business development.

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. Before 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 mobilizing 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 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.

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.

Sarah started her career at The Henley College in 2010 as a CMP and Film Studies teacher and have now been both a teacher and a curriculum lead for 6 years covering the Creative Arts departments. Before she was a teacher, she was Sports and News editor working as a 'Live editor' for ECB Cricket and as a feature editor for the English Premier League as well as covering the Darts championships, Horse racing and Tennis in the UK.  Sarah then moved on to work for Vice President Al Cores TV channel Current TV as a UK-based News editor.  

Because of her editing career and 14 years as a teacher, she believes that we all have a capacity for contribution and inclusion and she encourages her team to provide students with the necessary tools and education to work in the 21st century, which can be challenging and to equip her students with the skill sets for these challenges and create solutions. Outside of work she enjoys camping with her family, walking the dogs and just being outdoors.  

CHRIS REEVE (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.

JO-ANNE ELLIOTT (QUALITY & STANDARDS COMMITTEE)

Jo-Anne is a parent governor whose youngest child is currently studying A levels at Henley College and thriving with all that the college provides.

Jo-Anne has an extensive experience in SEN and has mentored other SENDCo’s in the past, ensuring systems match regulations. Jo-Anne is passionate about education understanding that it’s a delicate balance of meeting the students’ needs, meeting regulatory expectations and resources (often limited) to support students to reach their potential.

Jo-Anne is also part of Koinonia which is a Catholic schools initiative where best practice and ideas are shared to support other schools

There are two Student Governors elected by the student body in April of each academic year. Student Union President, LIBBY ROBEY, (on the left) & Vice President, MAYA SESAY (on the right).