Michael Lumley
Chair of the Corporation

Michael’s first contact with the College was as a parent. His three children were students here and their positive educational experiences laid the foundations for their future careers.

Michael is currently an independent consultant working with the International Broadcasting Convention following a career with the BBC. As a producer, director and executive producer he specialised in the outside broadcast coverage of ceremonial and political events.  Subsequently he was a  Director on the Board of BBC Resources with responsibility for its U.K. wide production facilities.

Michael is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and until recently a governor of Shene School. 

Gillian Allen
Vice Chair of the Corporation

After teaching for six years, Gillian joined the House of Commons Library where she became responsible for the education brief  -  providing impartial information on education to all Members. Along with her professional interest in education policy, she became involved in the practicalities of education in Richmond. Her son and daughter attended Richmond schools and RUTC and she has served at different times as a governor in all phases of education in Richmond and as a Community Adviser on the LBRUT Education Committee.

Phil Abbott
Information Resources Manager

Phil started his career as a lecturer in Physics before obtaining Post Graduate qualifications in Computer Science at both London and Brunel Universities.
He first came to the College as a Senior Lecturer in the Computing section responsible for teaching networks management before moving across to create , develop and manage the College’s MIS and IT Support sections and to manage Student Records and Examinations.
He has detailed experience in teaching operations, programming and database development. He currently manages the administrative and information systems that support College management and monitor the teaching and tutorial processes.
He has a central responsibility to understand and apply to the College’s operations the methods and processes used to compile and formulate the College’s funding claims.
He has had a primary role in the design and implementation of many of the systems that are the basis of major College operations (e.g. timetabling, enrolment, ID, information collection and dissemination, computer systems etc).

He is on the College Management Team and sits in on a variety of groups that discuss, plan and implement College operations, including Student Panels and Duty Officer responsibilities.

Asif Ayub

Asif has over nine years’ experience of management in the commercial private sector and more than nine years’ experience in the education sector at Richmond upon Thames College.

He has post graduate qualifications in both Business and Education Management.

Throughout his life Asif has held various roles in voluntary sector organisations. He is currently a Group Chairman of a local Scout Group and a Branch Chairman and the Association Treasurer of the Conservative Party where his aim is to help local people collectively and to improve the quality of their lives in the community.

Asif has been involved in many aspects of student life, especially in pastoral support and sports activities. He believes that all round support leads to good exam results and good citizenship.   Asif believes in the role of education to transform lives and expand horizons for all.

Asif is married with a son and a daughter. He enjoys community work, gardening, DIY, travel, playing various sports, gym, swimming, holidays and family days out.

Pam Crisp

Pam Crisp has spent all her working life with a large retail organisation. Following an early career in Financial Management, Pam spent some time working at the ‘sharp end’ as a Commercial Manager.  She then moved to the IT group where she spent the latter part of her career developing her skills in software licensing and procurement.
Pam has been a school governor for many years. She was the parent representative for secondary school governors and has been a member of a number of Borough wide education consultative groups.  She is currently Vice-Chair of governors at a Richmond Borough secondary school.

Gill Cumberland

After graduating in 1966 in Chemistry, Gill embarked on a long career in teaching – initially Chemistry and, after 15 years, Maths.
She taught in a variety of settings including Grammar, Comprehensive, State and Independent schools and a Language College!  She was a Head of Science and Deputy Head of Sixth Form.
In 1985 she joined the staff at Richmond upon Thames College as a part-time lecturer and remained there for 18 years, progressing to Senior Tutor, then Student Services manager.
She was seconded in 1993 to Central London to the post of Aimhigher Coordinator (now Higher Education Links Manager) for the Westminster/Kensington and Chelsea Excellence in Cities partnership, where she ran projects to enable disadvantaged young people progress to Higher Education.
Apart from 1 year back at the college in 2004-05 as 14-19 Director, Gill remains in this role until her retirement on 31st August 2010, after which she will work as a Consultant.

Barbara Gilgallon

Following a career in teaching and publishing Barbara became an education consultant to a grant giving charity.  She is currently the Deputy Director of the charity and has responsibility for the grant giving and education programmes.  Her son and daughter attended Richmond schools and took their A levels at RuTC.  She has been involved in education in Richmond since her children were at nursery.  She was a governor of a local secondary school for sixteen years, seven as Chair, and has been on several consultative committees.
Barbara served as a Community member of LBRuT’s Education Committee and on the National Executive of the Campaign for State Education (CASE).  She had been a governor trainer in Headteacher appraisal and has run governor training sessions for BP and Greater London local authorities.  She has wide experience of working with the local voluntary sector and of working with young people in many different settings.

Paul Leonard

Paul is a scientist, specialising in the design of environmental monitoring programmes & assessment of the impacts of pollutants on ecosystems & the public.  A founder member of the Natural Capital Initiative www.naturalcapitalinitiative.org.uk , he has worked nationally & internationally promoting the principles of sound science to underpin policy decisions.
A former Chair of Governors at Strathmore School in Petersham, from 2002 to May 2010, he was also the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Parent Governor Representative for Special Educational Needs.  He has worked for better local provision of education, health & welfare services including maximising potential through identifying & supporting the talents of people with learning difficulties.

Jan Lindemann

Jan Lindemann is an international expert on the value creation of intangible assets in particular brands and customer franchises. He is founder of Richmond Capital Management Ltd. and portfolio manager of the JL Best Global Brands Fund. Jan has recently completed a book on the value creation of brands called the ‘Economy of Brands’ which has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in June 2010. He was Global MD at Interbrand Group where he built the firm’s global brand valuation and analytics practice. This included the creation and management of the ranking of the ‘Best Global Brands’ published annually in BusinessWeek magazine. Jan was also a mergers & acquisitions advisor for The Chase Manhattan Bank. Jan holds an MA in International Economics and International Politics from The School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA

Peter Linthwaite

Peter Linthwaite is Managing Partner of CT Investment Partners LLP, a venture capital fund management firm that advises the Carbon Trust, on its investment activities in early stage, innovative UK cleantech companies.  
After an early career in banking, Peter has been actively involved in the venture capital and private equity industry in senior roles for over 20 years. During this time he has worked with the boards of a wide variety of companies, working closely with them in driving their strategic and operational development.  
He holds an M.A. in Law from New College, Oxford.

Zarina Naqvi

Zarina is a management consultant. She runs her own online business The London Seed Emporium, Management Consultancy Maxima Associates is Vice President of the Richmond Upon Thames Chamber of Commerce and has lived in Twickenham over 25 years.

Her early career was as head of finance in global organisations which she left to start a business with a business partner selling in 2001 after 7 years  of continuous growth ,  Foreseeing the future impact of the Internet Technology revolution , she immersed herself  in VC backed Communications and Internet network companies as a consultant learning much about the Internet whilst embedding structure ,operational efficiency and strategy for sustainable growth .

She is a member of the Institute of Business Consultants and has an MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship from University College London 2008.

Paul Sheehy

Paul is programme manager of the philosophy area and has taught at RUTC since 2000. Having completed a BA in history at Oxford (Worcester College) in 1985, he worked for a major Japanese bank concentrating on project finance and work-out situations. In 1996 Paul obtained an MA in philosophy from King’s College London, where he completed his Ph.D. in 2000. From 2001 to 2005 he divided his time lecturing at King’s and Richmond. 
Paul’s main interests are in the philosophy of the social sciences, metaphysics, and political and moral philosophy. He has published a number of articles and a book, The Reality of Social Groups (Ashgate) and spoken at conferences on both philosophy and education.

Ceri Thomas

Ceri lives in Twickenham and is married with two sons, both of whom attended Richmond College before going to Cardiff University.

He was educated in Collyers School (Horsham) and Aberystwyth University. He began his career at the Low Pay Unit, moved into national pay bargaining (for local authorities) in the 1980s, before undertaking a 2 year research and executive tutoring project at Templeton College, Oxford. From there he went into HR consulting and founded The Performance Management Group in 1994, where he is Managing Director.

He is also a member of London Welsh RFC and a Fellow of the RSA.

David Trigg

David's background has been in Travel and Passenger Transport in both operational and distribution roles for over 30 years He has operated his own consultancy in distribution systems for travel and transport suppliers.  He has worked in the airline and rail industries internationally and lived in France f or two years.
David  is also a founder member of FORCE (Friends of River Crane Environment), an environment and education charity, as well as a number of Twickenham amenity societies.
 From 2005 to 2010 he was a Liberal Democrat councillor in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and for four years head of Traffic, Transport and Parking.
David lives in Twickenham with his wife.

Colette Wilson

Colette is a photographer, hill walker and cyclist.  Currently in her professional working life, she works in a risk management function that oversees the quality of work delivered by business consultants around the world.  In her last role as one of those consultants, she helped a number of large organisations improve the value for money they get from their internal audit and corporate governance functions.  Colette has more than 10 years experience as an auditor and in that time has led international audit teams for a large services company, audited FTSE 100 companies and trained other professionals how to perform audits.
Colette is a chartered public finance accountant and holds a BA (Hons) from London University in Economics

JOINING OUR BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Richmond upon Thames College is controlled by a governing body (Corporation) which determines the college’s mission and strategy.  Periodically, the college looks for people to fill vacancies on the Corporation and it is keen to build up a ‘bank’ of potential governors who can be contacted as and when future vacancies arise.   The role of governor provides a great opportunity to find out more about the college, the issues facing further education, and to develop governor expertise.
Our students choose to come to us from all over the London area and your involvement and contribution as a college governor can help us to meet the needs of everyone in our communities.  We value the diversity of our students and staff and we are determined to reflect this among our Board of Governors.  We are keen to recruit people of all ages and cultural backgrounds, who may have experience in business, community or social work or in financial or perhaps legal practices. 
The commitment is around  ten evening meetings a year and one or two strategic discussion events, held usually on a Saturday morning. 
If you are interested, please contact the Clerk to the Corporation, Debbie Parkes, for an informal conversation about the role on 020 8607 8242 or email her at debbie.parkes@rutc.ac.uk.