Brian Doran

Brian Doran took up position as the Chief Executive of the Southern Regional College on 1 January 2008.

Prior to his appointment, Brian was Deputy Director for Teaching and Learning at Newry and Kilkeel Institute. He has taught in both the school and further education sectors and has over 19 years experience of working in Newry and Kilkeel Institute.  

As Assistant Director for Student Services in Newry Institute, he led the development of a range of quality cross Institute student services to support the diverse needs of students/trainees.  These services included careers guidance, library services, admissions, student finance and learning support for students with learning difficulties and disabilities.

Prior to this, Brian held the post of Head of School of Computing within Newry and Kilkeel Institute. 

Brian maintains strong ties with the business, education and training sector across Northern Ireland and serves on the following committees:

•   Director of Greenshoots-Newry Limited
•   JISC Board Member
•   Member of the Governing body for St Michael’s Primary School Killean
•   Newry Labour and Education Forum
•   Greater Newry Vision Team
• Chair of the LSDA NI Advisory Committee

Brian has also served on a number of committees within the Further Education sector including:

• DEL - Vocational Enhancement Pilot Programme
• DEL - ILT Strategic Working Group
• DEL – Higher Education Widening Participation Strategy Group
• CCEA - Learning for Life and Work  Sub Group
• LSDA – Software Engineering Lecturers Into Industry Steering Group
• CCEA – Progress File Committee

Brian is currently Chair of the Learning Forge Project Group and the Project Board for recontracting of  NICIS Support services.

Frank Coffield

Frank Coffield is Emeritus Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, having previously Professor of Education at the universities of Newcastle and Durham. His two most recent publications, both downloadable free of charge from the LSN website, are called: “Just suppose Teaching & Learning were to become the first priority...” and “All you ever wanted to know about Learning & Teaching but were too cool to ask”.

Dr David Collins CBE

David Collins CBE, DBA, MA, PhD, FRSA took up his current role as Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service in August 2009.  He is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Economics and Economic History and a PhD in Educational studies and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Chester.  He is a Visiting Professorial Fellow at Lancaster University, has presented papers and seminars worldwide and written numerous books and articles on the further education system.  David was appointed CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2005 and was President of the Association of Colleges 2008/09.

David has worked in a variety of educational establishments, including a prison and a young offenders’ institution as well as a number of colleges, most recently South Cheshire, where he was Principal and CEO.

Penny de Valk

Penny de Valk became the Chief Executive of the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) in October 2007. For theprevious three years shewas Strategy Director at Ceridian UK, a US$1.5bn HR services organisation. Prior to that she ran several of Ceridian’s HR businesses across Europe.

Born in New Zealand, de Valk moved to the UK 12 years ago. Before this move she was Chief Executive of New Zealand’s Institute of Management in Auckland for four years, where she oversaw rapid growth and market impact. She was recently named as ‘one to watch’ in the HR magazine Most Influential league table 2008.

‘My decision to join ILM was driven by a desire to work for an organisation that made a significant contribution to the quality of organisational life and organisational success,and to lead a group of people committed to making a difference to that end,’ says de Valk. ‘Having worked for 20 years helping organisations make the most of their people, I remain convinced that the quality of management and leadership is the most powerful catalyst to driving value in any organisation.’

Looking at the challenges ahead for ILM, de Valk believes that expectations have magnified from every direction for leaders and managers in the UK. ‘While organisations need to get more from less to remain globally competitive, we are also managing a diverse and changing workforce with different expectations for the quality of their working lives,’ says de Valk.

‘The biggest challenge for managers and leaders is to master the broad range of skills required in the modern workplace as well as maintain the personal and professional resilience to thrive in this new environment. We need to do this if we are going to bring out the best in ourselves, our people and our organisations.’

Claude D’Val Morgan, III

C.D. “Hoop” Morgan, III is the Founder/Chairman of The Forté Institute, LLC a global behavioral sciences firm best known for developing and providing innovative people, process and interpersonal performance improvement solutions.

Morgan is the author/developer of the proprietary, computerized Forté Interpersonal Communication Style Profile which is used throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and other countries.

Morgan is a graduate of Missouri Southern State University, earning a BSBA, with minors in psychology and journalism. His educational background also includes numerous graduate and post-graduate courses, including Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems at MIT’s Sloan School of Management , Reinventing Your Business Strategy at Sloan School of Management and the Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives and Dealing with Difficult People in Difficult Situations at the Harvard Law School.

Morgan has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe on behalf of organizations of all sizes that utilize the Forté processes. He lives and practices the virtual office concept. Morgan is recognized as a master in developing effective individuals, leaders and teams.

What would evolve into what is now Forté began in the late 1970’s as a quest by Morgan to find a statistically valid instrument that would help identify an individual's personal communication style strengths. Morgan's background also included an understanding and use of the IBM Series 1 computer and emerging IBM PC, thus the proprietary computerization of the Forté system. Forté was the first PC-based computerized communication style profiling system in the world.

Dave Rowley

Dave commenced his engineering career with an electrical and electronic student apprenticeship at the British Aircraft Corporation site in Bristol working on the Concorde programme in systems design and development.  His relationship with education started with spells in personnel, public relations, recruitment and schools liaison and he then joined a small team at the CBI Education Foundation to set up the UK Teacher Placement Service.  This was followed by national roles with BAE Systems and Young Engineers to focus on the promotion of engineering and technology to young people and teachers. His work at The Royal Academy of Engineering majored on bringing coherence to the promotion of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and chairing the BLOODHOUND SSC education team. He is now education programme director for the BLOODHOUND SSC engineering adventure.

John Stone

John Stone is currently Chief Executive of the LSN, an independent company set up in 2006 as a successor to a series of government agencies undertaking research, development and staff training. It currently employs over 200 staff at its offices in London and Belfast.

At LSN he leads an organisation which aims to make learning work- from the classroom to the boardroom.  It does this by developing people and organisations through consultancy, outsourcing, research, technology and training.

He is a governor at the London City Lit and a member of both the London Higher Skills and JISC Advance Boards, and a member of the UKCES Policy Advisory Group. He chairs the BECTA e-Maturity Framework Design Authority, was a member of the Higher Education Funding Council Committee of Enquiry into the Changing Learner Experience and a Board member at the Scottish Further Education Unit.

Prior to this appointment John was Principal of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Joint Information Systems Committee, Chair of the Association of Colleges London Region, a Board Observer at the London Development Agency and a Board member of West London Business, Regenesis and the Southall Regeneration Partnership.