Corporation Members

Christopher Evans

Chair of the Board

Chris’s last 10 years in Financial Services were spent developing and providing retirement income services for people with health conditions. Before moving to Dorset – Chaired a regional charity supporting young people with learning difficulties.

Richard Barker

Vice-chair of the Board

Richard is a retail professional with extensive senior management experience in sales, marketing and change management He has been a director of Waterstone’s Booksellers, Managing Director of Blackwell Retail Ltd and General Manager of the Post Office Network as well as Chairman of Book Tokens Ltd, and Chair of Governors at Stanchester Academy.

Richard is now owner and Managing Director of Dorset Retail Ltd.  he is a season ticket holder at Exeter Chiefs, and fanatical about English cricket.

Kate Wills

Principal & CEO

Steve Webb

Steve Webb is semi-retired. He has a degree in Applied Science and a Diploma in Management. He joined the Weymouth College Board in 2012 and has recently given support to Outreach International, a business placing gap/career break individuals throughout the world. Steve’s hobbies include music, theatre, rugby and walking, as well as renovating old properties.

John Bullen

Having completed a 30 year career in civil engineering and airport management, John ran his own business carrying out project management, interim leadership roles and business/career/leadership mentoring. He has worked on major projects such as Heathrow Terminal 5 and has led large operational teams, including budgetary accountability.  John acted as a crisis leader at Heathrow at times of operational disruption. He maintained an active interest in safety and workforce development throughout his career.  John was pro bono chair for the 10 years of its existence of a not-for-profit employment and workforce training intermediary.

More recently, John’s mentoring experience has included working with Dorset SMEs and in the charity sector, as well as with students taking the Chartered Management Apprenticeship at Portsmouth University. He has, in the past, been accredited as a youth coach for both cricket and rugby.

John has distant family connections in farming.  He and his wife, Dawn, have lived in the New Forest since 1995, where they have brought up their 3 children.

Hannah Crocker

Staff Governor

Information to follow.

Rod Davis

Joining the Board in 2017, Rod brings experience in Apprenticeships and he is Chair of the local Training Providers’ Network.

Jacqui Gerrard

Jacqui was appointed in 2018 as an Associate Member after moving to live in Weymouth, and took up full membership in March 2019.

Jacqui has extensive organisational development and strategic HR experience working in executive director and consultancy roles in commercial technology and telecommunications companies and in central government organisations and NHS Trusts.

She has previously been a Governor and Chair of a Sixth Form College in Surrey. During her time as Chair, the college merged with an FE college to increase the range of study pathways available to local students.

Our student member will be elected in April 2025

Dawn Harvey

Dawn is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a graduate of the University of Kent.

She has enjoyed a 30-year career spanning the private and public sector and held senior leadership positions in sales and operations as well as HR and Learning and Organisation Development and is an executive coach and mentor.

She joined the NHS in 2011 and since then has led a range of award-winning staff experience improvements as well as major change and transformation.

Dawn relocated to Dorset in April 2021 and loves to run, walk, cycle and swim, making the most of the fabulous coast and countryside.

Graham Ledden

A retired Chartered Accountant who spent the last ten years of his career in education, nine of which were as Vice Principal Business and Finance and Deputy CEO at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire.

Graham qualified in the City with what is now EY and then spent a major part of his career in the Nat West Group. After six years as a Finance Director in the care sector, Graham moved into education in 2008.

Graham and his wife live near Shaftesbury.  He enjoys rugby, walking, fly fishing and the countryside in general. He is also Treasurer of England Colleges RFU.

Anne Munro

Anne is a  Learning Facilitator in the School of Construction.  She joined the College in September after many years working with HE Students, mostly teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at a university in southwest France and 13 years in Italy as an EFL teacher and including 15 years as an EFL Lecturer & Programme Manager at the University of Plymouth.

Anne was recently elected as the second staff Board Member.

Angela Neuberger

Known in her profession as Angela Holdsworth,  she worked for many years for the BBC, first in current affairs and later making documentaries. She was also editor of Crimewatch UK. Angela left the BBC to become an independent executive producer continuing to make programmes for the BBC but also for other networks. She has edited several books and is the author of Out of the Doll’s House, a history of women in the 20th century.

She was a non-executive director of the West Dorset Community Trust, the first NHS Trust in Dorset, a governor of the Arts University Bournemouth and was on the Board of Weldmar Hospice and the Dorset Family Counselling Trust for many years. She is currently a Trustee of Next 100 Years, a charity promoting diversity in the legal profession, and has recently completed 76 video biographies of women in the law.

Nicola Newman

Nicola has Non-Executive Director, CEO and Executive Director level experience in leadership, governance, strategic communications – including crisis planning and managing – and marketing – for charities, multinationals, small and medium sized enterprises, national governing bodies of sport, and government.

Most of her career has been in the education and sport sectors. She has previously owned an executive search consultancy and a public relations and events business. Nicola is leading the Local Skills Improvement Plan for Dorset Chamber and the Department for Education.  She is also Chair of the LEP’s Dorset Skills Board and the Governors’ Careers Link for the College and The Swanage School.

Kay Taylor

Retired in 2019 from the post of Executive Principal of the Minerva Learning Trust – a group of primary and secondary schools in Bridport.  She had previously been the Headteacher of the Sir John Colfox Academy in Bridport.

Originally from Northern Ireland, she graduated from the University of Aberdeen and taught History in Gairloch, Scotland, Hemel Hempstead and Milton Keynes before moving to Bridport to take up a Deputy Head post in 1993.

She is also a Lay Member of the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group Governing Body.

Alison Lydon

Director of Governance

Alison moved down from the Midlands having worked as Director of Governance  at Queen Alexandra College for a number of years and as Company Secretary at SEMTA and Toyota UK prior to that.  She is Chartered Company Secretary and has completed both FE Governance and school governance qualifications in addition to this, as well as spending a time as a governor of her local college.

A Register of Interests covering all board members and key staff is maintained by the Clerk in accordance with the Instrument of Government and is available for inspection on request to  Alison_Lydon@weymouth.ac.uk