Rachel joined NCW in September 2022. Her previous role was as Headteacher for another Worcestershire residential special school and so she has a great deal of experience in the education of children and young people with special educational needs.

Whilst working as an engineer, Philippa began supporting blind people to retrain, following redundancy due to the introduction of computer-controlled machinery.
Since then, she has established award-winning employability programmes that operate internationally and has led research, policy and fundraising teams in national charities. She now works as an independent consultant, committed to enabling people to reach their potential. At NCW this means listening to students and helping them to follow their dreams.

Steve is Director of Assistive Technology at Leonard Cheshire and has led a range of service and product developments over many years in the sector – from the speech system that drives Amazon’s Alexa and Kindle products to accessible ATM’s and access to TV. He is married with two children and has many interests outside of work – fragrance and coffee roasting being two of them.

Linda retired in 2018 after over 40 years working in NHS Finance. On graduating from Loughborough University in 1975, she joined the NHS as a regional trainee. Her first role after qualifying was as assistant treasurer at Powys Heath Authority. She relocated with her family to the Southeast in 1989. She has worked across all sectors of the NHS, and at Board level since 1992. She is particularly interested in corporate governance and risk. She has been Chair of the Finance Resources & Safeguarding Committee since she joined New College and Vice Chair for the last two years. She is also a Trustee and Treasurer of a learning disability charity in Gloucestershire. Her interests include travel, reading, ceramics and soft furnishing. There is a history of vision impairment on both sides of her family, so she is delighted to be able to support the work of the college. 

Tim is retired after a 44 year career as a Chartered Surveyor specialising in residential development and estate management. In that time Tim held senior UK positions in the corporate world, including at Taylor Wimpey, a FTSE 100 company. His last 13 years were at Savills during when he acted as a consultant to NCW. Tim is particularly pleased to continue his relationship with NCW as a governor to help achieve its objectives. Interests include walking, golf, classic cars and skiing.

Adrian is the headteacher at George Salter Academy in West Bromwich, a large multi-ethnic school with over 1400 students. Prior to this headship he was headteacher at Tenbury High in West Worcestershire. Adrian completed his National Professional Qualification for Executive Leaders NPQEL in 2020 and has recently completed a level 7 Executive Coaching and Mentoring postgraduate. Adrian is a French teacher and can also speak Spanish and conversational Thai having spent two years living and working on the Eastern seaboard of Thailand (some time ago). When not working Adrian is a keen runner and has completed many 10K races and half marathons, albeit quite slowly, including our very own Worcester version. For his sins he is a lifelong Villa fan.

Lisa lives in Worcester and is originally from New York in the United States. She has a background in international public health and spent over 10 years living and working in Pacific Island nations running programmes to promote health and well-being with local communities. She is also Irish through marriage and spent 9 years in Ireland working closely with asylum seekers and refugees where she was able to use her skills to promote positive relationships across diverse communities. She is currently the Head of Department of Health and Well-being in the School of Allied Health and Community, University of Worcester. As Head of Department and Principal Lecturer she is committed to inclusive, student-centred learning and has supported several students over the past 12 years with a variety of learning needs, including 2 graduates from NCW. Her research interests centre around the links between wellbeing and the impact of transition into higher education. She is passionate about ensuring students are involved in decisions regarding their support and adjustments and interacts closely with student services to enable the best outcomes. She values the diversity of the students and staff she works with and actively works to create an inclusive learning/working environment.

Katharine has more than 20 years’ experience of working as a Qualified Teacher of the Vision Impaired. She has supported children and young people with VI of all ages in a variety of mainstream and special school settings. For 9 years she was County Lead of the Oxfordshire Vision Impairment Team.  During this time she was the Local Authority representative for the pupils with VI who attended specialist out of county settings and she visited NCW regularly. She is pleased to be maintaining her links with the world of VI education and hopes it will encourage her to keep up her braille skills!

Sian qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst and Young and has over 30 years experience working in a variety of financial roles in different industries, most recently as Financial Director for an international engineering group.

Her interests outside work include hill walking, camping and quilting.

Peter is an associate governor and chair of the college’s Residential Care and Safeguarding Committee. His background is in social care, starting off working with people with learning disabilities moving out of long stay hospital, he  subsequently worked for 16 years for the national charity Sense, which supports people with multi-sensory impairments and complex needs. Since 2015 Peter has worked as an independent consultant undertaking work for care providers, local councils and housing associations, with a particular focus on safeguarding. He has lived in Worcestershire since 1994.

Chris joins NCW as parent governor. He brings seventeen years of experience working in IT within the life sciences and technology industry, and over ten years leadership experience in customer relations supporting colleagues and clients across the globe.  Chris is currently a Senior leader for a leading Life Sciences Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor leading a large team across Europe and Asia. Chris is married and a father to two daughters, one born with a severe visual impairment (SVI) and a pupil attending NCW. Chris is passionate in supporting young people with a VI to access an appropriate and inclusive education.  Chris enjoys badminton and golf although has not played regularly since becoming a father!