Nicola Dandridge CEO

Dandridge will head up the OfS, having previously served for eight years as CEO of Universities UK, an organisation which represents the UK’s universities. Because of this, she has been labelled by some as a “poacher turned gamekeeper”, but she has insisted she will put student interests first. Concerns have also been raised about her commitment to transparency, after the Daily Mail accused her of trying to have universities granted exemption from the Freedom of Information (FOI) act, something she has denied.

Sir Michael Barber Chair

Barber has worked in a variety of roles across government and business, including heading up former prime minister Tony Blair’s delivery unit, serving as chief education adviser at the publishing and assessment service Pearson, and having roles at consulting firms McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group. In recent comments, Barber has said the OfS will tackle excessive vice-chancellor pay, and that the OfS will adopt “the widest possible definition of freedom of speech: namely anything within the law”.

Martin Coleman Deputy Chair

Coleman is being carried over from the soon-to-be-defunct HEFCE. His previous roles including working as a partner as legal services group Norton Rose Fulbright, and lecturing at Brunel University. He is a member of the university council at Kent. The OfS has welcomed Coleman’s specialism in competition policy, which Barber has said will benefit the “competitive market” of HE.

Chris Millward Access guru

Millward will be the OfS’s director for fair access and participation, leaving his role as a director at HEFCE, where he was head of policy for 10 years. He has previously been involved with the implementation of TEF, and aiming to improve access for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Katherine Lander

Lander is another former HEFCE board member. She is a chartered account and financial economist. Currently, she is director of strategy and operations at Eukleia & LEO, which provides training to a number of sector including HE. She was previously at Fitch Learning, a group which provides corporate training, and worked at a wealth and asset management firm.

Prof. Carl Lygo

Lygo, also formerly HEFCE, was the founding vice-chancellor of BPP University, a private university which is owned the US-based Apollo Group of private universities. He is a qualified barrister, as was formerly part of the General Chiropractic Council.

Prof. David Palfreyman

Palfreyman is director of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (OxCHEPS), a role he has held since 2001. He holds roles on several other boards connected to HE, and has been on HEFCE’s board since March. He has called for an end to the vice-chancellor pay ‘gravy train’ in his role as bursar of New College, Oxford.

Gurpreet Dehal

Most of Dehal’s career has been spent in investment banking, primarily as a risk manager and COO. He has also held roles at Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch He has been involved in HE since joining the university council at Royal Holloway. He is a trustee of a multi-school academy trust, and has been part of HEFCE’s board since March last year.

Prof. Steven West

West has been vice-chancellor, CEO and president or the University of the West of England (UWE) since 2008. He was an academic at several universities before he joined UWE in 1995, where he has held executive roles for over a decade. From 2012–2016, he was chair of University Alliance, a body which represents 20 universities focused on technology and professional education.

Simon Levine

Levine is managing partner and co-global CEO of DLA piper, a law firm. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he specialises in intellectual property, media and sports law, and is a visiting professor and lecturer at Imperial College Business School, in London.

Toby Young (Resigned Jan 9th)

Young is best known as associate editor of The Spectator, but is also director of the New Schools Network, a group of free schools. He has previously taught at Harvard and Cambridge, and is a Fulbright Commissioner. Young resigned from the OfS on 9th January, following substantial backlash over his qualifications, and comments he has made about women.

Elizabeth Fagan

Fagan is managing director of Boots, the pharmacy, where she was the first woman to hold that role. Her career has taken her through a variety of commercial roles, but she has no apparent experience in higher education. She was previously president of a industry networking organisation for senior female leaders in marketing and communications.

Katja Hall

Hall is a partner at Chairman Mentors International, which trains CEOs and board-level executives. She was previously head of external affairs and sustainability at HSBC, and was deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), a major British business organisation.

Monisha Shah

Shah is chair of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, in London. She is also a trustee of ArtFund, an independent fundraising charity for art. She was previously director of sales for emerging markets at BBC Worldwide. She is a member of the government’s Committee on Standards in Public Life, which works on ethical standards in public life in England.

Ruth Carlson

Carlson is the lone student representative on the OfS board. She is a student at Surrey University, where she studies engineering. She is a student ambassador for civil engineering, a role which included giving campus tours and presentations, and was formerly president of the university’s women’s football team.

Sources: DfE, HEFCE, social media, company profiles, local reporting.