Regional Co-Chair – Saire Jones
I have worked in the UK Further and Higher Education sector for over 30 years, am a qualified teacher and experienced staff developer. I have practical and consultation experience of team, middle and senior leadership and management roles primarily gained whilst teaching and progressing through middle and senior management positions in further education, leading large teams of teaching and technical staff and then as a consultant / interim manager.
In 2012 I moved to a specialist staff learning and development role in the Organisation Development team at Westminster University, providing a professional development support service for academic and research staff, a role that played to my strengths and experiences as a teacher, education leader and manager and a learning and development professional.
Since 2017 I have been the Education Development Partner in and Manager of the Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation (CETI) at Westminster – supporting the strategic leadership of professional academic development, embedding and expanding the provision of professional and career development for the University’s academic community and coordinating the operational management and governance of CETI.
Current work includes supporting and developing the growing number of Communities of Practice – Westminster’s Learning Communities and embedding our new Education Strategy. I am a member of the Women of Westminster Network (WOW) and co-chair WOW’s Working Group for Equality and Progression and am also the Project Lead for WOW’s Mentoring Group, leading the design of an informal mentoring scheme for WOW members.
Professionally I have Fellowship of the HEA and am working towards Principal Fellowship. I am a member of the CIPD, an ILM accredited facilitator an ILM accredited action learning set facilitator and am working towards the Level 5 Coaching and Mentoring.
Regional Co-Chair – Rebecca Henry-Litteck
I am the Learning and Organisational Development (OD) Manager at St George’s, University of London. I have a wide range of experience in teaching, leading teams, facilitation, training and consultancy in FE, HE and the public sector.
Over the years as a staff developer and OD practitioner I have created leadership and team development programmes/events, lead on organisational change projects, established coaching and mentoring pilots/programmes and more recently collaborated on diversity and inclusion initiatives. I am a qualified coach (ILM level 7), MBTI practitioner and currently member of the London & South East HE Coaching Collaboration and strongly believe in and advocate for coaching and mentoring as transformational development practices.
My current portfolio of work includes developing and expanding the Mental Health and Wellbeing offer here at St George’s; co-leading our Manager as Coach programme, setting up new mentoring pilots and managing our staff engagement work. I am a member of the St George’s Athena SWAN SAT and co-lead on the HR Excellence in Research Award at the university.
I joined the London Region SDF in 2018 and have found it to be a wonderfully supportive network of staff developers and OD professionals. The network and the wider SDF is a great professional space to inform, share, celebrate and exchange ideas. It has really helped me gain insight and understanding into the breadth of work, thinking and challenges in this sector and has allowed me to grow professionally and make new connections.
As the incoming Co-Chair of the London Region SDF I am excited about creating new opportunities for collaboration and building on current relationships and networks.
Member Institutions include:
- University of The Arts, London
- University of Bedfordshire
- Birkbeck, University of London
- Brunel University
- City, University of London
- University for the Creative Arts
- University of East London
- The Francis Crick Institute
- Goldsmiths, University of London
- University of Greenwich
- Imperial College
- The Institute of Cancer Research, London
- Kings College, London
- Kingston University
- London School of Economics (LSE)
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- London Southbank University
- Middlesex University
- Queen Mary University of London
- Reading University
- Regents University
- Royal Holloway, University of London
- Royal Veterinary College
- St Georges, University of London
- St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London
- School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
- University College London (UCL)
- Westminster University