Richard Billingham

UHR Midlands Chair and Executive Director Human Resources and Organisational Development, Aston University

Richard has extensive experience working with leaders and organisations, across public and private sectors, both in the UK and internationally, to bring about change. He has previously held a number of executive-level roles focusing on leading complex workforce and culture change. He joined Aston University from Bristol City Council where he was Director of Human Resources and Change. Richard is an advisor on the board of The Trusted Executive Foundation, governor of Aston University’s Engineering Academy, and a pension trustee. He is passionate about working with organisations and people to help them become the very best that they can be.

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Kerry Walker

Account Manager, jobs.ac.uk

Kerry is a business professional with over 15 years’ experience in recruitment advertising in the public, private and charity sectors. Since 2013, Kerry has honed her career in higher education as jobs.ac.uk’s Account Specialist for UK South. She is responsible for managing multiple online recruitment campaigns for many of the UK’s most prestigious institutions. Her clients include the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University College London and Imperial College London.

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Emma Johnson

Marketing Manager, jobs.ac.uk

Emma leads the Marketing team at Warwick Employment Group (WEG). Her team is responsible for making sure our message is heard and supporting our customers on their respective journeys, whether applying for a post-doc opportunity or embarking on their first temp job. Through a mix of digital strategy, engaging content, PR and events, her team are dedicated to helping HE and FE professionals get the very best of out the services offered by the WEG brands.

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Alexis Curtis-Harris

Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion –
Attraction and Communications, Penna

Alexis joined Penna in 2014 after spending seven years at Capita Resourcing and Reed Professional Services. Here, she worked on large-scale resourcing strategies and digital projects for the Office for National Statistics, Barclays Retail, the BBC and others.

Alexis combines her passion and experience, bringing diversity and inclusion expertise to Penna and its clients. Alexis oversees the entire recruitment and employment lifecycle for Penna’s attraction, selection, assessment work and retention, ensuring it promotes the highest standards of diversity and inclusion.

Her approach is to stop focusing on culture ‘fit’ and start focusing on culture ‘add’ to eradicate unhealthy monocultures in workplaces. It’s this approach that has delivered award-winning results for clients, including ‘Best Digital Experience for Early Talent’ at the 2020 RAD awards.

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Jane Johns

Director of Education, Penna

As Director of Education at Penna, Jane has a wealth of marketing and sector-specific experience spanning more than 30 years. Intelligent, consultative solutions are at the heart of the many education-related projects she’s delivered. Her natural enthusiasm and lateral thinking help make her an excellent communicator and influencer, who inspires loyalty in clients and colleagues alike.

Jane brought her extensive experience and education sector knowledge to Penna five years ago and now heads an eight-strong Education team working across clients that range from Russell Group universities to post-92 institutions. She’s responsible for all aspects of contract management for Penna’s education portfolio with a hands-on approach to strategic planning and development across both student marketing and human resource accounts at home and abroad.

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Marisha Drayton

Recruitment Partner, London South Bank University (LSBU)

Marisha has been working in Recruitment for over 20 years. Throughout this time, she has held a variety of roles in third sector and private sector organisations. She is passionate about building a candidate journey that provides hiring managers with a great fit. She has used digitisation and innovative recruitment campaigns to improve hiring practices and attract candidates from diverse backgrounds.

Marisha has been working at LSBU for three years to date and has worked on a range of HR projects during this time. Most recently, she has managed a pivotal project for the University, to implement an institution-wide Behavioural Framework that will transform how LSBU recruits its people.

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