Advisory board

Pam is an international banker with 34 years’ experience, predominantly within the financial restructuring sector. During her career at HSBC where she was a Managing Director of the global restructuring team, Pam has worked with a wide range of companies from small agricultural businesses to global multinational groups in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the US. She has helped address the financial challenges facing these companies, enabling them to adapt to their economic and competitive environment.

Good at building positive working relationships with clients, other financial institutions, accountants and lawyers, Pam has strong communication, decision making, information assimilation and negotiation skills, which she has used in handling cases of varying complexities, often with widely diverse creditor groups and competing agendas.

After retiring from HSBC, Pam provided business banking and restructuring expertise as a Banking Subject Matter Expert supporting a senior independent reviewer in their assessment of a large UK bank’s remediation programme.

Pam is a lay member of Council for the University of Surrey and is a member of The Future Says Surrey campaign board. She has also taken up the challenge of being Assistant Handicap Adviser for the Somerset Ladies County Golf Association and is an England Golf Level 2 referee.

David has held senior and executive level roles in AI driven SaaS, digital media, platform technology and gaming organisations. Across B2C and B2B companies he has led teams in AIM listed, PE and venture capital backed situations to deliver scalable, profitable growth.

Time spent at global companies such as Nielsen, Microsoft, Nintendo, BSkyB and Coca-Cola have shaped his results orientation, data-driven focus and people first style. In addition, he was CEO of Venture Capital backed I-Play, a mobile entertainment business, successfully exited in 2007 and was also the CEO of AIM listed Nektan PLC, a mobile and online gaming company.

As a Board  Advisor he brings a real focus to commercial growth strategies, data driven insight and sales and marketing effectiveness and efficiency.

An avid skier and scuba diver, David spends his spare time on mountain peaks and in the ocean depths.

Niel Alobaidi is Chief Executive Officer and part owner at the award-winning escorted tour operator Newmarket Holidays. Joining the company in 2019, Niel is an accomplished business leader who has been working in the travel industry for over 25 years.

He joined Newmarket Holidays following on from five years as the managing director of Emirates Holidays, heading up source markets across Europe, the UK and Ireland.

Prior to that, he held senior roles at TUI Travel PLC, including commercial director of the TUI Specialist Division and managing director of their specialist travel businesses in Denmark and Sweden.

Simon is a global leader of McKinsey’s retail-operations group, with a focus on helping clients transform their store operations, supply chains, and procurement processes. He has helped design and implement several operational transformation programmes at global retailers. Simon has supported multiple strategic due-diligence efforts and provided merger-management support for several retailers globally. Simon has advised a number of national, regional and global retailers on expanding their geographic footprint with an increasing emphasis on adapting their operating model to the digital era.

Prior to joining McKinsey & Company, Simon spent four years at Tesco, leading the convenience format expansion team and worked as an analyst at Verdict Research, a London based retail consultancy.

Simon is a keen mountain biker and can be found most weekends on the trails.

A content innovator and digital media entrepreneur with a successful history in deal negotiation and a talent for developing long-term business partnerships, Megan has been digital strategy advisor to some of the most notable international media companies including Endemol, Star Television, BBC Worldwide and Fox Television advising on some of the world’s best-known TV series. 

Megan started out in marketing and business development for the entrepreneurial internet businesses at News International and later Express Newspapers at the beginning of the digital revolution. As a result, Megan was headhunted by Celador International to spearhead the digital development of the show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, which went on to win 10 awards and went live in 60 countries. After 4 years Megan raised seed funding and set up a digital innovation business called IRM that works with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Agatha Christie, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother and Total Wipeout.

More recently, as a result of the pandemic and the video meeting boom, Megan has launched ‘the vision’ which provides a series of online sessions with a ‘‘pop up’ advisory board’ of three world-class diverse digital experts selected to unlock business challenges.

Megan is passionate about the sea; being in it, on it and looking at it!

Emma has spent twenty years specialising in financial crime systems and controls in the financial services industry. She has worked in a variety of sectors, including, accountancy, private client wealth management and most recently insurance. She has also worked as a consultant, working with clients in the payment, commercial banking, and crypto-currency industries in addition to her in-house experience.

During her career she has designed operational controls and training, prepared reports for boards and held FCA controlled functions at a number of companies.

Emma is currently Head of Financial Crime and Compliance at Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market.

A qualified, non-practising barrister, she spends her spare time running, horse-riding and supporting the local rugby club as a volunteer. 

Simon Kelly is an expert in how technology and software can disrupt traditional industries. He is a business leader from influential tech companies like Accenture, Vodafone, Microsoft, LinkedIn,  Avalara, Tipalti and many tech startups. Simon was part of the founding exec team for LinkedIn Europe when it was just a small startup in 2008 and spent eight years getting the business ready for the successful IPO and the Microsoft $26bn acquisition.   

He has been a board advisor to many founders of start-up’s and has worked with the University of Surrey on improving employability programs. He has also written for Financial Times ('ask the expert' column) and is an economics graduate from Trinity College Dublin and has worked in Silicon Valley (California) and Asia (Singapore).

Simon is currently working as the Vice President at Tipalti, responsible for growing the business across Europe.

Mark is a senior executive who has consistently delivered excellent results for businesses, customers and colleagues, across leading global brands including British Airways, Tesco and Barclays. His passion is to lead and develop brilliant teams, create exceptional products for customers and deliver very strong commercial outcomes.

With c-level roles across commercial, digital, operations and customer functions, Mark has a track record of leading award-winning digital transformations across several industries on a global scale.

A naturally curious and ambitious person, Mark takes pride in learning and most recently was awarded an MBA from Imperial College, London, graduating with a distinction. Outside of work, Mark has a wife (Perdita) and two children (Charlie and George) and in his spare time enjoys playing Golf and watching Nottingham Forest!

Nicola was the Head of Group legal at Evelyn Partners. She spent the last 7 years within the Group leading legal, regulatory compliance and financial crime matters.  As well as leading on the implementation of Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SMCR) and Markets in Financial Instruments (MiFID II), she has supported the group on acquisitions as well as leading the legal work for Smith & Williamson in its merger with Evelyn Partners.

Nicola qualified as a barrister and has nearly 30 years’ experience of legal and regulatory advice within the financial services with over 20 of these working in UK small/mid cap institutional broking and corporate advisory businesses. She started her financial services career in corporate broking at Charterhouse Tilney Securities Limited followed by Bridgewell Securities and Canaccord Genuity Group Inc.

In her time in the city, she has worked on numerous IPOs and acquisitions both as an advisor and as a principal. She has a law degree from University of Southampton.

Folley Ogundele is an international commercial leader with expertise in driving revenue growth and strategic partnerships in the financial technology (fintech) sector. As the Chief Revenue Officer at Finmid, and formerly a senior executive at Stripe, TransferWise and American Express, Folley has driven numerous transformation initiatives, consistently delivering double- and triple-digit revenue growth year over year.

Folley’s deep understanding of the global payments, cross border remittance and embedded finance landscape, coupled with his keen SaaS industry insights, has allowed him to cultivate strategic partnerships with industry giants and high growth startups alike. A sought-after speaker and thought leader, Folley has been invited to share his expertise at leading industry conferences and publications.

Folley studied Business Management at the University of Surrey and earned his MBA at Imperial College London. He is a proud husband and father of three and, back when he had a little more spare time, represented Great Britain in both American Football and Karate.

Simonetta was Chair of Surrey Business School Advisory Board from June 2022 until the end of July 2024.  She is a senior marketing, product, and strategy executive with 25 years’ experience across wealth management, global cross-border payments and remittances.

Simonetta combines a strong understanding of customer behaviour, brand purpose, traditional and digital / social marketing, with a rigorous strategic/commercial analysis and creative problem solving to help companies optimize their business model and grow.

She started her career at McKinsey & Company and has since held a variety of roles,  ranging from American Express, where she spent 10 years in strategy, planning, product management and product development; Bupa International, where she was the Director Strategy and Market Development function and a member of the Executive Board; Western Union, where she was SVP Global Brand, Marketing and Customer Engagement and served on the Board of their Foundation; Tesco Bank, where she was Interim Chief Customer Officer; Evelyn Partners, where she was Group Chief Marketing Officer and now at Rathbones, where she is Chief Client Officer. She has served on the board of Brewin Dolphin and has been a member of the Surrey Business School Advisory Board since 2016.

Simonetta’s spark and energy are passion. In the words of people who have worked with her ‘she has an uncanny ability to make the complex look simple’ and ‘to get everyone excited and on board’.

David is a former Surrey Business School Advisory Board Chair, serving between June 2020 – June 2022.

David has been a Non-Executive Director for over 25 years and is currently a NED at both CP Cases Ltd, a company designing and manufacturing bespoke protective cases and Start and Grow UK Ltd, delivering business support programmes across England.

He is a Board Advisor for NexGen Tree Shelters, an innovative biodegradable tree shelter manufacturer and for several other start-up businesses. He has advised major banks and law firms and has served as a Trustee with several charities.

He is a Visiting Professor and Chair of the Surrey Business School (SBS) Leadership Academy.

He is also Member of the Manufacturing Commission advising the All Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group. Until retiring in June 2017 he was the Regional Chairman of the Institute of Directors for the South of England and prior to that was Chairman of IoD Surrey. Previously he was Chief Executive of the Engineering Employers Federation for London and the South East (EEF South- now Make UK) for over 10 years, working with hundreds of technology based companies.

A Chartered Engineer, he started his career in the aerospace industry and delivered major design and manufacture programmes for customers such as Boeing, Airbus and Eurofighter, and was Head of Design & Technology at a major tier one aerospace company. He is a Member of the National Economic Policy Committee of Make UK, Deputy Chair of their South East Regional Advisory Board and Member of their National Membership Board.

David is a Fellow of both the Royal Aeronautical Society and the IoD, a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. He is a Freeman of the City of London. In his spare time David follows Portsmouth FC and maintains his classic Porsche 911. He is also a keen gardener, skier and obsessive cyclist owning five bicycles.

David advises on impact-driven investment, corporate responsibility, and philanthropy, to drive the allocation of resources to positive social and environmental outcomes. He has worked across the “social finance spectrum”, utilising grants, loans, impact investing and ESG funds to create impact strategies, portfolios, and programmes.

As an ex-CEO and Executive Director, he draws on a wealth of senior leadership, commercial and consulting experience from the not-for-profit, professional services and investment banking sectors (including CAF, Eversheds, KPMG, Accenture, RBS and UBS).

Before Maanch, as Executive Director of CAF, he led a 60-person team which generated £400m+ of new donations, impact investments and grant programmes each year to support causes around the world. David is on the Board of the Royal Commonwealth Society, IESE Foundation, and European Social Catalyst Fund.

He has studied Sustainable Business at Harvard, Social Finance at Oxford, has an MBA from IESE, and a Finance degree from Cass Business School. He is a regular speaker and writer for leading publications like the FT, Impact Entrepreneur, Nossa Capital, and Philanthropy Impact. David lives in Surrey, plays team tennis for the RAC Club, and has three daughters.

Tim Walton is a Senior Vice President of International Hotel Development for Marriott International.  Based at Marriott’s European headquarters in London, he travels widely in his quest to fulfil Marriott’s ambitious plans for growth across the northern, western and southern regions of Europe. One element of his role in which he thrives is the mentoring and management of his team, which is spread between six offices across the continent.  

Before re-joining Marriott in 2005, Tim spent four years as Vice President of Hotel Development, Europe, with Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts.  Prior to that, he worked with Marriott’s Development Planning and Feasibility group and was responsible for a wide variety of market and feasibility studies across the EMEA region. 

Tim has also held positions within the fields of consultancy (with hotel industry experts Horwath and BDO) and in hotel sales and marketing.  He is a regular guest lecturer (to both undergraduate and postgraduate students) at the University of Surrey and is a frequent speaker on the hotel industry conference circuit. Tim graduated from the University of Surrey in 1992 and enjoys historic ties with the University. His mother studied at Battersea Polytechnic (the University’s forerunner) and subsequently worked at the University from 1960 to 2002. She was appointed an MBE for services to the University in the New Year Honours in 2000.

Tim originally hails from Surrey and now lives in south-west London with his wife and two fast-growing-up sons.  In his spare time, Tim is an adventurous traveller, keen walker and (poor) tennis player!

Vicki is interim School Manager at Surrey Business School. She works with the rest of the School’s senior leadership team and Faculty colleagues on operational, financial and infrastructure matters and to support delivery of the School's strategy. Vicki oversees the growing professional services team within the School to support the School’s disciplines, research centres, academic staff, students and visitors.

Vicki joined Surrey Business School in 2023, as School Administrative Officer. She joined the University in 2018 and held two part-time roles: Administrative Officer for the Department of Politics and Administrator for the Institute of Advanced Studies. Prior to this, Vicki worked for several SMEs in a variety of administrative, operational and HR roles. 

Moumita is an experienced professional in diplomacy, policy, and advisory roles. She has a demonstrated track record of leadership in building senior strategic partnerships in transnational education, financial services, climate action and energy transition, embedding gender equity and social inclusion to achieve inclusive economic growth. In her career, Moumita has collaborated with state governments, and worked with industry as a knowledge and technical assistance partner, policy consultant, and led geographically diverse teams.

Her work portfolio includes roles at Standard Chartered Bank, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and British Council.

Education : MBA (Finance), University of San Diego, California, USA and B.A (Honours) History, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, India

In the last three decades Steven has built a rewarding career in the services sector. Invariably, he found great satisfaction in impacting individual lives and societies through fashioning meaningful and sustainable brand experiences. 

Past industry appointments with listed corporations have included board chair, directorships, and “C-suites” assignments. In particular, his expertise and experience includes human capital development, industry development, business strategies, start-ups & operations. 

His operations management experience include years with Singapore Hotel Association Training & Education College (“SHATEC”), Tourism Management Institute of Singapore (“TMIS”), Temasek Polytechnic (Hospitality Division), Sentosa Tourism Academy, Kingsmen Ventures (Attractions), Shangri-la Hotels & Resorts, The Mandarin Hotel, Singapore Airport Terminal Services (“SATS”). 

In the domains of industry development, master-planning and capital investments, Steven was involved in the redevelopment of Singapore’s Sentosa island resort, the development of Ponte 16 Casino Resort in Macau, Dhensa Boutique Resorts in the Kingdom of Bhutan, China’s Pearl River Delta Zhuhai Wanshan Marine Development Zone and Singapore Sports Hub. 

Steven read Sociology, Management and Asia Pacific Studies in the Universities of Surrey, Massachusetts and Leeds, respectively. As well, he had attended École hôtelière de Lausanne (“EHL”) and Cornell Executive Programmes.

Professor Ritchie's research interests are associated with tourism risk management. His research has focused on understanding risk from an individual and organisational perspective. His work on organisations explores risk attitudes and response strategies to effectively respond and recover from crises and disasters. He also explores tourist attitudes to risk and their risk reduction behaviour, including beach goers, Australian outbound travellers and potential travellers to the Middle East and in Indonesia. His research projects also examine the factors that influence the formation of risk attitudes and behaviour by using social and organisational psychology theory and concepts. Recently his interests have expanded to include carbon offsetting to understand consumer preferences and adoption of carbon offseting in an aviation context. He currently holds an ARC Discovery Grant and an ARC Linkage grant on this topic area. He has given keynote speeches at over ten international conferences and has supervised 15 PhD students to completion. Brent is currently unable to advise any PhD students.

Professor Ritchie has coordinated several research projects including Sustainable Tourism CRC and consultancy work for a number of tourism organisations in the public and private sector in Australia, England, Vietnam and New Zealand. He has also published extensively in academic journals including Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing and Current Issues in Tourism. He was former editor of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management and is on the editorial board of eight international journals including the Journal of Travel Research. Professor Ritchie is also a Distinguished Professor and member of the Center for Tourism Research at Wakayama University, Japan and an Affiliate of the Tourism Crisis Management Instiute at the University of Florida, USA.

Professor Ritchie joined the School of Tourism at the University of Queensland in June 2008, having previously worked as the head of the tourism discipline and the research area at the University of Canberra. Professor Ritchie has also previously worked at the School of Service Management at the University of Brighton UK. He has a PhD from the University of Otago, New Zealand graduating in 2000.

Anna Thomasson has a PhD from Lund University School of Economics and Management. Anna is since 2022 Dean of Education at Copenhagen Business School. Before that she was Vice Dean of Education and Associate Professor at Lund University School of Economics and Management. Anna has also conducted research within the field of corporate governance and management control with focus on public sector and hybrid organizations and taught courses within the field of strategy and corporate governance

Professor Tom Tripp is Professor of Management, Rom Markin Endowed Leadership Chair in Business, and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Carson College of Business at Washington State University. He previously taught at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and at the Sauder School of Business at University of British Columbia. 

Professor Tripp teaches courses on leadership, negotiation skills, and decision-making. His research focuses on the psychology of workplace conflict, and has been published journals including the Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Annals, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Journal of Marketing. He is co-author of the 2009 book, Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge - and How to Stop It. 

Professor Tripp has earned over a dozen awards in research and in teaching, including the Most Influential Paper award from the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management, and the university-wide Sahlin Faculty Award for Excellence in Instruction from WSU. 

Professor Tripp earned a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington.

Sandiaga Uno is a prominent Indonesian businessman and politician, actively involved in the country’s business communities. He served as the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia during the 2020-2024 term. Previously, Sandiaga was elected as Vice Governor of Jakarta 2017-2022 and served from 2017-2018. He ran as a candidate of the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia in the 2019 election. 

Sandiaga was one of Indonesia’s most prominent young entrepreneurs in the Indonesian business communities. He is the co-founder of PT Saratoga Investama Sedaya Tbk., the first and the biggest publicly listed active investment company in Indonesia and served as a President Director 2004-2015. He has led the investment firm to have a solid track record of profitable investments across key sectors of the Indonesian economy.

Sandiaga has a passion in empowering young entrepreneurs, creating support for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and giving microloans to thousands of Indonesians. Since 2005, he has been active as a social entrepreneur and serves as Chairman in several well-known associations and foundations in Indonesia. He founded a social movement in job creation through training and mentoring in entrepreneurship. Until today, he continues to focus on increasing job creation especially in Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector.

Sandiaga obtained a doctoral degree in Management from Universitas Pelita Harapan (Indonesia). He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from George Washington University (USA) and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with the highest distinction of Summa Cum Laude from the Wichita State University (USA). In October 2016, he received a title of Distinguished Research Professor in Residence from the George Washington University.

Junsheng Zhang is the Dean of the School of Business at Sun Yat-sen University, Editor-in-Chief of China Journal of Accounting Research, and Executive Director of the Laboratory of Big Data Driven Management Behavior and Decision-Making (a Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education). Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, he is currently leading research on AI-based supervision and governance of listed companies. He serves as an independent director for companies such as China Southern Airlines and Poly Development and Holdings. 

Mr Lei Zhang is Vice President of Subei Research Institute Shanghai Jiao Tong University, responsible for institute operations and external collaborations.  He is also the General Manager at Jiangsu Shenlansiyuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., driving technology commercialization, forging partnership with CASC, Shanghai Electric Group, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Adama Ltd. (Sinochem subsidiary).

An accomplished business executive with over 15 years of experience in strategic investment, industrial real estate development, and corporate management across Asia and the UK. Josephine is currently the Executive Director of Hydra Industrial Investment (Hong Kong) and CEO of Shanghai M&M Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. She has led large-scale investments in logistics and industrial assets across major Chinese cities, with a portfolio exceeding 300,000 square meters.

Her career spans Fortune 500 consumer goods companies, private equity investment, cross-border asset management, and early-stage equity in high-tech ventures. She has a proven track record in strategic planning, marketing innovation, and ecosystem-building in the industrial and capital markets.

Education: BSc (Hons) International Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, UK (2005 – 2009)