College Management Team

Ken Webb Principal and Chief Executive

Ken has worked at a senior level in the UK Central Government, Local Government and the Private Sector. His extensive roles have included leading and managing diverse areas from large infrastructure projects, through national advertising campaigns to product research and international sales in the Agri-food industry and IT consultancy.

Ken is a qualified teacher, and Chartered Accountant. He holds a number of qualifications from Queen’s University Belfast, University of Ulster, Michigan State University and Warwick University Business School.

In 2008 he was appointed as Principal and Chief Executive of the South Eastern Regional College (SERC) one of the larger and now most successful Further and Higher Education Colleges in the UK and Ireland. His leadership of SERC has resulted in this multi award winning College carrying out work in over 30 countries across 4 continents.

Michael Malone, Director of Curriculum and Information Services

Michael studied for a B.Sc. and M.Sc. at Queen’s University Belfast and for A Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering at the University of Ulster. He has published papers at Conferences and refereed journals and was an author for two magazines from 1994-1998

He has worked in Further Education for 39 years, 24 years as a Lecturer in Electronic Engineering, Computing and CAD and 15 years as a senior manager and has gained a wide range of experiences in teaching, management and leadership.

Over the last 20 years He has focused on the development and integration of proprietary student management systems with bespoke solutions to create and integrated and intuitive experience for students and staff.

He won the Northern Ireland BT Award for IT innovation in 2002 and has won 3 BECTA National awards during his management career in 1998, 2010 and 2015 in the innovative use of IT systems in Teaching and Learning.

He has developed many international partnerships in the area of Project Based Learning (PBL) and Entrepreneurship. This Includes the international partnership on engineering training called CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate) as well as with TA3 (Trans Atlantic Technology and Training Alliance). He has developed close links with experts at TKNIKA in the Basque Country. He works with the Edge Foundation and serves as a member on their international experts group on PBL.

As Director of Curriculum and Information Services he currently manages the entire curriculum within SERC as well as all computing and information systems. The College has 4,500 full-time students and 8000 part-time students across 50 disciplines. These include further education, apprenticeships, higher education and special needs. He has implemented PBL and entrepreneurship across all these disciplines.

Heather McKee, Director of Strategic Planning Quality and Support

Heather is the Director of Strategic Planning, Quality and Support at the South Eastern Regional College (SERC) with overall responsibility for the leadership and management of the strategic planning, quality, admissions, international development, engagement, student support functions and campus management.

Heather has over twenty years’ experience leading collaborative approaches to development, towards meaningful change within communities. Before moving to the Further Education sector, Heather held senior leadership roles in local Government. She has led and developed innovative community safety initiatives, large capital projects and developed the first strategic Community Plan for Newry, Mourne and Down.

Heather is actively building on the collaborative foundations created through community planning to drive lifelong learning opportunities and benefits for communities through the strengths of the FE Sector.

Paul Smyth, Chief Human Resources Officer

Paul has strategic responsibility for Human Resources, Learning Academy and Health and Safety across the College. He holds a B Eng Aeronautical Engineering from Queen’s University, Belfast, is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and has 25 years experience in Human Resources in range of public sector organisations. Paul is based at the Ballynahinch Campus.

Tommy Martin, Chief Finance Officer

Tommy, as Chief Finance Officer and a member of the College Management Team, plays a key role in the strategic and financial management of South Eastern Regional College. Prior to his 2009 appointment at SERC, Tommy spent seventeen years in various financial roles across several industries with BBC Northern Ireland, Praxis Care Group Ltd. and Nortel. Tommy graduated from Ulster University with First Class Honours in Business Studies; holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Collaborative Transformation; and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. He is based at the Newtownards Campus.

William Greer, Chief Training and Contracts Officer

William has held a variety of management positions for 25 years in the Further Education sector. He is currently responsible for the successful delivery of DfE funded training programmes across the four main campuses of SERC. This includes Higher Level Apprenticeships, Training for Success, ApprenticeshipNI and Training and Innovation Support programmes for Industry. The job involves a high level of business engagement to assist employers in the recruitment, upskilling and reskilling of staff.

William’s main responsibilities include ensuring on-going compliance with contract requirements, ensuring that contract targets are met and improving the quality of the participant experience on programmes. In addition, William is responsible for ensuring that all programmes are suitably resourced, that financial targets are met and that all budgets are adhered to. The Training and Innovation programmes which William is responsible for have an annual income of £9m. On average SERC has an annual enrolment of 1700 participants to full-time Training and Apprenticeship programmes and over 2000 staff from local businesses are upskilled and reskilled each year.

Claire Henderson, Chief Officer Quality, Excellence and Development

Claire has worked in Further and Higher Education for 22 years. Eleven years as a Lecturer in Sports Studies and a variety of management positions, six years as a Head of Quality, Excellence and Development and is currently the Head of International, Quality, Excellence and Development. In this role and as a member of the SERC College Management Team she has responsibility for providing professional strategic leadership in developing and maintaining a culture of continuous improvement and excellence in teaching and learning; she has devised and implemented quality assurance and improvement processes for Work Based Learning in the college ensuring that they comply with the requirements of the Education and Training Inspectorate and awarding organisation regulations. In addition she has responsibility for developing and ensuring effective implementation of an international strategy; for leading, managing and developing a professional CEIAG service and overseeing the coordination of competitions and student placements.

Claire graduated from Ulster University with BA Hons in Sport and Leisure Studies; holds a Post Graduate Certificate of Education and an MSc in Sport, Exercise and Leisure. She is a CMI Chartered Manager and an Associate Assessor with the Education and Training Inspectorate.