Governing Body

Mr John Nugent has gained extensive leadership, strategy formulation and governance experience in Northern Ireland and overseas over the last 35 years. This includes the delivery of major capital development programmes and environmental initiatives in the Further and Higher education sectors. He was a Board Member of Southern Regional College since 2015 and Vice-Chair from 2017. During this period he chaired the Audit and Risk Committee and provided Governing Body oversight and assurance for the College's £105m Capital Investment Programme. Mr Nugent retired from Queen's University Belfast in 2020 having successfully delivered the University's £750m Capital Investment Programme together with the institution's award winning Carbon Management Strategy. He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering and was formerly a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (retired in 2020).

Tommy Martin was appointed Principal & Chief Executive of South Eastern Regional College (SERC) in December 2024. He has been a member of SERC’s Management Team since 2009 and has played a key role in the strategic and financial development of the College, first as Head of Finance, then as Chief Finance Officer and more recently as Deputy Chief Executive. He has been Interim Principal & Chief Executive since August this year. 

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 Chartered Accountants Ireland. Prior to joining SERC, he gained considerable experience in financial roles across several industries including broadcasting, communications and health and social care.

Mark has had significant experience in advanced manufacturing and skills across the UK over the past 20 years.

Over that time he has worked in a range of advanced manufacturing sectors including space and automotive and is currently a director of King & Fowler in Liverpool and jheSOLUTIONS in Newtownards, working in aerospace and wider advanced manufacturing, materials and engineering (AMME) sector respectively. From 2015 until its closure he was the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Employment and Skills at the UKCES. He is currently a member of the Matrix Panel, an industry led panel advising government and informing academia and industry on the commercial exploitation of R&D and science and technology. Mark is also chair of the PMC for Connected, supporting innovation in micro and small SME's and vice chair of the Skills Strategy Advisory Group to the Department for the Economy. He previously volunteered as Institute of Directors Management and Leadership Ambassador in Northern Ireland and continues to volunteer as a business advisor for Young Enterprise.

Mark is also a parent governor in Regent House School, Newtownards.

Danny leads the technology consulting practice in Deloitte in Northern Ireland and has over 25 years' experience, primarily working with clients across the UK public sector focusing on data and digital transformation.

He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy, has a BSc in chemistry from Queens University, a Masters in business administration from Ulster University and a PhD from Loughborough.

Danny was previously a board member of Helm Housing Association and Radius Housing Association.

Alan has over 30 years' policing experience in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He is a graduate of the highly prestigious UK College of Policing, Strategic Command Course 2015. He has extensive leadership experience and was previously commander for policing in Belfast, County Antrim and County Armagh. He has widespread experience in strategic partnership working, change management, critical incident management, and leadership and ethics.

As commander for Belfast, he had responsibility for a wide range of major capital events including: the 2012 World Police and Fire Games; European MTV Awards; and numerous high profile international visits to Belfast.

He led the design of the PSNI Policing with the Community 2020 Strategy and introduced an integrated offender management approach to policing in Northern Ireland, in addition to leading a number of significant change projects.

Since his retirement from policing in 2015, he established his own security sector reform consultancy. Subsequently, he led the British government's support to policing reform in Lebanon for over four years as the project director for the UK government-funded Conflict Security and Stabilisation Fund policing programme in Lebanon.

Alan holds a postgraduate diploma in legal studies and a Masters in public administration from Ulster University. He is an alumnus of the Windsor Leadership Trust.

Deborah has been principal of The Wallace High School in Lisburn since 2009. Previously she was principal of Portadown College and has held a range of leadership positions in Antrim Grammar School, Methodist College and Banbridge Academy. She has a BA Hons degree in French, a post graduate certificate in education, a Master's degree in educational management and a professional qualification in headship.

She has particular expertise in curriculum development, matching the curriculum to meet the needs of both the individual and the economy, leadership training, leadership development and digital learning. In Wallace she has led the school through a large scale one-to-one digital device roll out, with the associated training and educational programmes placing Wallace at the forefront of digital learning in the UK.

Deborah is a former president of the Association of Schools and College Leaders, Northern Ireland; a former member of the education committee of the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), and is a regular contributor to consultations on a range of education, mental health and financial policy across primary, post-primary, FE and HE sectors.

She does not hold any other current public appointments.

Darren has extensive involvement in providing strategic and commercial finance leadership and leading the IT function as the group director of finance within Inspire Wellbeing Ltd.

Darren has over 20 years' experience working in a number of senior finance roles delivering improved financial performance and business growth, transformation and enhanced system, process and control environments across a variety of sectors including financial services, FMCG, charitable and social enterprise. He has a BSc in accounting, MSc in computer science and applications, as well as being a fellow of the Chartered Accountants Ireland. Darren is also a member of the Ballyholme Primary School board of governors (non-remunerated).

Pauline is a social worker and Chief Executive of Children in Northern Ireland, the regional network for children's organisations.

Pauline was appointed to the Parades Commission NI on 1 April 2024 (remuneration of £22,000 per year). She has been a non-executive director of Southern Health and Social Care Trust since 2017 (remuneration around £8,000 per year) and a board member of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive since 2020 (remuneration around £7,000 per year).

Nuala has significant experience of successfully driving process and cultural change from over 30 years’ experience in operations and quality leadership positions.

She has held global senior management and director roles for multinational companies, such as GE and Sensata, in manufacturing, industrial services and financial services industries.

Nuala is passionate about education empowering everyone to achieve their potential and the need to encourage diversity in STEM subjects.

She is currently on the board of governors of Laurelhill Community College and Malone Integrated College. She is also a director for the Cancer Fund for Children charity.

Nuala has a BA in engineering and a post graduate diploma in design, manufacturing and management from Cambridge University, as well as being a chartered engineer (CEng) and is a Member of Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET).

Nuala does not currently hold any other public appointments in Northern Ireland.

Nicola has a strong background and extensive experience in local economic development and has been an economic development professional for over 25 years. 

As an economic development professional, she has a wealth of experience working with NI councils in their support of entrepreneurs, start up, growth and scale of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). 

Nicola is a strong advocate for employability and skills and works with both the public and private sector to ensure that the right skills are available in the economy, for the right jobs.

Nicola has a BA (Hons) in business studies, a diploma in industrial studies and an MSc in local economic development. 

Nicola does not currently hold any other public appointments in Northern Ireland.

Derek has almost four decades' experience in financial services, having most recently worked in the senior management teams of two local banks, where at various times he managed mortgage businesses in NI, GB and RoI. A business graduate of Queen's University, Belfast he served as chairman of the NI mortgage committee of UK Finance, formerly the Council of Mortgage Lenders, for ten years.

Since June 2015 Derek has served on the board and audit and risk assurance committee of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), where he has recently been re-appointed for a further five years. Following a structural change in January 2021, Derek became the inaugural chair of a new finance and operational performance committee in NIHE.

On 1 January 2021 Derek took up a three year appointment as a Commissioner with the Parades Commission for Northern Ireland.

Derek has also served on the board and finance and human resources committee of Co-ownership since January 2019. He is a member of the statutory committee of the Pharmaceutical Society of NI. Derek has experience of the education sector having formerly worked as a part time lecturer for both the Institute of Bankers and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He was formerly the chair of the board of governors of Lambeg Primary School. Derek brings a wealth of experience of governance, risk management, finance, strategy and transformational change from his varied business experience.

Majella is Director of Planning and Schools Provision in the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS). She has over 20 years' experience working in education, working in adult education and training before starting her career as a post-primary teacher. She transferred to the Northern Ireland Assembly to establish the Assembly Education Service. Majella then undertook the role of English subject officer in CCEA, subsequently moving to work with the Northern Ireland Qualifications Regulator which included the role of programme manager on the Ministerial Review of GCSEs and A levels, before returning to CCEA Awarding Body as service improvement and STEM programme manager.

Majella is a member of the board of governors of Stranmillis University College (non-remunerated).

Sam is a qualified Accountant and has worked in various public sector service delivery organisations for most of his career.

He has operational management experience of financial accounting, management accounting, budgeting and financial planning for large public sector organisations. He has also management experience in corporate planning, performance and risk management, and public accountability and corporate governance, and is currently head of corporate planning and performance for a large Non-Departmental Public Body. 

Sam has served for two years as the independent member on the Performance and Risk Committee at Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council, and receives remuneration of £250 per meeting, and travel expenses for this position

Michael McQuillan is Chief Executive at Enterprise NI. Previously he was Director of the Business Institute and the Centre for SME Development at Ulster University and was appointed as a Visiting Professor to the Ulster University Business School in 2010. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of McQuillan Associates - a business growth consultancy supporting the SME sector in Northern Ireland and has been involved in several businesses, throughout his career, notably, as co-founder and Managing Director of The Streat Café Chain and The Streat Franchising Ltd. He was appointed as Non-Executive Director/Board Member to Invest NI in April 2020. He was a Member of the Tourism Northern Ireland Board from 1 July 2013 to 31 March 2020. He has been engaged as a Non-Executive Director with several SME's.

Carolyn King is the Work Placement and Competitions Manager at SERC, this is her second term representing the Corporate Staff on the Governing Body. She is a former student of the FE College in Bangor who worked in the private sector before taking up a position in Further Education in SERC in 2002. Carolyn's expertise is in work placement, over the last fifteen years she has standardised the Further and Higher Education placement process and played a leading role developing a college wide placement system. Carolyn has also led on the expansion of the college internal competitions for students and represents SERC as a Skills Champion in the sector.