President

Dave Bolton, Director of Enterprise and Employability and Programme Director, Swansea School of Management

Dave Bolton is a Fellow of the IEEP, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and of the Higher Education Academy. Having spent in excess of 20 years working in private industry, mainly in the fields of sales and marketing management, he decided to move into entrepreneurship setting up a successful electrical contracting business, as well as entering academia where he currently works in Swansea School of Management He is currently Director of Enterprise and Employability and Programme Director for the School of Management’s BSc Business Management undergraduates. In his spare time David enjoys cycling, running, reading and as a passionate Welshman, rugby.

President Elect

Leeds Trinity University

Vice President

Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University

Finance Director

Director

Manchester Metropolitan University

Dr Cherisse Hoyte

Director

Curriculum Lead (Associate Professor) Entrepreneurship, Coventry University

Cherisse is Curriculum Lead (Head of Subject for Entrepreneurship) within the School of Marketing and Management at Coventry University. She oversees the operational development of enterprise skills and entrepreneurship education for the Faculty of Business and Law.

Cherisse is passionate about giving a voice to those in marginalised communities who still do not have access to enterprise and entrepreneurship education. She works on international projects supporting enterprise and entrepreneurship education across Europe, East Africa and South-East Asia. Her expertise is in curriculum transformation, online course development and innovative pedagogic approaches to embedding entrepreneurialism in the curriculum.

Cherisse actively teaches at undergraduate level on entrepreneurial mind-set and ideation; and on Degree Apprenticeships, bringing a focus to intrapreneurship and innovation in the public sector. Her own entrepreneurship research is on new venture creation and the cognitive and socio-material processes aspiring entrepreneurs experience as they navigate the boundaries between venture ideas and venture formation.

She enjoys travelling to Thailand to support enterprise and entrepreneurship education as a start-up coach/mentor for the Global Entrepreneurship Camp run by Suranaree University of Technology. She also enjoys taking Maximus, her German shepherd dog, on long walks.

Director

Employer & Engagement Officer, University of Westminster

Jennie has worked within WeNetwork at the University of Westminster leading on Employer Engagement for the last couple of years within the University’s Business Engagement Directorate integrating business practices within enterprise education.

Jennie leads on prospecting businesses within the Enterprise landscape and developing collaborations that will enhance the learning experience and employability of Westminster students. Jennie has championed diversity and inclusion in her employer engagement strategies developing partnerships with diverse employers and founders to facilitate experiential learning activities. Addressing the barriers to employment and enterprise faced by Westminster’s diverse community of students and graduates.

Jennie has experience supporting the broader community of colleagues in her work with University’s Employability Board and in securing founders and employers to participate in course validation processes.

Jennie is passionate about enabling soft skills development so students have the confidence to engage and network with business and employers to raise their profiles so that, when they graduate, they are secure and confident in talking about their personal or business brand.

With a background in the creative/media sector and business development her work is in collections at the V&A Museum, The National Portrait Gallery & The Black Cultural Archives. Jennie has also been a guest speaker on creative industries issues at a range of events including City Hall, the Home Office, The V&A, Tate Britain, The Institute of Jamaica and Kingston University.

Director

Director

Head of Communications & Engagement at the Entrepreneurship Institute, King’s College London

Nina is an experienced communicator, with ten+ years in marketing and communication roles in both the charity sector and higher education. Through targeted storytelling, Nina has engaged large national and international audiences in campaigns covering consumer rights, climate change and international development.

Nina has worked in enterprise education for 6+ years, supporting students, staff and alumni to develop their entrepreneurial skills and ideas. She is currently responsible for growing and deepening engagement in entrepreneurship at King’s and uses her expertise in stakeholder management, content creation, activity design and strategy to do so. She started her own business whilst studying at university, going on to support young people in her local borough for over 10 years. She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and passionate about creating opportunities for others to develop skills, knowledge and experience for future success.

Director

Enterprise Adviser Manager, NTU Enterprise, Nottingham Trent University

Diana’s professional background combines business, creativity, and education, with over 30 years of experience in these fields. She joined the NTU Enterprise Team as an Enterprise Adviser in 2016, supporting students, graduates, and SMEs in starting up, growing, and innovating in business.

Diana’s work at NTU has been recognised in 2024 with the presentation of the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service, highlighting her outstanding contributions to the field. The award citation included her dissemination of knowledge through “The Octopus of Enterprise” podcast, where as host, she shares insights on business, enterprise, and entrepreneurship and the Female Founders Club initiative she leads, empowering female entrepreneurs to create successful businesses on their terms.

Diana is an accomplished presenter, facilitator, and mentor. She is an open and curious creative, an empathetic communicator and connector of people, bringing a positive energy (along with a sense of humour) to all her undertakings. Diana seeks opportunities to grow and develop herself further and foster that mindset in others. Encouraging enterprise and self-development in people is at the core of her career.

Diana is particularly passionate about supporting female founders and creative individuals. She began her higher education with a Foundation Course at Cumbria Institute of The Arts, followed by a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, launching her own creative business soon after graduation. After developing the workshop delivery side of her business, she went on to achieve a PGCE in Art & Design Education (with distinction) and develop a further strand to her portfolio career as a freelance educator and events manager in the arts, museums, and galleries sector.

Her career also includes founding the horticultural business Plantessential and serving as the Strategic Arts Development Officer for Creative Industries at Nottinghamshire County Council, where she managed a gallery, coordinated a creative industry network, commissioned arts projects, and assessed grant aid applications.

Diana served as a director and trustee of Arts Development UK and is a fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). In 2019, she was awarded a fellowship of EEUK (Enterprise Educators UK).

Diana achieved an MBA from Nottingham University Business School and has completed an Advance HE Aurora Leadership programme.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dianapasekatkinson

Director

Associate Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise at University of the Arts London

Marcus O’Dair is a writer, consultant and academic with an interest in enterprise education and innovation management. During a decade in the music and media industries, he released four acclaimed albums as one half of Grasscut and performed across Europe at venues including the Pompidou Centre and the Royal Albert Hall. He also contributed to various broadsheet newspapers and wrote a biography that was a book of the week on BBC Radio 4. He then moved into academia and is currently Associate Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise at University of the Arts London. He has run creative entrepreneurship programmes around the world for organisations including the British Council and is currently UAL lead on a £900,000 project supporting entrepreneurship among student studying creative subjects.

Director

Senior Enterprise Consultant at UWE Bristol

Mhairi is the Senior Enterprise Consultant at UWE Bristol. She was the entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Bristol before joining UWE Bristol in 2011 to establish and build their extracurricular entrepreneurship activity. Over the past ten years, she has worked to grow the team and now leads on the development of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the curriculum. Throughout her time at UWE, Mhairi has worked with a range of institutions to share best practice on enterprise, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship in countries including Morocco, South Korea, Iceland, Kenya, Ukraine and Georgia. In the UK, she has worked on a range of projects including Goodlab (a project to connect social entrepreneurs and academics), feeding into the development of enterprise and entrepreneurship policies and sharing her work on applying the EntreComp Framework at UWE Bristol. She has also held various positions as a Bristol city councillor, trustee and school governor and sat as a director of Bristol is Open, a joint venture between Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol to develop a ‘test-bed’ programmable, digital infrastructure. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and currently sits on the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) task group for enterprise and entrepreneurship. Her research interests include neurodiversity and entrepreneurship, social enterprise and impact, policy ontology and person-centred teaching.

Director

Entrepreneurship Officer, Bridgend College

Ruth is a multi-award-winning enterprise educator and EEUK Fellow who has been championing Entrepreneurship at Bridgend College since 2010. As a business adviser before taking up her current post, she specialized in supporting start–ups and managed the acclaimed Women into Business programme. Her wide-ranging qualifications include an IEEP Fellowship and an MA in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education.

Alongside her role, Ruth was a trustee of the Fairwood Trust, a charity supporting disadvantaged young people to fulfil their potential through education and enterprise, for ten years a Bridgend College governor for four years and a member of the EWC’s Fitness to Practice team. In her spare time, Ruth enjoys reading, cooking and going to the theatre. She also plays tennis every week and hopes her enthusiasm makes up for her lack of talent.