Chair
Sue Horner
Treasurer
Nigel Williams
Trustees
Alastair Burtenshaw | Professor Teresa Cremin | Paula Gay | Alastair Giles | Harriet Hall | Jessica Powell | David Roche | Carol Taylor
Biographies
Chair Sue Horner has been the main policy lead on English in schools and colleges for many years for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. She led the review of the secondary curriculum as a whole and is now working in assessment policy. She has also been closely associated with a range of book related initiatives as coordinator of the first World Book Day, on various steering groups for Years of Reading and as Chair of Writing Together, a six-year project aimed at getting writers into schools to work with children.
Treasurer Nigel Williams spent his working life in publishing. In 1967 he joined the finance department of Penguin; over the next 28 years he held various roles there, including Company Secretary and UK Finance Director. In 1995 he moved to Virgin Books Limited as Finance Director, where he worked until his retirement in 2004.
Alistair Burtenshaw, Group Exhibition Director of the London Book Fair at Reed Exhibitions Ltd, directs the London Book Fair, a highly respected international trade book fair that has seen significant international growth in recent years. Alistair graduated from business school in the UK and Italy with a BA Honours Degree and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Market Research Society. Exhibition Director of London Book Fair from 2001 to 2005, Alistair is also Treasurer of Conference of International Book Fairs and was previously a Board Director of the Book Trade Benevolent Society, a Management Committee Member of the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and a former Chair of the KPMG Publisher of the Year Award as well as being a former Executive Committee member of English PEN. He brings considerable business experience to the Board.
Professor Teresa Cremin (previously known as Grainger) is a Professor of Education (Literacy) at The Open University. Her work involves research and consultancy around issues of creativity, literature and literacy teaching and learning.
Professor Cremin is known internationally for her work on creative approaches to teaching and learning and for her commitment to listening to and learning from children’s and teachers’ voices. She engages in extensive collaborative research with colleagues from other universities and also works with teachers as co-participant researchers.
In recent years she has researched young children’s imaginative development, their ‘possibility thinking’ in the early years, as well as the nature of creative teaching and learning. In addition, she works with teachers developing their confidence as language artists, readers, writers and role players who imaginatively involve children in their learning and raise standards through playful engagement and reflection.
Professor Cremin has written/edited over 25 books, and over 50 academic papers and chapters, in addition to a wealth of professional publications for teachers. Her recent publications in the field of literacy and creativity include Learning to Teach English: A Creative Approach (RoutledgeFalmer, 2008) and The Primary English Handbook (UKLA, 2007).
Paula Gay is Personnel Manager at the British Red Cross. She has extensive experience in the voluntary and public sectors as an HR professional and has over 17 years experience in the field of HR Management. Paula has an upper second class honours degree in Literature, Linguistics and Sociology and a Masters in Human Resource Management. She holds MCIPD membership status with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Alastair Giles is the MD of an independent marketing company, with a focus on ideas that help expand the general market for books and reading. After a 15-year publishing career, culminating in Group Marketing Director of HarperCollins Publishers, he left to set up the agency in 2002 and now works closely with media owners and commercial sponsors as a specialist on publishing. In addition to handling strategic projects for both publishers and chain retailers, he has formulated successful media-driven generic book promotions such as the Richard and Judy Book Club, the Daily Mail New Writer’s Book Club, the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award Season & CITV’s Bookaboo. He is also CEO of the Galaxy British Book Awards, the Irish Book Awards and is the secretary and joint founder of the Book Marketing Society.
Harriet Hall has a degree in Classics and is a qualified solicitor. She worked in a local practice and was employed as a legal editor, writing about changes in legislation for a publication used mainly by Citizens’ Advice Bureaux. Later she moved on to legal policy work, and has a broad experience of how the law works in a number of areas including education, employment, consumer and social welfare law. She is currently on the Board of C & J Clark Ltd, the shoe company, as a non-executive director, which gives her a lot of commercial and corporate experience.
She is a non-executive director of the South London and Maudsley Mental Health Foundation Trust. She is also a trustee of a small grant-giving charitable trust, which gives her an insight into fundraising strategies from the other side.
David Roche is Group Sales and Trade Marketing Director at HarperCollins.
In his previous role as Chief Executive of Borders UK Ltd he was responsible for leading the business and the overall direction and development of the Borders and Books etc brands throughout the UK and Ireland. David left the business in January 2008 having instigated a turnaround, led Borders to winning every book industry best retailer trade award for two years running and completing the successful sale of the company.
A well known figure in the book trade, with excellent connections across retail, publishing, agents and authors, David was named Retail Personality of the Year at the inaugural Bookseller Retail Awards in September 2005. He was elected President of the Booksellers Association in 2005, a two-year post that he held until 2007. David has also been a member of the Advisory Board for both the London Book Fair and the MA in Publishing at Kingston University.
Carol Taylor is the Director of Literacy, Language and Numeracy and Workplace at NIACE.
She has 30 years’ experience of teaching and managing basic skills with learners of all ages, from pre-school to adult education, in a wide range of settings including homes and communities.
She was formerly an adviser for Travellers and for Family Literacy, head of outreach at an FE College and a Community Tutor for Derbyshire’s Adult Community Education Service. In 1997 Carol was appointed Director of Read On Write Away!, a newly created partnership literacy organisation in Derbyshire. This developed into a nationally recognised example of partnership working, and of community-focused basic skills, winning a number of awards.
In 2004 she became the Deputy Director at the Basic Skills Agency; as Director, she managed it through its closure and merger with NIACE.
Carol has served on a number of national bodies concerned with family literacy, language and numeracy, Books for Babies, community focused basic skills, the National Year of Reading and was a founder member of the Forum for Strategic Literacy Partnerships. She is a school governor and an LSC Council member.
