Alumni Advisory Board

The Board is composed of eleven representatives from the MBA, Certificate and Diploma communities, as well as members of The Business School. 

The Alumni Advisory Board provides strategic advice, ambassadorial support, community representation and insight into The Open University Business School Alumni, to develop and sustain a mutually beneficial lifelong relationship between Alumni and School.

Board members serve an initial term of three years and two new members were recruited in February 2012.  As terms expire or members resign, recruitment is announced on this website, in the e-newsletter and on the LinkedIn group.  For more information regarding the Board's role, follow this link.

If you have any queries, please contact Jacqui Thomasen jacqui.thomasen@open.ac.uk

Our current Board members:  

Augur, Philip

Area of expertise: Business development
Qualification: MBA

Philip has almost 20 years experience in his field, which has given him the opportunity to travel extensively, from Ireland to India.

Whilst working at Zurich Financial Services, Philip led one particular fundraising initiative with fantastic success - raising £10,000 for the Cancer Research Campaign. He also served as a keynote Speaker & Host for Common Purpose, Wakefield (UK).

He has also developed his language skills in Spanish, French, Italian and German.

Drewery, Kelly

Area of expertise: Career support
Qualification: MBA

Trained as a business psychologist, Kelly has worked in management consulting for 14 years. She has worked with a variety of well-known brand names working with their people around building effective relationships to boost engagement, organisational performance and capability development.

Her work has included supporting organisations with their reputation management and with individuals around boosting their employability. She has written and contributed to various publications including around the importance of career development to organisational effectiveness.

Kelly’s MBA from The Open University has helped boost her own employability. She is now running her own business and has found the skills she developed during her studies to have been invaluable. Kelly is currently completing an MSc in HR Management with the OU Business School and fulfilling the requirements for chartership with the CIPD.

Fennema, Marianne

Area of expertise: Community building
Qualification: MBA

Marianne is a qualified English solicitor with extensive experience in the private sector as well as international organisations and government agencies, in particular in emerging markets. She spent the last 10 years working with boards and senior management in various executive capacities. Her main achievements included the restructuring of the public utilities in Kosovo. She acted as Chairman of the Board of a couple of these utilities as well as the Board of Governors of the International Learning Group, an international school in Pristina, Kosovo. She was also a non-executive Director of the Privatization Agency of Kosovo. Prior to this, Marianne worked in the media industry (radio and television) in Eastern and Western Europe as a lawyer, and she started her career with one of the so-called ‘magic circle’ law firms in the City. She is a Dutch national and lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She gained her MBA with The Open University in 2010.

Leather, Graham

Area of expertise: Strategy and change management
Qualification: MBA

Graham started his working life with a BSc in Engineering before moving on and gaining his MBA in 2009.  He has worked in a variety of sectors over 19 years, including Contact Centres, Steel, Oil, Health, Utilities and the Media.  Graham currently runs his own company.

Graham’s wide-ranging roles have given him the opportunity to travel widely, including to the United States, Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, the UAE and South Africa.     

Mansey, Tony

Area of expertise: Communications, events and technology
Qualification: MBA

Despite leaving school at age 16 with no skills or qualifications, Tony has been able to carve out a successful career thanks to his lifelong quest for continual development. He is now the VP Strategy and Marketing for EADS Test & Services - the European aerospace corporation.

In 1993, while working for Marconi Instruments, Tony was offered the opportunity to take a training programme to help boost his management skills. With a wealth of experience already behind him, he opted for the high-level MBA, which he undertook over the following three years.

Over the course of just 12 years, Tony has achieved an MBA from The Open University, Chartered Director status with the Institute of Directors and become a Chartered Marketer with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CMI).

Metcalfe, Thomas

Area of expertise: International development
Qualification: MBA

Tom's career has provided him with the opportunity to work in Germany, Switzerland and the US, as well as in the UK. After completing his MBA in 1996, Tom served as an MBA tutor until he moved out of the UK in 1999.  Tom, who speaks English, German, French and Spanish, enjoys golf and cycling, as well as spending time with his wife and two children.

 

 

Pierce, John

Area of expertise: International business development, marketing
Qualification: MBA

John is responsible for knowledge management in Fujitsu’s Global Business Group, where he is helping to build communities to support the group’s transnational model. He even uses some technology! In his 34 years in the IT industry he has been a marketer, consultant, salesman and account manager, project manager and worked in pre-sales and technical support.

A proponent of lifelong learning, John has a BSc and MSc from the National University of Ireland and an MBA from the Open University. He was awarded a Master of IT by AIIM; he is a Chartered Engineer and a fellow of the Institution of Engineers in Ireland, a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a fellow of the Irish Computer Society.

He has been chairman of the Irish Internet Association (IIA), the e-Commerce Association of Ireland (ECAI), and the OU MBA Association in Ireland, and a director of the Irish Computer Society (ICS), the Irish Unix Users Group (IUUG) and Glockenspiel Limited, which developed software tools. He chairs a charity in Wexford, where he grew up; lectures on knowledge management and marketing, and represents the National Standards Association of Ireland on WG1 of the CEN technical committee on innovation. For other relaxation John drinks wine, goes fly-fishing and travels.

Shah, Al 

Area of expertise: Communications, events and technology
Qualification: MBA

Al Shah is a Social Media Project Manager at GroupM, driving social business projects across GroupM media agencies, specialising in global Jive and SharePoint projects.

Al graduated as an MBA from The Open University Business School in 2010 and had previously arranged speakers and venues for the regional alumni community. He also represents the Alumni Board at the Faculty School Committee and is continuing his journey to a Research PhD by undertaking a Masters in Research of Management and Business with the OUBS.

A specialist in Internal Social Media, Al has also been appointed Technical Director for an international property company, a position in which he is hoping to develop his knowledge of business cultures abroad. He operates a web based consultancy and retail businesses as well as giving talks on corporate use of social media.

Stasi, Carlo Ennio

Area of expertise: Communication, events, brand and reputation
Qualification: MBA

Carlo has an 18-year track record attending the entire value chain of medium-sized to large projects that extend corporate brand and organisation vision..

For Iveco (FIAT Group), Carlo founded a company “think-tank” which led to re-stating of corporate vision and cultural paradigm. The resulting communication strategy targeted 34 country markets through 240 yearly campaigns on a rolling deadline basis and 15 country-specific communication packages, which contributed to the corporate effort of increasing European market share by 11% and profitability by 80% in three years.

In the public sector Carlo managed several web-based communication projects on behalf of the European Commission, and co-ordinated a multicultural team located in 5 countries. Since mid-2012 Carlo leads the team in charge of document management and information exchange at Eurostat. Shortly after settling in the job he re-framed the team objectives, which resulted in 20% performance improvement within 6 months. 

Carlo is Italian and lives in Luxembourg. A former American Football player in the Italian league, he plays tennis and dances Latino at competitor level with the Luxembourg Sport Dance Federation.

Wainwright, Peter

Area of expertise: Associate Lecturer representative - building links between AL and Alumni community.

Qualification: MBA

Peter’s first career was in the Royal Navy as a Seaman Officer, where over 14 years he gained solid experience in leading and managing teams in complex situations, and gained key skills in listening to people and resolving conflicting agendas. He then became a consultant and analyst in defence R&D strategies and capability planning, assessing the end user and organisational benefits of new technologies, systems and ways of working. He has used his MBA experience to become involved in many cross-functional strategic projects, especially where creativity is needed, often working with people across different cultures. In recent years, he has managed consulting projects in other sectors, including Health and Social Services and a major municipal Port, and has been involved in Creative Partnerships projects in secondary schools. Peter has tutored OUBS residential schools for Strategy and for Creativity for 10 years, and was appointed as an Associate Lecturer in 2011 in “The Dynamics of Strategy”. He is passionate about CPD, with many years of organising events for his local CMI branch, and was a founding member of the OUBS Alumni South Coast group. In 2007 he set up, and still coordinates, the OUBS Alumni’s Innovation and Facilitation Group, based in Hants. This is a prime example of an Alumni-led volunteer project that has proved continuously popular for many years at very low cost, but high value. He lives near Portsmouth, and enjoys sailing, outdoor life, watercolour painting and occasionally writing poetry.