The role of Deputy Secretary and Head of Compliance is new to DMU and I’m the first postholder.  It’s a senior role leading across four connected central Professional Services functions: Executive Services, Corporate Governance, Information Governance and Compliance.  In the absence of the Registrar and Secretary, I’m the most senior person responsible for governance matters; I’m also the university’s Data Protection Officer.  Effectively my role straddles executive, corporate and information governance, and provides institutional oversight for our compliance activities.

It’s my job to provide strategic leadership for the cohesive and efficient operation of governance and compliance activities across the university, and to ensure that the functions I oversee are working well and working together coherently.  The teams I work with are responsible for supporting the most senior managers in the university; for corporate, executive and academic governance and compliance with information governance legislation.  I’m also responsible for establishing and maintaining the university’s policy framework, which is a significant piece of work.

It’s an extremely wide-ranging role that touches all areas of the organisation and deals with a hugely varied amount of information. Governance, compliance and executive support functions are fundamentally about checks, balances and enablers on the exercise of management responsibilities and I like to think that collectively we act as the institutional conscience.

I would love to have a typical day or even a typical week!

Taking one recent day as an example, though:

• Meeting with and supporting my teams (in our hybrid working model) – we’re embedding a new Leadership and Management Standards and Behaviours Framework at DMU
• Taking part in appointment processes for new independent governors and a Governor Apprentice
• Liaising with external consultants on our Board governance effectiveness review
• Reviewing and investigating cases that have come through to me as Data Protection Officer
• Developing the next phase of our Policy Framework to ensure we have a workable maintenance and review schedule, routed through the right governance bodies

I started out in an admin role in the arts, working as PA to the Chief Curator at Tate Modern. I moved internally twice at Tate, first to a role in external relations and advocacy, and then into a governance and policy management role. Then I moved to manage governance at a leading multi-academy trust, before moving into HE in 2016, firstly at the OU and then at Leicester. My current role is my step up into leadership.

I’ve always worked in roles where there has been a public benefit and also an educational one. HE is really important to me – I was the first in my family to go to university, and benefited from a widening participation scheme which introduced me to Oxford, where I subsequently studied as an undergraduate.

Planning and people skills have been the ‘golden threads’ running through all of my roles. They were the link in moving from an advocacy-focused role into supporting boards and committees, and putting the two together has led to my current role which leads across four connected Professional Services functions. Getting things done in these areas requires the 3Rs – relationships, responsibilities and (appropriate) reporting. It’s also been important to have solid writing skills and the ability to manage upwards in a timely but concise fashion – you need to know what to escalate, what to pass on as information and what to just get on with. Overall I’ve also found that project management skills have been really useful; I gained APM Project Management Fundamentals in 2017 to back that up.

I’ve been lucky to have had some amazing managers who’ve nurtured and supported me and I’ve also taken up mentoring and coaching opportunities whenever they’ve been available to me. The best piece of advice I have ever received was “never apologise, never explain” – from a career coach on returning after maternity.

Now that I’m in a leadership role I’d like to consolidate my practice as an empowering leader and manager before moving on. I’m undertaking a Level 7 Senior Leader Apprenticeship, which is delivered here at DMU and also confers Chartered Manager status via the CMI as well as the apprenticeship and PGDip Business Administration qualification. I’m also an Associate Consultant with AHEP to expand and develop my reach in, and knowledge of, the wider HE sector in terms of governance and compliance.

That it’s about structure, people and processes, and that all three have to work properly for it to be successful.