Mark has spent over 33 years in Marketing and Customer Relationship Management in a variety of high-profile private and public sector organisations worldwide.

In his early years he was Marketing Director for Principality Building Society in Wales and Head of Customer Management for Royal & Sun Alliance (responsible for leading Customer Management for the launch of MORETH>N), before running his own CRM consultancy, helping over 30 companies worldwide to develop effective customer management practices.

He was instrumental in setting up Confused.com, before taking up a senior interim management career with organisations such as Open University, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Yell Group Plc, British Airways and Barnardos.

Latterly he has been Director of Marketing, Communications and Student Recruitment for City University London, the University of West London and Director of External Affairs for the University of Bradford, where he led a multi-award winning team. He was recently appointed as Interim Director of Marketing, Recruitment and International at Swansea University. 

He is Vice-Chair of the Universities Marketing Forum, as we as being a Board Member of Leeds City College, Bradford UNESCO City of Film and the Bradford Literature Festival. He is a campaigner for equality, diversity and inclusion and is an ambassador for AWLO (African Women in Leadership Organisation) and the White Ribbon campaign.

Kenon is Deputy Director of Marketing at University of Nottingham. He has held digital and recruitment roles in the International Development Office and has a keen interest in all things digital and content marketing, and how digital tools impacts on organisational culture and behaviour.

As a music graduate, Kenon has previously worked in the Arts sector and was involved in a number of widening participation arts projects and outreach work to help diversify participation in the arts.

Born and raised in the Welsh Valleys, he is 1st generation Chinese and was involved in the Race Equality Charter assessment team at Swansea. Kenon was also the inaugural recipient of the CASE Europe Emerging Marketing and Communication Professional Award.

Ben joined LSE in February 2018. Ben serves as a member of LSE’s senior management team, has strategic oversight for philanthropy, alumni engagement, corporate engagement, international strategy and global academic partnerships. Ben leads on the most significant philanthropic opportunities and directs the School’s major philanthropy campaign in support of LSE 2030, travelling extensively overseas. Ben is also a senior inclusivity champion for the School.

Outside of LSE, Ben is a Board member for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE Europe) and is a member of the Pitt Rivers Museum Advisory Board. Prior to LSE, Ben worked at Oxford University for 8 years, overseeing the University’s fundraising teams, where the Oxford Thinking Campaign grew from £800m to £2.7bn. Prior to Oxford, Ben spent ten years at Warwick University, initially in international marketing and recruitment, and then overseeing philanthropy, alumni and corporate engagement at Warwick Business School and serving the wider University leading on international philanthropy in East Asia. Having secured a scholarship to attend a private secondary school, and having received funding for undergraduate and graduate study, Ben is a passionate advocate of social mobility and the role of education for the betterment of society.

Dee Reid joined Leeds Beckett University as Director of External Relations in September 2017 where she leads internal and external communication, public affairs, alumni, events and partnerships, brand and creative and university marketing services. She has over 20 years’ experience in strategic communications, working in senior roles in local government, education, the NHS and the private sector. Before joining Leeds Beckett, she was Head of Communications and Marketing at Leeds City Council, leading communications for the UK’s third largest city and prior to that, Head of Communications for Education Leeds, providing support for the city’s 265 schools.  Dee is a trustee and chair of East Street Arts, an award winning national and international arts charity, supporting artists through their development programme and by providing space as the largest studio holder outside of London.

Liz Reilly is Director of Philanthropy and Donor Relations at the University of Edinburgh; she joined the team in January 2015. Liz moved from Seattle, where she was Director of Development for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, a health care provider (with strong advocacy and educational programmes) serving patients in 30 clinics across three states. While there, Liz received the national Planned Parenthood Fundraiser of the Year Award. Liz has also been a campaign director, a fundraising consultant, and a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching at a secondary school in Malawi.

A bit unusually, Liz developed a passion for fundraising as a consultant. By working with and learning from a wide variety of nonprofits, Liz saw how fundraising not only enables acceleration and innovation in mission delivery through philanthropic revenue but also provides organisations with insights from their broad donor communities which can make them more impactful. Fundraisers have important roles both communicating out (representing their institution) and communicating in (representing donors and other stakeholders); this virtuous cycle creates more vibrant and relevant organisations. Relatedly, Liz believes strongly in both the role philanthropy can play in advancing social justice and the importance of maintaining a critical eye on philanthropy and how it can sometimes actually reinforce social inequities. An avid and omnivorous reader, Liz loves trading book recommendations and engaging in heated debates on this and many other topics. 

Liz's own giving tends to focus on expanding access to education; this has also been a theme in some of her volunteering, including her current roles as Philanthropic Advisor to the Cowrie Scholarships Foundation and as board member on UNICEF UK's Scotland Advisory board. Having benefited from the support of many female mentors over the years, Liz is also a big believer in women lifting up other women and is always up for a coffee, virtual or otherwise.