After a far-ranging search, University Alliance is delighted to announce that the Board of Directors has appointed Maddalaine Ansell as its new Chief Executive Officer. She will take up the role on 12 January 2015.
She joins University Alliance from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) where she is currently Deputy Director, International Knowledge and Innovation and manages the £375 million Newton Fund.
Professor Steve West, Chair of University Alliance, said: “Maddalaine was a standout candidate in an extremely strong field which saw applications from both across the sector and beyond. She will bring a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience to the University Alliance team, during what promises to be a very exciting if uncertain time for higher education and research in the run up to both next year’s general election and the CSR in 2016.
“We are confident that with Maddalaine’s appointment, University Alliance has both the leadership and staff to build on our position and profile, and deliver an ambitious and transformational agenda for our innovative and entrepreneurial universities over the next five years.”
Maddalaine said: “I am absolutely delighted to be joining a very strong University Alliance team and to represent such an impressive and exciting group of universities. I look forward to working with them as they teach the professional and technical skills the economy needs, produce excellent research and help over a fifth of the UK’s students achieve their aspirations.”
Maddalaine is a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge where she studied Classics. She then studied and qualified as a solicitor practising with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and later the US law firm Sullivan and Cromwell LLP. After six years, she joined the civil service on the fast stream.
She has held a number of appointments including with the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit, Home Office and BIS. She worked on the HE White Paper for the then Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, and was appointed to her present position as Deputy Director, International Knowledge and Innovation in 2011.
Maddalaine’s appointment follows the departure of Libby Hackett at the end of August 2014 to take up a new opportunity with Perrett Laver, joining their Global Higher Education team.
