Prior to joining the Network, Rhona had a long career in the Civil Service where she worked as Personal Secretary to various Directors with responsibility for European Funding, Communities & Regeneration and Local Government Practice.  During her career she had the opportunity to be seconded to the then Birmingham Training & Enterprise Council, and the newly created Business Link Birmingham.

Rhona reached a point in her career where she felt she needed a new challenge, and to that end, decided to leave the Civil Service.

Rhona joined the Network in January 2007 as PA to Robin Landman.

Michelle Dainty joined the Network at the end of July 2007 to work in Accounts. She brings experience in finance and book keeping, office administration, customer relationship management, problem solving, and of course, her knowledge of various IT packages.

Michelle has a strong service orientation and customer focus, as, in previous roles she has dealt with internal and external customers at all levels. She has gained experience in a range of companies including private enterprises, and a daily newspaper. She has a track record of meeting and exceeding targets, and winning awards for her performance. In one of her workplaces Michelle was four-times winner of the local office award for Sales Executive of the month and twice-winner of the divisional office award across 5 regional offices - all in the same year!

She has acted up as a Finance Manager, and has worked in a security firm as an Office/Administration Manager, where she reported on finance to the Directors. She also carried out an operational and supervisory role for the company’s Security guards.

During her working life to date, Michelle has taken time out to travel the East Coast of America, which allowed her to mix with a variety of people from different backgrounds, thus furthering her ability to communicate with all types of people.

Barbara has an MBA and a Diploma in Training Management. She has over 20 years experience of working within Education and the Public Sector. Barbara owns and manages Imogene Training and Consultancy which is a successful Training Agency, based within the West Midlands. The company specialises in the following areas:

Barbara has developed and managed mentoring programmes for Deans and Senior Managers with two Universities within the West Midlands. The programme was funded by HEFCE; to improve Leadership within H.E. This work was innovative and involved partnership working with the private, public and voluntary sector.

More recently Barbara has completed an Impact Assessment for a F.E college, the brief being to assess equality and diversity policies and procedures: as regards the retention and achievement of BME Students. The findings are now being implemented across the board within the College.

Barbara has extensive experience in the field of equality, diversity and Positive Action Initiatives. She was awarded the Birmingham City Council’s’ Delivering Diversity Honorary Award, for her commitment to Positive Action and Equality, in the field of training and development.

Barbara is currently working with the BLI, as Programme Manager with responsibilities for Mentoring.

Grace started her career working for the Industrial Language Training Service where she taught Skills for Life. In 1989, Grace began her long association with Further Education when she took up a research post at Walsall College, working on a two year FEU funded project focusing on the development of community education and equality & diversity. Grace progressed to become a full time lecturer, applying her degree in Social Science to her teaching on a range of programmes such as GNVQ Advanced in Health and Social Care, and the Social Science degree programme run at the college.

Grace developed her career to hold various management positions within a College in the West Midlands and in 2001 decided to change her career path to become a specialist in human resource management. To this end, Grace studied to become a graduate of the CIPD followed by a Masters Degree in HR Management, and a management position as Director of HR.

Over the years, Grace has played a key role in providing training and consultancy to public, voluntary and private sector organisations on issues relating to HR and equality and diversity. She has been commended for her exemplar work in this field by Ofsted and the Learning & Skills Council, and was instrumental in increasing the proportion of black and minority ethnic staff at her college from 5% to 18.5% over a three year period. Grace has provided input into a number of publications including the three Good Practice Guides commissioned by the Commission for Black Staff in FE and the Network for Black Professionals and the recent LSC Race Equality in Employment Standards (REES). Grace now works as an independent HR and Equality & Diversity consultant.

Robin’s family came to the UK as political refugees from South Africa. A Politics graduate, Robin spent 10 years as a school teacher in London, including an exchange year in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1987 he moved to Brixton College. In 1990 he was appointed Head of Faculty at Southwark College. Following this, he worked in the FEFC, during which time he qualified as a part-time inspector. In 1997 he was appointed as Assistant Principal at Bilston Community College, then in 1999 he was recruited as FET Adviser to the British Council, from which position he was seconded to work as General Manager of the Colleges Collaboration Fund in South Africa until 2001. His most recent post in FE was as Deputy Principal at Hackney Community College. He is currently Chief Executive of the Network for Black Professionals and Director of LMS Associates Ltd consultancy.

Robin was a founder member of the Network for Black Professionals. He was a member of the Commission for Black Staff in Further Education, and Chair of the CRE Good Practice Forum in the South of England. He is a past member of the Association for College Management’s National Council, and is Past Chair of the National Coalition of Black-led Organisations (NCBLO) and has been an occasional columnist in the TES FE Focus & FE Now.

Rajinder is the Director of the Black Leadership Initiative, a Leadership and Management programme which provides mentoring, coaching support and secondment opportunities to aspiring Black staff in FE. The organisation addresses the under-representation of Black middle and senior managers in the sector and has won the British Diversity Award for Education. It is now part of the Network for Black Professionals (formerly the Network for Black Managers) which works with sector partners to achieve change in the equality and diversity profile of the sector.

Rajinder has twenty years experience in FE, adult, youth and community education. She was Director of Community Education at Bilston Community College then Principal Officer for Lifelong Learning at the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. She has other Local Government experience in policy development at Birmingham City Council and Wolverhampton Borough Council. She has worked also worked as a Race Equality Officer at NIACE developing strategies and policies aimed at community cohesion.

Rajinder holds a Bachelor of Education Degree and a Master of Social Science Degree from Birmingham University. She is passionately committed to the equalities agenda and her voluntary roles include being a founder member of the Network for Black Managers, as well as former Chair. She was Vice Chair of the Commission for Black Staff in FE, and other national committee roles included the Equality and Diversity Committee of the UfI, DfES Race Advisory Group, LSC Equality and Diversity Committee. She is an ACM council member and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She has also been involved in local and international woman’s groups including the Soroptomists.

Jannett started her teaching career in 1998 as a visiting teacher at Lewisham College and seminar tutor at London Metropolitan University. Upon being given a permanent contract at Lewisham in 1999, she taught a number of subjects including: advertising; business studies; key skills and additional learning support. Having gained a generic teaching qualification, she then became qualified to assess and support dyslexic learners in 2003 and decided to specialise in Skills for Life. When Lewisham College was awarded CoVE status for its basic skills provision in 2004, Jannett played a central role in the development and delivery of the FENTO Level 4 Subjects Specialists course for adult literacy teachers. She was determined to ensure that the course content gave due attention to the needs of BME learners and created a bank of teaching and learning materials to that effect. In 2005 Jannett became Workplace Skills for Life Manager, a role that was at the heart of the new learning and skills agenda. The remit for this role was to plan and deliver a curriculum that was fit for purpose and met the needs of both employers and employees. The work of her team was highly commended in the 2006 OFSTED inspection, for which Lewisham College was judged “outstanding”. Jannett has also worked with vocational employers to embed Skills for Life into their vocational programmes, as part of the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) funded initiative.

Jannett brings with her over twenty years’ experience in private and public sector organisations. As an educator her specialisms include Skills for Life, employer engagement and project management. Alongside her teaching and management responsibilities Jannett mentors a number of colleagues in the sector.

In addition to working as an employability consultant for Lambeth College, Jannett jointly owns and runs MorganKing, a dyslexia consultancy. In her “spare” time Jannett runs a supplementary school in south-east London. Jannett loves learning and is known for her ability to enthuse and inspire those around her.

David is currently seconded from the University of Wolverhampton to the Network. An historian by background and educated at the University of Salford and the University of Sheffield, David has worked in higher and further education, in Adult Guidance and in IT in the private sector.

David has taught on a range of programmes up to degree level including management, computing and IT, communications and trade union studies. He has occupied various management roles at the then Bilston Community College and at Solihull College, including Head of Department of various curriculum areas, IT and MIS Director, ILT Manager and Assistant Principal. David also has experience in the private sector as an ICT consultant for Research Machines plc and in career education for adults.

David has a passionate interest in the benefits of education for social justice. At the University of Wolverhampton, he works in the area of widening participation as part of the national Aimhigher campaign. David believes that despite the commitment of both further and higher education sectors to providing access to educational opportunities for Black and Minority Ethnic students, progress has been slower for staff working in the sectors, particularly at senior management level.

David is a season ticket holder at Wolves F.C. and is a keen follower of cricket, rugby union and most sports. He regularly completes half-marathons and enjoys badminton.

Graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 1992 with BSc (Honours) Mathematical Methods for Information Technology. Joined Leicester College (then Charles Keene College) in July 1995 as an Information & Admissions Assistant, and 6 months later began teaching a few evening classes for the Computing department. A year later appointed to a full-time lecturing post.

Following merger and management restructuring in July 2002, promoted to Programme Area Manager with responsibility for operational management of the department. Appointed Programme Area Manager for External Provision in Computing in August 2003, taking up a new role to lead on the development of external provision including employer engagement, adult & community learning, and managing educational partnerships with schools, universities and other training providers.

Completed a two-year BLI Secondment in June 2007 with the National Office of the Learning & Skills Council where as a Senior Policy Manager in the Skills Group, developed policy around the Skills for Employers theme of agenda for change (August 2005), and subsequent recommendations from the Foster Report (November 2005), the Leitch Review of Skills (Interim Report) and the FE Reform White Paper (March 2006). Led on the development of a national standard for vocational excellence and employer responsiveness, and integration work with a number of LSC programmes including CoVEs, National Skills Academies, Train to Gain, and New Measures of Success/Framework for Excellence.

Awaiting profile.