Phil Huggon

Chair of the Board

Phil has a lifelong passion for language and cultures. He studied French and Latin at Oriel College, Oxford. He has lived in Paris, Lisbon and Brussels – qualifying as a professional bilingual tour guide in Paris. Phil travelled extensively in his executive career with BP, MARS and Shell. He has over 20 years’ experience in marketing, customer service and transformation, and led Shell UK’s biggest ever change programme. He now has a portfolio of non-executive and trustee roles, including chairing a Further Education consultancy and an NHS consultancy, and he is Vice-Chair of Healthwatch England. Phil lives in Manchester with his wife and 3 children (all 5 of them are linguists, of course!). 

Roy Cross

Vice-Chair of the Board

Roy is currently a Senior Adviser, Evaluation and Partnerships, English and Exams Strategic Business Unit with the British Council. 

He has more than forty years of varied experience in the ELT sector, much of it to do with English Language Teaching, high profile public facing directorial roles. Roy has led partnerships, UK sector relations for the English for Education Systems team and has also been on secondment to the Education team at UK Trade and Investment and led their ELT export work. His previous engagements with IATEFL and British Council roles have enabled Roy to have a wide network of ELT and government contacts around the world.

Gareth Hughes

Chair of Finance & General Purposes and Audit & Risk Committee

Gareth is a seasoned NED with experience in governance and Human resources and has held Chair and Trustee positions in a number of charitable institutions. Gareth’s qualifications include a Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development, MA (Hons), University of Oxford in Modern Languages, and MA, University of Westminster in Film & TV Studies

His previous experience with Royal Bank of Canada included Managing Director, Global Head of Regulatory Compensation (2015 – 2018) and Managing Director, Head of Human Resources, Europe (2004 – 2015) Gareth’s current engagements are with the Theatre Centre where he has been Co-Chair since October 2018 and the International Refugee Trust where is also Co-Chair. 

Ricard Alonso

Ricard has over 20 years of experience across business operations in Sales, Customer Service and IT with Fortune 500 companies like General Electric and Ingersoll Rand. He specialised in improving the customer experience and increasing profitability and in his last assignment served as Vice President of Sales & Customer Service for the security sector of Ingersoll Rand leading teams in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India. Ricard is Spanish, lives in Belgium and speak English, Spanish, Catalan, French and Italian.

Tita Beaven

Chair: Human Resources Committee

BA, MA, Dip Trans, EdD

Born and brought up in Spain, Tita has worked in language teaching since 1991, first teaching EFL in Italy, and most recently as a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at the Open University, where she worked for over 25 years and was Associate Head and then Head of the Department of Languages. She has an MA in History of Art, a Diploma in Translation, and a Doctorate in educational technology. She has published on topics related to language learning and technology, intercultural communication and open educational resources and practices. She is a trustee of Charity Translators, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.  

Monica Green

BSc, RSA Dip TEFLA
Monica started working in the TEFL industry when she took her CTEFLA course at International House Lisbon in 1985. She has been involved with International House ever since. She started renovating an as yet unfinished ruin in the Portuguese countryside in 1989 and opened an IH school in nearby Torres Vedras with her partner a year later. She is still managing director of the school as well as the new IH Teacher Training Centre in Lisbon. After many years on various IH committees and Boards, she was appointed Executive Director of the International House World Organisation – a part-time role – in 2008.

Tomasz Mazgaj

Tomasz is a project lead who specialises in running global strategic projects in the educational sector. Currently working in LEGO Education, he focuses on developing ‘go to market’ strategies, teacher training programmes and STEAM learning projects across Europe, China, MEA and Asia Pacific.  Prior to working in education, Tomasz worked in global strategy roles with Bentley Motors and the VW Group. Born in Poland, and educated in the UK, he is an Economics graduate, and certified Project Manager

Maxwell Nye

Chair: Social Values Committee

Max’s professional background is in media and communications, having spent 8 years working in some of the largest media agencies in the UK. As a Global Investment Director he oversees USD $0.5 bn in advertising investment across 80 countries for some of the world’s best-known brands. He also brings strong experience in implementing culture change in the workplace, having launched programmes for mental health and eco-sustainability at work. Max is passionate about language learning; he studied English and Modern Languages at Oxford, taught English abroad with the British Council, and has volunteered with charities mentoring disadvantaged students in their application for language study at university.

Julie Wallis

Julie is currently a Director at The London School and holds this position since 1990. Julie has significant experience in the ELT sector and has numerous qualifications including a MA in Professional Development for Language Education. In addition to the role at the London School, Julie also holds roles at EAQUALS as a trustee, AISLI Associazione Italiana di Scuole di Lingue, as a committee member, Didactic Inspector Academic and Events Coordinator and a DELTA trainer at NILE and BELL. 

Samantha Grainger

Samantha creates, scales, and optimizes EdTech businesses. Currently working for Oxford University Press, she leads on identifying and developing innovative new digital businesses and commercial partnerships within ELT. Prior to working for OUP, Sam held the position of Global Director, Online Learning for the British Council. She has over 20 years’ experience in English language education, with various roles in her career from teacher to centre manager to regional director.  She has lived and worked on every continent in the world, and currently resides in Lisbon with her husband, two children and dog!

Dr Isabel DiVanna

Isabel is a Director-level strategist and business development professional. She is currently the Director of Business Development and Partnerships at Engineering UK, having previously held the post of Commercial Director at RenewableUK, at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and at the Bar Council. Her specialism is strategic growth, with a focus on sustainability as underpinning all forms of growth, and ESG compliance, leadership and reporting. Isabel has worked in the professional services (consulting, research and advisory) and not-for-profit sectors (education, charities, Royal Charter and local authority) seeking to grow their revenues through partnerships, commercial activities and fundraising. Isabel is experienced in change-management projects to improve revenues while controlling costs. She has worked internationally and trans-nationally, her remit extending into external affairs,  marketing and communications. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, of the Chartered Management Institute and of the Institute for Leadership and Management. Isabel has two PhDs in history and moral & political philosophy, various professional certificates from learned institutes. Outside of work, she is a Trustee of IHL and the Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association (CABA), having sat on various charity Boards and held NED posts for over 10 years.

Shantanu Bhagwat 

Shantanu is presently a Senior Advisor (VC Funds & Fintech) to the growth capital team at Department for International Trade in UK and a Venture Partner at Ufi Ventures. He has 20+ years of experience in venture capital & impact investing, across sectors & geographies and was previously a Venture Partner at Impact Ventures UK and at Nesta Impact Investments. Prior to that Shantanu spent several years as Principal Director at Accion’s Frontier Investments Group and as Partner(Asia) at Amadeus Capital Partners where he started his career in early-stage tech investing in 2001. Shantanu has also worked at Monitor Co. in London and before that, spent several years as a fast-track career diplomat in New Delhi and Tokyo. Shantanu is a native speaker of Marathi, has native proficiency in Hindi and has, at various times in his life, learnt Sanskrit, French, Japanese & English.

Vincenzo (Enzo) Raimo

Vincenzo (Enzo) Raimo is an independent higher education consultant and Visiting Fellow at the University of Reading where he previously served as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement) from 2014 to 2019.   He co-developed the now widely used Global Engagement Index, a free bench-marking tool available to UK universities, and he has written and spoken widely on transnational education, international student mobility, global engagement strategies and role of education agents. His co-edited book ‘Student Recruitment Agents in International Higher Education: A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective on Challenges and Best Practices’ is due for publication by Routledge in 2023.