West Lothian College Welcomes New Board Members
In the last year, Scottish Government Ministers have approved the appointment of six new non-executive members of West Lothian College’s Board of Governors.
Most recently, in February 2023, government ministers approved the appointment of Rehela Hussain and Michael Greenhalgh. Rehela’s expertise is in the med-tech and electronics industry, specifically in quality assurance. She is involved in a number of engineering mentoring schemes for young people. Michael is the Director of Strategy and Planning at Edinburgh Napier University and is a highly skilled and experienced business leader with broad experience of the higher education and retail sectors.
In December 2022, Tony Sharkey, Aruna Lopez and Gavin Hamilton were appointed as college board members.
Tony has financial, HR, IT and change management expertise in the public and private sectors. Aruna is a highly skilled procurement and contracts management consultant at PWC and has worked in the petrochemical, environmental and renewables sectors. Gavin is the managing director who leads Taylor Wimpey’s operations in the East of Scotland. He has senior leadership experience in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
These appointments followed the approval in March 2022 of Abel Aboh who works for the Bank of England and chairs the West Lothian Community Race Forum.
Chair of West Lothian College’s Board of Governors, Alex Linkston welcomed these new appointments.
He said: “I am delighted to welcome Tony, Aruna, Gavin, Rehela, Michael and Abel as board members of West Lothian College. They join a high-performing board who steer a very successful college. I am especially pleased at how diverse and inclusive our board of governors is, with an equal number of female and male members and strong representation across the community.”
The most recent board vacancies arose from four long-standing members reaching the end of their eight-year tenure on the college board. Sue Cook, Iain McIntosh, Frank Gribben and Colin Miller. Sue was the vice-chair of the board and chaired a number of committees over the years.
Alex Linkston, added: “I am very grateful to Sue, Iain, Frank and Colin for their commitment to the college over many years. They have helped to ensure that students, staff and stakeholders have an excellent experience of West Lothian College. I have no doubt that our new board members will do the same.”
The college marked the departure of the outgoing and new board members at a meal prepared by professional cookery students in the award-winning Terrace Restaurant.
