Chris West

Qualifications: BSc. (Hons) Mathematics, Member of the British Computer Society, Chartered Engineer, Chartered IT Professional.

Chris West has worked in education and business in the UK. He started his IT career in project planning and control in civil engineering. He was Head of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics at a college, which later became the University of Gloucestershire. His research interest was mathematical modelling. As Vice-Principal at Swindon College, he led planning and resourcing. Chris was an Associate Lecturer for the Open University. He worked in a government policy unit to develop college management information systems nationally. As Chief Executive of ECCTIS, he privatised the UK government’s information service on higher education courses and credit transfer, using an outsourcing model. As Head of the UK NARIC, he created this international qualifications equivalence information service. For Anglia Television he developed and led an e-learning business for schools and subsequently a professional development business for Granada Media.

Chris now works as a consultant. He tutors under-graduates in Operations Management and Research Projects for the University of Essex Online. His recent activities for the Association of Colleges included researching the potential for colleges of cloud computing, CRM applications, IT outsourcing, delivering professional development programmes and as a national leader of governance. For the Education and Training Foundation, he managed the annual national further education workforce data collection and analysis and contributed to workforce development for the introduction of T Levels. He is an end point assessor for higher level apprenticeships in Data Analysis and Project Management. He a past Vice Chairman of the Royal National College for the Blind