Co-Opted Committee Members

Co-opted Board Committee members bring specialist knowledge and experience from elsewhere to the work of their Committee, and are also expected to develop a working understanding of the University and its operating context. They work alongside the Chair of the Committee and are full voting members of the Committee with the same decision-making rights and responsibilities as other committee members, but are not members of the Board of Governors and do not have the same individual and collective corporate and charitable obligations as required of the Board of Governors as the body unambiguously and collectively responsible for institutional activities.

Alasdair Corfield

Audit Committee - Co-Opted Committee Member

Alasdair is a Fellow Chartered Accountant and a Finance and Economics graduate of Newcastle University.  In 2012 he was appointed as an independent Governor of Northumbria University and Chair of the Audit Committee, a role he held until February 2021 when his final term of office came to an end.  He was then appointed as a co-opted member of the Audit Committee, to help provide continuity.

Alasdair has significant and valuable experience from working in a range of senior roles, including as Finance Director, across both the private and public sectors. Before joining Northumbria as an Independent Governor, he worked on initiatives such as financial services start-ups, government policy development and establishing new government bodies. 

Helen Colclough

Employment + Finance Committee- Co-Opted Committee Member

Bio coming soon

Graeme Hudson

Remuneration Committee - Co-Opted Committee Member

Graeme joined the Remuneration Committee in January 2018.  

Outside of Northumbria University, Graeme is a Director at Baillie Gifford, a global investment management firm.  He oversees the Remuneration, HR Technology, Global Mobility, Employee Experience, and Employment Law and Policy teams.  Graeme was previously Chief of Staff of Salesforce in the UK & Ireland.  He has worked in a range of commercial and HR roles within Financial Services firms.  His HR background includes time within Deloitte's global executive remuneration practice in London.  Until recently he was Chair of JET, a local charity focused on the relief of unemployment specifically for ethnic minority groups in the North East of England.  Graeme graduated MA (Hons) in Management from St Andrews University.  

John Hudson

Audit Committee - Co-Opted Committee Member

Bio coming soon

Adam Parker

Strategic Performance Committee - Co-Opted Committee Member

Adam is the Chief Data Officer at Sage Group plc, the North-East headquartered FTSE100 accounting, HR and payroll software company. In his current role, Adam is accountable for ensuring the success of Sage’s data strategy, including championing a data-led culture. Adam has held leadership positions within Sage for over five years, and before he took on his current role, he held positions in a variety of functions within the business including finance, product, performance and pricing.

His first role after university was with PwC, working in audit and corporate finance for over six years, and later in his career subsequently spent another three years working in consulting, with particular focus on public sector procurement. The remainder of his career has been spent founding and running businesses of his own in IT services, digital public relations and social media analytics, all of which he successfully exited.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Warwick.

Outside work Adam enjoys keeping fit, watching sports, including being a Newcastle United season ticket holder of thirty years, and playing the drums. 

David Pearson

Employment + Finance Committee - Co-Opted Committee Member

David is a Chartered Surveyor and a Chartered Construction Manager.

In 1985, David helped establish Chartered Quantity Surveyors and Cost Consultancy, Elliott Associates, followed by Project Management Consultancy, Elliott Projects Limited.

In 2000, David took up the role of Managing Partner (Elliott Associates) and Managing Director (Elliott Projects), a role he held until 2021 when he stepped down into a consultancy role.

Throughout his tenure, David worked on some of the most notable developments and construction projects in the North East, most recently the delivery of Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle’s tallest building. Elliott’s core business has been working across the affordable housing sector both regionally and nationally and David has overseen in excess of 10,000 affordable homes developed in his time at Elliotts.

Throughout his career, David has worked closely with Northumbria University and its department of the built environment, regularly providing students with their year in industry, and on completion of their degree, offering them full time employment.

In recent years David has become an advocate for degree apprenticeships, with Elliotts currently employing 3 ‘Chartered Surveying’ apprentices, with a fourth starting in September 2023. Notably all professional staff employed by Elliotts are the product of Northumbria University.

David is a Director of Constructing Excellence North East and a Trustee of WISE Academies Trust

David is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS), the Chartered Institute of Building (FCIOB), and the Royal Society of Arts Manufacture and Commerce (FRSA)