Mark retired from his role as Chief Estates and Facilities Officer at Sheffield Hallam University in 2020.
Amanda Castray is Ulster University’s Director of Campus Life leading Sports Services, Student Accommodation, Catering, Conferencing and Events across four campuses.
With over 25 years’ experience as a leader in retail with a number of high profile brands such as IKEA, Dunelm and Iceland, I now focus on leading the customer experience in higher education as the Customer Experience Manager for the Facilities department at Edge Hill University.
He has 35 years experience in commercial, residential, estates and facilities management services, as well as academic timetabling and health and safety services . Mark is a previous chair of CUBO, BACHE and Venuemasters and has held a number of other roles on their executives. He was the 2018 recipient of the College and University Business Officers Lifetime Achievement Award.
With a vision of creating Thriving Campus Communities, Amanda leads a team of 110 staff, developing and implementing strategies, policies, programs and partnerships to support the non-academic aspects of university life for students, as well as continually improving standards of campus services for staff, members and the community. Under her leadership, the University’s student experience has rated No. 1 in Northern Ireland and services have won multiple UK higher-education awards. In the last academic year, Amanda led the successful transition and welcome of 15,000 students into the new £360M, 75,000m2 Ulster University campus in Belfast city.
Amanda’s career has spanned the public and private sectors, developing policy, delivering projects and services, and leading people across the energy, services and higher-education sectors in Australia and the UK. She led a successful $100m+ public-private student accommodation deal and a $400m bid for new University STEM facilities in Tasmania.
Amanda holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Executive Leadership, a Bachelor of Commerce Degree with First Class Honours from the University of Tasmania, has completed Harvard Business School, Melbourne Business School leadership, Tasmanian Leaders and Institute of Director programs.
Amanda moved to Belfast from Tasmania with her two children in 2018. In 2020, she was named one of the top 50 ‘women of influence’ in Irish sport and she was a finalist in the 2017 Australian Business Women’s Awards (Tasmania) in recognition of her leadership abilities. She is a passionate advocate for wellbeing and regularly competes in running events to raise money for mental health, completing the 2020 Belfast Marathon and 2021 and 2022 Belfast Half-Marathon as well as Team events each year.
With so many tools now available to support the improvement of the customer experience from customer journeys to AI, it’s great to bring the focus to higher education.
Jon is also a Director at Oldham Athletic Community Trust, and volunteer as part of the media team at his local football club (Radcliffe FC) as stadium announcer and host the weekly podcast for the club.
Trudy Williams has spent a substantial part of her career in the Further and Higher Education Sector as a senior leader within Professional Services, with her most recent role being Assistant Director of Campus Services at Staffordshire University.
Paul has 23 years’ experience in Student Accommodation working in pastoral as well as managerial roles and is committed to improving customer service in residences.
Leading Residential Services which encompasses student recruitment and marketing, halls operations including building maintenance and compliance, student experience in halls including student comms and engagement and pastoral service inclusive of an overnight duty service.
At CUBO, Trudy has responsibility for administering the UUK/Guild HE National Accommodation Code of Practice and providing support to the CUBO executive and our members.
Paul has worked with the UUK ACoP since its inception and with colleagues from the University of Manchester established the Practitioners’ Conference to develop good and best practice. He continues to take great pride in seeing it go from strength to strength. Amongst his many passions he cites; Alphabetised lists, Italy, Japan, Lou Reed, Manchester City FC, The Velvet Underground and Ultra-marathons.
I am relatively new to the University and HE sector having spent around 25 years in social housing in housing management however this has provided me with excellent insight and experience including responding to complex needs. My vision and passion centres around enabling students to make the most of their University experience to develop their skills, knowledge and experience that will help them on their life and career journey. Building a strong student community is at the heart of Residential Services and with around 4000 students’ resident in University accommodation this has enabled me to lead a collaborated approach to supporting students to help them develop greater self-awareness, self-care and resilience which is key when the majority of students in University accommodation are first time away from home and we are seeing increasing students with welfare and complex mental health.
Running alongside students, ensuring that our accommodation remains well maintained, attractive and compliant is fundamental to our halls operations and I have developed a significant annual planned works programme working in partnership with the Residential Maintenance Manager to ensure we are looking at the life of our accommodation not just now but into the future and how that fits strategically with the wider campus vision. Additionally, we have developed a local sustainability plan that will aim to increase re-cycling and reduce waste, reduce our energy consumption, put circular economy practices at the heart of operations and procurement and engage students and staff alongside more meaningful data that will help to inform areas of improvement.
Having only been with the University for around 5 years has been both exciting and challenging having led key operations during COVID-19 with around 3000 students still resident and more recently ensuring our buildings are standing up to the requirements of the Fire Safety Bill 2021 and we continue to work in collaboration to ensure our buildings remain fit for purpose and enable our resident students to be their best!
Jane joined the University as Head of Accommodation & Hospitality Services in 2002, having worked with the Commercial Sector for 12 years after Graduating. She became Director of AHS in 2013, before being appointed Director of Campus Services in 2022, leading Commercial Services, Student Accommodation & Facilities Services both on campus & in the city .
Jane has championed important initiatives across the University to drive a culture that recognises the importance of both Staff and Student Experience. She led her team to win multiple awards including the CUBO Awards for "Best Campus Experience of the Year" in 2022 and the University being awarded “University of the Year” by The Times and Sunday Times in 2012 & 2023 . Jane was awarded the British Empire Medal for her contribution to Higher Education.
