East Midlands

Jo Mead is the chair of Trustees at two charities in the East Midlands, and the East Midlands Ambassador for the Academy for Social Justice - a membership organisation which exists to promote good practice and joined-up working across social sectors. Jo has been a Board member as a CEO in the public sector and as a Non Executive Director of large Limited Company, with a US parent company.

She is interested in the use of frameworks to empower organisations of whatever size to improve delivery for their beneficiaries, to a good quality and with a positive culture and enjoys working with diverse teams. She is a qualified probation officer.

Dr Pierce is CEO of Global Governance Services Ltd. He has published many articles and books on corporate governance. He was formerly Director of Professional Standards and Professional Development at the Institute of Directors (IoD) in the UK. His academic qualifications include an MBA, an MSc, an MPhil and a PhD, and he was awarded the 2014 Marcos E J Bertin Quality in Governance Medal in Sweden in recognition of his personal contribution to the promotion of good governance practice around the world.

He is a Visiting Professor of International Corporate Governance at the University of Lincoln, a Fellow of the Caux Round Table and a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute (formerly the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators). Former academic roles include; Honorary Visiting Professor at Cass Business School, City University London; Research Fellow of Cranfield Business School; and Executive Fellow of Henley Management College.

Jeffrey Ridley has been a visiting professor of auditing and corporate governance since 1991, working at times at three universities in the United Kingdom. – teaching and researching auditing, sustainability assurance and governance. Before that he worked in two major US global manufacturing and distribution companies for thirty years as an internal auditor, following ten years working as a government auditor in Nigeria, West Africa

He has been a member of the Institute since 1967 and was the first President of The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors-UK in 1975. He has written many papers on auditing and governance and authored three books, the third on creativity and innovation in auditing published in 2018. He has presented papers at many conferences and participated in seminars on governance in a variety of organisations. His current interest and research is in the role of audit committees across all sectors. He is currently a board member of a rural housing association in Lincolnshire.