Meet the NSAR Team

Minister of State, John Hayes announced the Transport for London chief Mike Brown as new Chairman of NSAR on 1st December 2016 at NSAR's AGM and Skills Symposium.

Mike was appointed Commissioner in September 2015 overseeing the largest integrated Transport Authority in the world.

He joined London Underground (LU) in 1989 and became chief operating officer in 2003.

He left London Underground to run Heathrow Airport during a massive transformation and passenger improvement programme.

Mike returned to London Underground as managing director and was responsible for operating services with more than one billion journeys every year and for leading the largest line upgrade and investment programme the Underground has ever seen. He improved the reliability of the Tube network across all lines and led the successful delivery of the services to support the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. He was also responsible for the operation of Docklands Light Railway, the Trams and London Overground as well as the Emirates Airline Cable Car.

Now, as London's Transport Commissioner, Mike is ultimately responsible for a multi-million-pound investment programme and the delivery of transport services across London, with some 13 million passenger journeys every day.

Stuart has been engaged in the rail engineering industry all of his working life and prior to joining MGB he held senior Directorships with large global engineering businesses including Bombardier Transportation and Jacobs Engineering. Stuart holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil and Structural Engineering and a Master’s degree in Project Management.

Darren Caplan is the Chief Executive of the Railway Industry Association & joined the NSAR Board of Directors in May 2017. Prior to joining RIA in January 2017, Darren Caplan was for six years Chief Executive of the Airport Operators Association (AOA), the trade association for UK airports and sectoral suppliers. At the AOA, Caplan campaigned for airport sector growth and fairer levels of aviation tax, and in July 2016 won the Trade Association Forum Award for Association Leadership. Before joining the AOA, Darren worked for 14 years in communications, politics and public affairs in a number of sectors, including infrastructure and planning.

A Senior Engineering Manager with over 30 years’ experience in delivering new and novel technologies into Londons’ Underground. Combines a record of delivery in challenging circumstances with the desire to develop technical capability and further the profession of Signalling and Railway System Engineering. Delivery focussed, he enjoys analysing problems and situations whilst also sharing his knowledge and experience using his ability to convey complex issues in simple terms. A leader of high-performing teams, acknowledged both internals and in the supply chain, his personal knowledge and skills has led to roles providing technical advice to Managing Director and Board levels as well as in cities worldwide.

Kirsty is the HR Director at East Midlands Trains and joined the NSAR Board of Directors in September 2017. Kirsty also chairs the Driver Academy and HR Directors forum for the Rail Delivery Group, and is the chair of the Train Driver Trailblazer group which successfully introduced a level 3 apprenticeship for train drivers in 2018.  Kirsty brings a wealth of HR and change management experience to the Board of NSAR.

A graduate of Bristol University, Kirsty is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, a member of the Institution of Railway Operators and supports the Derby chapter of Women In Rail.

Mark Hicks joined Angel Trains in 2001 as Head of New Build Projects for UK and international division. In 2009 he became Technical Services Director and was appointed to the Board in March 2011. Mark has held significant posts in the railway industry, which have provided him with a wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise in key areas of the industry.

Mary is chief executive officer at Porterbrook Leasing with over 20 years’ experience working in the UK and international transport sector. Porterbrook has a long and established relationship with the UK rail industry and to date the business has invested £2.7bn in new trains and over £300m on existing fleet refurbishment.  The company’s vision is to continue to invest in new trains, associated equipment and technical innovation, working closely with customers, suppliers and government.

A strategic, results orientated business leader, Mary has successfully managed and changed large, complex assets in regulated and unionised markets.

Her previous roles include managing director, ScotRail, divisional managing director, FirstGroup’s rail and bus division, managing director business development, National Express and latterly programme director, Eurostar overseeing the successful introduction of the £1bn high speed Velaro fleet.

In addition to Mary’s extensive operational knowledge of railways, she is particularly well known for driving positive culture change and performance improvement within organisations.

Martin Giles is the Managing Director of Ricardo Rail. He holds an MSc (Eng.) Degree in Rail Systems Engineering. Martin’s career in the rail industry spans more than 35 years, starting with an apprenticeship at British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL). He joined Ricardo Rail (Lloyd’s Register Rail Limited in the past) in 1998 and subsequently held the posts of Head of Rolling Stock and Operations Director before being appointed Managing Director in 2006. He is currently responsible for the management and strategic development of the business in the UK, Ireland, the Middle East and Scandinavia. He is also part of the Global Transportation Management Team which oversees Ricardo Rails’s global Transportation business.

Andy joined NSAR Board in December 2016 and is Business Director Consulting & Rail at Amey.

Andy worked within the construction sector for over 30 years, starting as an apprentice in 1984. During his time in the construction industry Andy  held a number of senior management roles across a variety of large, safety critical, framework contracts and projects in the Rail, Telecoms and Utilities sectors, responsible for managing and delivering complex multi-functional projects and maintenance activities.

Outside of work Andy is a keen runner and lifelong supporter of his local football team Crewe Alexandra.

Rob undertook a mechanical engineering apprenticeship after leaving school, starting his rail career by becoming a Railtrack graduate in 1996 and has 20 years’ experience of delivering enhancement projects across the UK rail network.As Vice President Delivery at Invensys Rail Northern Europe (now Siemens Rail Automation), Rob was involved with both mainline UK and London Underground projects as well as international projects in Europe and Asia. Rob joined Network Rail as Project Director Traffic Management and ETCS in 2012, and became the Regional Director for IP SNE in 2014, with responsibility for delivering c£3.5bn of renewals and enhancements activity following a move from Crossrail, where he had been Programme Director since 2013.

Neil joined the National Skills Academy for Rail in July 2015. He spent the previous three years as CEO of the Energy & Utility Skills Group, where he led and secured a £55m collaboration bid in energy and utilities aimed at diversifying the workforce and filling vacancies. Prior to this he was Director of Training at Babcock International, after having had a senior career in frontline government departments including DfES and DIUS (now BIS) where he had responsibility for basic skills, employability, qualifications, adult learning, ESOL and migration. Neil has also worked in the Government Office North East and with City & Guilds and at the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

Neil joined the National Skills Academy for Rail in July 2015. He spent the previous three years as CEO of the Energy & Utility Skills Group, where he led and secured a £55m collaboration bid in energy and utilities aimed at diversifying the workforce and filling vacancies. Prior to this he was Director of Training at Babcock International, after having had a senior career in frontline government departments including DfES and DIUS (now BIS) where he had responsibility for basic skills, employability, qualifications, adult learning, ESOL and migration. Neil has also worked in the Government Office North East and with City & Guilds and at the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

Kim joined NSAR in September 2014 as Chief Operating Officer and Head of Training and Skills. Kim is a highly accomplished senior business leader with a distinguished twenty-five year career in the direction and control of major UK corporates, including ISS Facilities Services and more recently the CCS Group where she was responsible for, amongst other things, their rail training company. During 2014 she was responsible for ensuring the delivery of 9000 successful training events. Kim is an expert in integrated services, security and facilities management, she also provides strategic vision and insight to drive change and exceed financial targets under the most challenging conditions.

 She underwent management training at both Ashridge Management College in Hertfordshire and Harvard University in Rome. She has worked in the rail industry for more than 20 years and has worked with Virgin Trains, East Coast Mainline, Silverlink, Eurostar, TFL, West Coast Mainline to name a few. Her broad-based commercial expertise and talent for business transformation consistently empower outstanding corporate growth.

Neil Franklin heads up the Skills Intelligence Unit for the National Skills Academy for Rail. He is responsible for forecasting the future skills, numbers and workforce requirements of the sector and runs NSAR-Connect – an online Apprenticeship Clearing House system that enables Apprentices to find Employers and vice versa. Neil is also a Board Director of the National Training Academy for Rail, a joint venture training academy between NSAR and Siemens.

Shamit joined NSAR in 2016. She is an experienced strategist with strong leadership skills specialising in cross sector, national and company strategies. Incisive, analytical and logical, Shamit is able to break new ground to develop a strategic vision for RSSB, NSAR and DfT and rail sector.

Mark has over 30 years operational and business development experience within the Facilities Management industry working in the UK, Middle East and Asia encompassing large scale complex contracts. My role at NSAR is to manage and promote membership services, and to develop commercial opportunities.

Thanuja has over 15 years’ experience as a learning and development specialist, managing high-quality training interventions and demonstrating ROI for clients. She has led diverse teams of instructional designers and managed projects for high-value multinational clients as well as prestigious academic institutions. Her work in the Further Education sector includes project managing qualifications, in-house leadership and management training programmes as well as working as an operations manager, driving change and quality improvement through effective implementation of organisational strategy. At NSAR, Thanuja is project managing the delivery of the Rail Sector Skills Delivery Plan and is supporting bespoke apprenticeship services.

Derek Walker, a former Trainer, Training Manager and Managing Director of Training companies throughout the UK who joined NSAR on the 1^st January 2011 initially to programme in the training and manage the Inspection programme delivered by Tribal. Now responsible for updating all the company procedures and involved with BS1100 accreditation and the Assurance of all the Training & Assessment providers from initial application through to their Assurance visits and final reports.

Tracey’s railway career started in 1988 when she joined the British Rail Payroll Department at the Civil Engineers HQ, Beckenham Junction.  Tracey completed various roles within British Rail and subsequently Balfour Beatty. Some of the roles were PWME Area Relief Clerk [South East] and Southern Renewals Clerk where she enjoyed track walks with the Senior Engineers around the area.  After being part of a successful training team for fourteen years, Tracey moved to NSAR[E] in May 2013 and joined the Quality Assurance Team.

Angi is a confident, experienced, intuitive and committed high performing project and team manager with instinctive leadership capabilities who holds APM and entry CIPD qualifications predominantly in the backdrop of a 14 year career in rail specialising in change, competence, training and assessment. A natural people manager, team player, trained coach and facilitator with a compelling customer driven, results orientated and delivery driven.

in January 2017 Barry began working with NSAR as a Strategic Adviser on technical education and assessment but became as full-time member of staff in June 2018. He has been working in Vocational Education and Training, and skills for 25 years working in schools, non-departmental public bodies, government agencies and the private sector.

Barry has created the apprenticeship assessment framework and an Apprenticeship Code of Practice for Malta, published eight textbooks, and co-written a book on qualifications and assessment.

Jan is a dedicated manager with a proven record in all aspects of rail training management and compliance. Capable of the initial achievement and maintenance of audit requirements for RISQS & ISO and fully conversant in all requirements of NSAR and RTAS. Previously, she worked for TES Training Ltd. as Training Manager ensuring that the company delivered a professional, high quality training and assessment service to its customers.

As the Quality Manager for NSAR Alan brings with him over 30 years’ experience in education. Alan began teaching when he was employed as an RSPCA Inspector and soon realised that the best way to build a worthwhile future was through education.

Given the opportunity to teach at a local college he took up this challenge and was very successful in building up a team approach making an excellent learning environment. He was promoted to Department Manager and then to Head of Faculty and finally Deputy Principal for Further Education and was an executive member of the Senior Management Team. As Quality Nominee he led the college through a very successful Ofsted Inspection.

Nigel has been an Associate Dean and Deputy Chief Executive in the University and Further Education sectors. He worked on the Crossrail project and now works for NSAR on skills strategy, skills forecasting, workforce and apprenticeship planning, industry promotion, standards and qualifications and quality assurance.

Sharman joined NSAR in October 2017  bringing with her over 20 years’ in project management (primarily within Finance, Education and Charity sectors). She previously worked for Barclays Bank as Business Change Lead, Business Consultant & Project Manager at Save the Children, and Business Consultant at Bedfordshire University.

Sharman is currently working on a digital project called "Skills Live". The project aims to engage with young people encouraging routes to careers within the rail industry.

Marie’s main focus is supporting rail employers in the development of apprenticeship standards for Railway Engineering and Railway Operations.

She is responsible for developing qualifications for the industry by working with awarding organisations as well as keeping up to date with Department for Education policies regarding apprenticeships. She previously worked in the energy sector where she was responsible for the management and quality assurance of the Skills Funding Agency apprenticeship contract

Steven has been working with NSAR as an IT Manager since 2013 developing and promoting IT solutions for the rail industry namely SkillsBackBone and SkillsID. Prior to NSAR Steven has worked within Business Intelligence and applications support both in the UK and overseas.

Laura joined NSAR in January 2017 as HR Support. Laura is a commercially focused CIPD qualified HR Manager with significant and relevant experience in a wide range of business sectors including over 8 years in rail.  Laura has considerable HR experience covering organisational change, talent management and attraction, absence management, learning and development, performance management, employee relations and independent peer reviewing.

Michelle joined NSAR in January 2017 as part of the Skills Intelligence Team. Coming from a background in Education, she is planning to use the skills learned from the data analysis aspect of her previous role. Having been a lead in the Eastern Region for Assessment and Data Analysis, these skills will be put to good use to support the work of the Intelligence Unit for forecasting future workforce skill requirements. Prior to this regional role, Michelle has been a Vice Principal responsible for data and standards in education in a number of schools.

Geoff joined NSAR back in January 2016 having graduated from UCL in 2012 with a Human Genetics degree. Geoff joined as an administration assistant before moving to the Skills Intelligence Unit as a Skills Analyst in June 2016. He is excited and proud to be developing NSAR-CONNECT, rail’s unique employee re-deployment service and assisting in skills forecasting for the industry.

Cordelia is a qualified accountant, who has close to 20 years’ experience within Accounting and Finance. Before joining NSAR, she had worked both in the private and public sector. As NSAR’s Financial Controller, she is responsible for the finance and accounting aspects of the organisation. Cordelia’s experience includes strategic & financial planning, forecast analysis, management and financial accounting.