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Panel Chairs
​We’re delighted to announce that Deborah Green, Martyn Spence and Penny Eccles will be joining us as panel chairs this year - three award-winning entrants, judges and advocates of the awards. We are absolutely thrilled to have them on board for our thirtieth year.
Deborah Green
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Martyn Spence
Martyn is an award-winning global marketing and non-executive director, and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, with over twenty years leadership experience in educational institutions.

Through his long career, Martyn has led successful teams in the UK and abroad, with work including the development and launch of new university brands, institutional strategies and multi award-winning campaigns and publications. A respected marketing and communication strategic consultant, Martyn advises leaders, institutions and sector bodies.

As well as his role as professional director, Martyn led work for Universities Scotland with government agencies to deliver the innovative Scotland is Now international marketing campaign. Most recently he has been strategic communications consultant to Universities UK.
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A noted conference speaker and industry awards judge, Martyn is a strong advocate of continuous professional development. He is a founder member, and the former Chair, of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Higher and Further Education Group.
Penny Eccles
Judges
Andy Pritchard
Andy has been a regular on the Heist Awards judging panel over the past 8 years. After a career in print publishing he co-founded FindAUniversity in 2001. The company has led the way in postgraduate student recruitment ever since. Currently FindAMasters.com and FindAPhD.com are used by over 1000 universities from 60 countries, providing a comprehensive source of global study opportunities.
 
Now in its seventh year, FindAUniversity’s Events Division will run 16 study fairs around the UK in the next 12 months. Their bi-annual conference for postgraduate marketing & student recruitment professionals takes place in May and September each year.
 
Andy’s focus is on expanding the international reach of FindAUniversity and on establishing partnerships with other HE organisations and start-ups.  He is an investor and director at UniTasterDays Ltd.

Bruce Bernstein
Bruce Bernstein is executive director for global engagement at CASE. In his role, Bernstein leads CASE’s European initiatives enhancing membership benefits, developing programming and building strategy for the membership association’s global priorities.

Bernstein previously worked in CASE Europe from 2002 to 2008 as the director of business development. He has also been a fundraiser for the University of Chicago, the Aga Khan University in London and the Tate Museum. 

Before moving to the UK, Bernstein worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Director of Publishing Devices and, prior to that, Associate Director of Admissions responsible for student recruitment, communications and alumni volunteers.
Claire Brown ​
Claire Brown is Head of Marketing at the University of Manchester, the UK’s largest single site University. Claire began her marketing career in the FMCG sector but then moved into Higher Education, joining the University of Liverpool in 2000 where her career culminated in her appointment as Director of External Relations, Marketing and Communications. Claire is a Fellow of the CIM and a former trustee of CASE Europe.
Colin Cheng
Colin is currently the Head of Student Marketing and Events at Goldsmiths, University of London. Before joining, Colin worked as Head of Strategy at a digital agency in London but focused on HE marketing. He has worked with different HEIs to run successful digital marketing campaigns (several being shortlisted for awards). In 2017 he won a Google Partners award.

He has a keen interest in keeping up with developments in the prospective student journey and his team leads on student marketing campaigns, materials and events related to all areas of undergraduate and postgraduate student recruitment.
Dan Marrable
​​Daniel is a social and digital media consultant, speaker and trainer. He founded 448 Studio in 2018 which specialises in developing workshops for businesses, the public and education sectors, with the aim to teach people to connect with their audience through social media.
 
Daniel previously worked with the Vancouver & London Olympic organising committees as well as the Commonwealth Games. He has also worked in Higher Education crafting social and digital media for the University of Glasgow; which earned him a CIPR Gold award for best use of social media along with HEIST and PRiDE awards for most effective use of social media.
​Dee Reid
Dee Reid joined Leeds Beckett University as Director of External Relations in September 2017 where she leads internal and external communication, public affairs, alumni, events and partnerships, brand and creative and university marketing services. She has over 20 years’ experience in strategic communications, working in senior roles in local government, education, the NHS and the private sector. Before joining Leeds Beckett, she was Head of Communications and Marketing at Leeds City Council, leading communications for the UK’s third largest city and prior to that, Head of Communications for Education Leeds, providing support for the city’s 265 schools.
​Justin Cole
Justin Cole is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Bournemouth University, Chair of the University Marketing Forum and member of the CASE Europe Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the University, he spent over 10 years working in a range of central government departments, most notably as a Ministerial Advisor on higher education marketing and communications. Justin has undergraduate and master’s qualifications in marketing and communications and is an avid blogger on HE marcomms.
Michael Thompson
Michael Thompson is Universities UK’s Deputy Director of Communications and External Relations. He heads up the organisation’s media, digital and campaigning teams, and developed the MadeAtUni campaign to demonstrate how everyone benefits from universities – whether they went to university or not.
 
Michael has more twenty years’ experience in communications, campaigning, and public affairs roles. Before joining Universities UK, he managed several large multi-channel campaigns for The National Lottery, including its London 2012 Games campaign, which resulted in increased awareness of Lottery funding to athletes and an uplift in National Lottery sales.
 
Michael has also worked for The Law Society, the Metropolitan Police Service and the Portman Group, whose members are the UK’s largest alcohol producers, where he used social marketing to help change people’s attitudes to harmful drinking behaviours.
Rebecca Trengrove
As Director of Marketing and Communications Rebecca delivers strategic leadership for all University of Dundee marketing, including institutional and student recruitment marketing, brand management, corporate and digital communications, and web development, with the aim of enhancing reputation and attracting staff and students from around the world.

​The team was awarded HE Marketing Team of the Year at the 2019 HEIST awards. Rebecca has significant senior experience in marketing and communications, public affairs and international business development in both private equity-owned and public technology-based companies as well as in the public sector (local and central government departments and agencies).

Richard Bengree
Richard has worked in higher education marketing and student recruitment for over 15 years, holding a number of positions at the University of Chester.
 
After studying English at Lancaster University, Richard embarked on a career in media publishing. Working with a number of universities in this role led to an interest in higher education marketing. A Master’s degree in Marketing at Liverpool John Moores University sparked academic and professional interests in services marketing, relationship marketing, brand communications, content and digital marketing.
 
As Deputy Director and then Director, Richard has led the department through significant periods of change and has developed an award-winning and multi-faceted team that includes admissions, outreach, research, content, web, design, digital marketing, events and recruitment elements.
 
Richard has written on the subject of higher education marketing for a number of journals, blogs, magazines and websites and, as a three-time HEIST Award winner, is looking forward to judging this year’s entries. 

​​Richard Shepherd
Richard is an experienced strategic marketer with more than a decade and a half’s experience in Marketing and Communications roles. He has spent the last three years working in Higher Education at Staffordshire University, where he currently heads up the strategic student recruitment marketing team, looking at recruitment across the whole institution including Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Apprenticeship campaigns.

Richard specialises in customer engagement, including campaign management, CRM and Social Media marketing as well as having an extensive background in print media and design/content marketing roles.

Prior to joining Staffordshire University, Richard spent the bulk of his career in the Leisure industry, most recently working in digital engagement and brand roles at Alton Towers Resort. This background in experience marketing is an approach that he has carried over to the University sector as a way to increase engagement and sell the emotional experience of university.
Sander Kristel
Sander Kristel joined UCAS Media in February 2018. He has a diverse background in Banking, the Hospitality industry and in one of the largest Education providers in his native The Netherlands. Since living in the UK he has worked for the Internet provider Freeserve before moving into the public sector. Prior to coming to UCAS Media he was the Director of Adult Services at Worcestershire County Council where he led 1500 staff and managed a budget of £184m. He previously worked for the council as their Director of Commercial and Change leading on large contracts, transformation, marketing and other services. Sanders roles have included digital, technology, transformation and commercial and always have people and leadership at the heart of everything he does.

​​Vicky Hayhurst
Vicky Hayhurst is the Commercial Director at the sector’s leading rich media agency, Revolution Viewing. As a Board Director, Vicky is the strategic lead for the development and marketing of RV’s products and services for Higher Education. She manages RV’s primary research programme with prospective students which enables universities to maximise the impact of rich media content. Before joining RV in 2015, Vicky worked first in banking and then in university external relations in senior positions for 10 years - her previous role was Associate Marketing Director at Leeds Beckett University. Vicky LOVES Heist and Revolution Viewing are honoured to be part of the awards.
Victoria Pearson
Vicky is the Head of Corporate Communications at the University of Reading. She has more than a decade’s experience in communications and PR spanning strategic communications planning, internal communications, staff engagement, crisis handling and stakeholder relations across education, central and local government. Her previous roles have included Senior Communications Planning Manager at the University of Oxford, with a particular focus on research and innovation, and Internal Communications Manager at the Oxfordshire County Council.
 
Born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, Vicky worked as a barrister and economic development policy analyst and advisor to the Minister for Economic Development before moving into communications.