QA’s Management team

Chris Martin

Chairman

Chris has been Chairman of QA since 1999, becoming Executive in April 2001. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales having qualified with KMG (now KPMG). Between 1994 and 1997 Chris was Chief Executive of Azlan Group Plc, having been Finance Director from 1992. He was previously Finance Director of Erskine Ltd and Warner Fabrics Plc. Christian is also a non-executive director of Danwood Group Ltd, a large office solutions organisation.

William Macpherson

CEO

• E-mail: william.macpherson@qa.com

William Macpherson joined QA as CEO in 2008 with over 12 years experience in senior management of training organisations. Prior to joining QA, he was the Chief Executive of Kaplan Professional & International, a major learning services organisation with sales in excess of $500 million. He began leading training companies in 1995 when he became Chief Executive of Financial Training, which he built into the UK’s largest accountancy training business.

Jeff Barnes

Executive Director of Training

• E-mail: jeff.barnes@qa.com
• Personal blog

Jeff joined QA in 1999 and has been involved in the training industry for over 15 years, initially teaching courses on operating systems, infrastructure, technology solution design and operations frameworks. As Executive Director of Training, he leads a delivery team of over 190 trainers and consultants, with responsibility for curriculum management and training solutions in a number of QA’s portfolio areas. Jeff monitors future technologies, industry trends and innovations in order to ensure the comprehensive QA portfolio continues to bring benefit and value to clients.

Ian Johnson

Group Finance Director

• E-mail: ian.johnson@qa.com

Ian is a chartered accountant and has over fifteen years experience in the IT training industry. Ian was a senior manager with Price Waterhouse in Manchester and between 1989 and 1992 he was Group Finance Director of Logitek plc. He was a member of the management buy-in team of Xpertise in 1993 and became Group Finance Director following the admission of Xpertise to the Alternative Investment Market in January 1999. Ian was Managing Director of Xpertise from October 2003 to December 2008 during which Xpertise’s revenue and operating profit grew substantially. He became Group Finance Director in January 2009 following the merger of QA and Xpertise.

Stuart Martin

Group Sales Director

• E-mail: stuart.martin@qa.com

Stuart Martin has been with QA since 2000, having previously worked in the online education space for Ten-TV. He has over 12 years of experience in the learning industry. Having joined in the role of Account Manager he went on to take management responsibility before becoming Sales Director in 2005. Stuart led the successful sales integration during the mergers between QA, InterQuad, Xpertise and Remarc. In addition to focusing on developing relationships with customers and partners, he continues to be responsible for the strategy and ongoing development of the sales organisation.

Harvey Thomas

Operations Director

• E-mail: harvey.thomas@qa.com

Harvey Thomas joined QA in October 2007 as Operations Director. He is a chartered accountant by training who qualified with PWC in 1988 and subsequently developed his career in a mixture of operational and financial management positions, having worked in Executive Director level roles since 1999. Harvey worked for the Capita Group where he initially ran a large Business Process Outsourcing division, and then managed the acquisition and integration into Capita of a 450 staff insurance broking company. This was followed by a two-year spell as the Finance Director of that business in which he played a key role in the doubling of broking revenues and operating income.

Ben Pike

Director

• E-mail: ben.pike@qa.com
• Personal blog

Ben has 15 years experience in senior leadership roles within the learning industry and now directs the QA Academy, providing IT Apprenticeships for young people. He joined QA as managing director of managed learning services following the merger of the QA with Xpertise in 2008. From 2002 to 2008, Ben was operations director and learning services director at Xpertise, during which time he was instrumental in building Xpertise into a leading learning services business. Prior to this, Ben was operations director of a £43m training business.

Bill Walker

Commercial and Technical Director

• E-mail: bill.walker@qa.com
• Personal blog

Bill manages the company’s relationships with its major vendors and partners including Microsoft, Oracle, VMWare and Citrix. He is also responsible for marketing, bespoke e-learning and innovation activities. Bill was a director of Xpertise where he was responsible for growing the business in the technical, project management, service management and soft skills areas. For three years, Bill was a member of Microsoft’s CPLS Advisory Council which sets the direction for Microsoft learning products and services.

Louise Croft

Director of Leadership, Management and Business Skills

• E-mail: louise.croft@qa.com

Louise leads professional development and is passionate about helping our customers create genuine value from their relationship with QA by aligning individual development to improved business performance. She has been with QA since 2006, initially as an Account Director working with a range of customers to create learning programmes across leadership, management, sales and customer service. Louise’s background is in both customer relationship and consultancy roles, leading large-scale outsourcing and business change programmes in schools and colleges.

Karen Cain

Managing Director, QA Business School

• E-mail: karen.cain@qabusinessschool.com

Karen, Principal of QA Business School has over 17 years operational and strategic management experience, having worked for Kaplan Financial for 12 of those years at international, national and board level and the last 5 years setting up two private education colleges with successful University and professional collaborative partnerships.

Mike Brown

IT Director

• E-mail: mike.brown@qa.com

Mike has been with QA since 2008 as IT Director, following the merger with Xpertise. He is responsible for building and directing the company’s technology strategy, including the provision of technology to support all forms of learning plus leading teams in application development, IT infrastructure and platform provision. Mike has been involved in the IT training industry for over 15 years during which time he has worked in a number of operational and IT roles.

Tonia May

HR Manager

• E-mail: tonia.may@qa.com

Tonia has been with QA for many years and plays a key part in ensuring QA attracts and retains the top talents in business learning.