Director, Campbell's College
London, 1 July 2026. Beyond Governance has today acquired Campbell’s College, the
distance learning provider accredited by The Chartered Governance Institute UK and Ireland.
The acquisition secures the college’s future and continues a story that began more than thirty years ago.
The college founded by the late Alan Campbell will continue under Beyond Governance, with
the standards he set and his promise that no student studies alone.
Campbell’s College began in 1991, when Alan Campbell taught his first lecture in a Guernsey
bank boardroom. He believed that governance professionals deserved better training than they
were getting, and he spent the next thirty years proving it. He carried assignments between
Guernsey and London in his briefcase. He taught revision weekends in Belize, Barbados,
Mauritius, Cyprus and the Isle of Man. He answered the phone whenever his students needed
him. Always.
Alan Campbell died unexpectedly in 2021. Vivian Campbell and Jane Hamilton ran the college
with care for four more years, and saw their students safely through to their qualifications. In
2025 they announced that the college would close.
One of Alan’s students was a young company secretary named Erika Eliasson-Norris. Facing an
ethical crisis early in her career, she raised it with Alan at one of his revision weekends. He sat
with her until she knew what to do. That conversation shaped a career. She went on to found
Beyond Governance, and when she heard that Alan’s college was closing, she could not let it
disappear.
So Campbell’s College continues. The same standards. The same teaching ethos. The same belief that no student should ever feel alone in their studies. Students prepare for the Chartered Governance Qualifying Programme through recorded lectures, tutor calls, and the Campbell’s community, taught by practising governance and finance professionals including Evon Chung FCG, Richard Poole FCCA, John McLean FCG, Marieclare Peter FCG, Jamie Hunt FCG and others.
“Alan Campbell answered the phone whenever his students needed him,” said Erika Eliasson- Norris, founder and chief executive of Beyond Governance. “When I faced a crisis early in my career, he sat with me until I knew what to do. That is the standard he set, and it is the standard we will keep. Campbell’s is not closing. It is carrying on. And every student who joins will feel exactly what I felt all those years ago. That they are never alone.”
Campbell’s College is open for enrolment today. New and returning students can begin their journey to Chartered Governance Professional status immediately.
Beyond Governance is a mutli-award-winning governance consultancy, advisory and training firm. It works with FTSE listed companies, regulated bodies, scaling founders, not for profit organisations and the public sector. It was founded by Erika Eliasson-Norris, a former FTSE Group Company Secretary and the Governance Assessor to the Post Office Horizon IT Public Inquiry. Learn more at beyondgovernance.com.
Campbell’s College was founded in 1991 by Alan Campbell. It is a distance learning provider accredited by The Chartered Governance Institute UK and Ireland, preparing students for the Chartered Governance Qualifying Programme. It is now part of the Beyond Governance group.
Join students worldwide studying CGIUKI
qualifications with Campbell’s College.
Steven Jones has spent his career making governance work where it matters most. As Deputy Director for Governance & Accountability at the Department of Health and Social Care, he leads the teams responsible for the governance of one of the UK’s largest government departments, supporting Ministers, the Departmental Board and senior leaders through periods of significant organisational change. His work spans corporate governance, board effectiveness, risk, accountability, public appointments and legal compliance, with responsibility for governance frameworks affecting millions of people.
Before joining DHSC, Steven led governance across some of government’s most complex programmes, including the UK’s border response during COVID-19, Brexit preparations at the Cabinet Office, and corporate governance for HM Revenue & Customs’ largest business group. Alongside his public service career, he founded Disability Connect Mentoring Scheme, advising organisations on disability inclusion and accessible leadership, and serves on Transport for London’s Independent Disability Advisory Group.
Steven teaches Company Law from the perspective of someone who uses it every day rather than someone who simply studies it. He believes the biggest misconception is that company law is about compliance alone. The rules matter, but the real question is why they exist, who they protect and what happens when the law reaches its limits. That is where judgement begins, and where governance professionals earn their value.
He describes governance simply: it is about who has power, how they are held to account, and what happens when they are not. Once students understand that, the legislation stops feeling like a collection of disconnected rules and starts making sense as part of a much bigger picture. His aim is for every student to leave not just knowing directors’ duties, but being able to explain them, apply them and use them confidently in practice.
Away from governance, Steven is a mentor, disability advocate and podcast host. He is also, somewhat unexpectedly, a partly qualified counsellor and the owner of a tortoise called Frank.
“People often think governance is just about board meetings. It is not. It is about who has power in an organisation, how they are held to account for using it, and what happens when they do not.”
Jamie Hunt is a barrister and a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute who has spent his career at the demanding edge of regulation, governance and risk. He is Director of Governance and Legal at the Royal Institute of British Architects, where he leads governance, legal, risk, data protection and procurement, advises the board, and serves as the organisation’s Designated Safeguarding Lead. He also advises Social Work England on complex fitness to practise matters. Before RIBA he was General Counsel at the Security Industry Authority and Head of Legal at the ACCA.
He earned his Chartered qualification through the Fast Track route and passed with distinction. He brings deep experience of risk to the module he teaches, having advised audit and risk committees and senior risk officers on operational, reputational and strategic risk across regulated organisations.
Jamie is also a natural teacher and examiner. He trains advocates for the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, lectures in advocacy at the University of Westminster, and serves as Lead Examiner for the Bar Standards Board professional ethics examination. He previously lectured in Corporate Governance and Boardroom Dynamics at Campbell’s College. Students gain an instructor who understands risk as a practitioner and knows exactly how to prepare a candidate for assessment.
John McLean is a chartered company secretary and a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute, currently Head of Governance and Company Secretary at Great Places Housing Group. He has built his career in complex regulated settings, advising chairs, boards and executives across corporate governance, risk, data protection, safeguarding and quality. Before housing he managed national programmes at NICE and led performance and compliance roles across local government.
He earned his Chartered qualification the recent and the hard way, completing the programme between 2023 and 2025 with distinctions in both Company Compliance and Administration and Boardroom Dynamics. He now tutors both at Campbell’s College.
John is a law graduate who fell for governance because, by his own admission, he is nosey. He likes to know how decisions really get made. He describes the work as less admin and more drama with a very good audit trail, full of personalities, politics with a small p, and the occasional plot twist. He teaches the human side of the boardroom as seriously as the rulebook, because he has watched perfectly compliant boards descend into chaos the moment nobody is willing to challenge anything.
There is one more thing. Out of university and in debt, John paid it down by winning more than fourteen thousand pounds across Weakest Link, Supermarket Sweep, Eggheads and The Chase. He has a gift for retaining information, much of it useless, all of it ready.
“If it is not written down properly, it did not happen. Or at least not in a way anyone can defend.”
Richard Poole is an accounting and finance specialist with more than twenty years spent teaching and marking the ICAEW, ACCA, ICAS and CIMA qualifications. As Managing Director of RJP Financial he lectures for providers worldwide, and he teaches financial reporting at Queen Mary University of London, where the PwC Flying Start programme he contributes to was named PQ Programme of the Year in 2025. He has helped write one of the most widely used taxation texts in higher education and built online courses now sold around the world.
He found financial accounting hard when he first learned it. That memory shapes how he teaches. He reassures students that there is no such thing as a silly question, and he uses plain explanations and real stories to make daunting ideas stick. He treats a set of accounts not as debits and credits, but as a story waiting to be understood.
His interest in governance came later, sharpened by hearing Erika Eliasson-Norris speak about her experience, which made him want to understand the field more deeply. Away from the classroom he is a lifelong sportsman who played semi professional football, and he draws his energy from team sport.
“Instead of seeing accounts as a series of debits and credits, think of them as a story waiting to be understood.”
Evon Chung is a Chartered Governance Fellow who has spent more than a decade bringing order to some of the most complex corporate structures in the world. As Manager of Global Corporate Services at Deel, she oversees the governance of around 350 entities across 125 jurisdictions, leading an international team of sixteen lawyers and governance professionals. Before Deel she held senior corporate secretarial roles at The Law Debenture Group and Eversheds Sutherland, running multi jurisdictional projects for FTSE 250 and Fortune 500 clients.
She has also sat on the other side of the exam paper. Some years ago, as a Subject Matter Expert for the Institute, she set and reviewed questions for the foundation level examination. She no longer does so, and her work with Campbell’s is purely as a tutor. The insight stays with her, and few tutors understand better what an examiner is looking for.
Evon came to governance by accident. An engineer by training, she joined a charity board of seventeen trustees, none of whom had a governance background, to help write the minutes. A few years later a law firm invited her into corporate secretarial work, and she never looked back. In a previous life she was a volunteer emergency ambulance technician, which taught her to stay calm under pressure, decide quickly on incomplete information, and know when to lead and when to hand over.
She teaches strategy as a form of storytelling. Her students arrive knowing the words and leave able to use them.
“Strategy is not about execution. It is about direction, intent, and asking the bigger questions.”
Marieclare Peter is a Chartered Governance Fellow who has built her career at the meeting point of governance, sustainability and financial services. She is Deputy Company Secretary of Monzo Europe, where she designs and runs governance frameworks for the board and its committees, and she advises senior leaders across banking on governance that keeps pace with a fast moving world. Her work spans board effectiveness reviews, transformation programmes and the thoughtful adoption of emerging technology, including AI.
She is twice a winner of the DMJ Governance Hot 100 as a Governance Trailblazer, and she won the ICSA Tom Morrison Essay Prize. Her MSc in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, completed with distinction, included research into the experience of company secretaries, a role she believes is still widely misunderstood. She is also an examiner for the Institute in another subject, so she knows the standard from the other side of the exam paper as well as the front.
Marieclare arrived in governance by a well told accident. She learned early that she would not make a great lawyer, spotted a trainee company secretary role, and has stayed for nearly a decade. The film The Big Short sharpened her sense of why governance matters and how badly its absence can end.
Away from the boardroom she runs on curiosity. She once ran a cake business, plays piano and sings, is learning Spanish, cooks in a kitchen for people who are homeless, and is devoted to her two cats.
“Anything that is governed requires governance. And governance directly correlates to outcomes.”
