Governance Adviser, Beyond Governance
When I started my law degree, I thought I had my career mapped out.
Like many law students, I assumed there were two obvious destinations: become a solicitor or become a barrister. For most of my time at university, I never seriously considered doing anything else.
I enjoyed studying law and was drawn to the intellectual challenge it offered. I liked analysing problems, interpreting rules and building arguments. A career at the Bar seemed like the natural next step.
But as I approached the end of my degree, something unexpected happened.
For years, I had assumed I would become a barrister, yet by the time I graduated, that path no longer felt quite right. The problem was that I didn’t have an alternative plan either.
A friend from university encouraged me to continue studying and enrol on an LLM in International Commercial Law and Dispute Resolution. At the time, it seemed like a sensible next step. I had always enjoyed corporate law during my undergraduate studies, and the idea of international commercial disputes sounded exciting. There was a certain appeal to working on complex, high-value disputes with an international dimension, so I decided to give it a go.
Although I completed the degree successfully, it never sparked the enthusiasm I had hoped it would. The experience was still valuable. It strengthened my understanding of commercial law and taught me an important lesson: enjoying a subject and wanting to build a career around it are not always the same thing.
After completing my LLM, I found myself in a position that many graduates will recognise. I had two law degrees but still no clear idea what I wanted to do next. If you’ve ever felt pressure to have your entire career planned out by graduation, you’ll know how unsettling that uncertainty can be.
What I did know was that I enjoyed the commercial side of law and wanted to work in a corporate environment. So when an opportunity arose in client services, I took it while I figured things out.
The role gave me exposure to how organisations operate day to day. I worked with clients, navigated regulatory requirements and gained a better understanding of the people and processes behind a successful business.
But the real turning point came through a series of conversations.
I became good friends with two members of the company secretarial team. We often chatted throughout the day and regularly ate lunch together. Looking back, it’s strange to think that a few casual conversations over lunch would end up changing the direction of my career.
What fascinated me wasn’t simply what they did. It was the fact that they had built careers using their law degrees in a way I had never considered.
The more I spoke to them, the more curious I became. They introduced me to the world of governance, explaining how governance professionals support boards and senior leaders, help organisations meet their legal obligations and create the frameworks that allow good decisions to be made.
It wasn’t a career anybody had spoken about during my studies. Yet the more I learned, the more it appealed to me.
For the first time, I could see a career that combined the analytical skills I had developed through studying law with the commercial and strategic side of organisations.
I realised governance gave me something I hadn’t found elsewhere: a front-row seat to how important decisions are made and how organisations navigate challenges, opportunities and change.
It felt like a natural fit.
When an opportunity came up to join the company secretarial team, I decided to apply.
Up until that point, I had never felt completely certain about my career direction. Governance was different. For the first time, I could clearly see a profession that matched both my interests and my strengths.
As my interest in governance grew, I decided to deepen my knowledge by studying for an LLM in Corporate Governance alongside my full-time role.
Balancing work and study was not always easy. There were plenty of evenings spent studying after a full day at work and weekends dedicated to assignments instead of downtime. At times, it required sacrifices. But for anyone considering studying while working, my experience is proof that it can be done.
During the day, I could see governance in practice. In the evenings, I studied the theory behind it. Each reinforced the other and helped me grow both professionally and academically.
If you are weighing this up yourself, it is worth understanding that there is more than one route in. The different routes to a chartered governance qualification are set out here, including the Qualifying Programme, the Foundation Programme and the accredited postgraduate degrees.
Since then, I have continued to build my career in governance, working with boards, committees and senior leaders across different organisations and sectors. One thing has become very clear to me.
Governance is often misunderstood.
It is not just paperwork.
It is not just compliance.
And it is certainly not just taking minutes.
Before entering the profession, I probably had some of those misconceptions myself.
What I have come to appreciate is that governance sits at the heart of how organisations operate. It helps ensure that decisions are made with the right information, the right oversight and the right accountability. When governance works well, it creates the foundations that allow organisations to succeed, adapt and grow over the long term.
When I look back on my own journey, it is very different from the one I imagined when I started university.
An LLB. An LLM in dispute resolution. A role in client services. A move into governance. A further master’s degree focused on corporate governance.
At various points, those steps felt disconnected.
Now I see them differently.
Each one taught me something valuable about the type of work I enjoy and the sort of professional I wanted to become. More importantly, they taught me that careers rarely follow a perfectly straight line.
If you’re studying law, considering a career change or exploring governance for the first time, my advice is simple: keep an open mind.
The career that ultimately proved right for me was one I didn’t even know existed when I started university.
Looking back, I didn’t discover governance through a carefully planned career strategy. I discovered it by being curious enough to explore a path I had never considered before.
Sometimes the paths that suit us best are the ones we never knew existed.
For me, that path was governance.
If you’re still figuring out where your own path might lead, don’t be afraid to explore the careers you know the least about.
One of them might be exactly what you’re looking for.
Campbell’s College has been preparing students for chartered governance qualifications since 1991. Our tutors are practising governance professionals, and our courses are designed to be studied alongside a full-time job.
Browse our courses and fees or talk to us about where to begin.
Tanya Asimiea is a Governance Adviser at Beyond Governance. She holds an LLB, an LLM in International Commercial Law and Dispute Resolution, and an LLM in Corporate Governance, and works with boards, committees and senior leaders across a range of sectors.
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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.”
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 the Foundation Programme the way she would have wanted it taught to her — starting from first principles, building confidence early, and making sure no student feels out of their depth for long.
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.”
