We are delighted to announce the appointment of one new lay Board member and three new barrister Board members. Professor Jean-Noël Ezingeard and Sara Lawson KC will join the Board this month. Abiodun Michael Olatokun FRSA joins the Board from 1 July and Mark Fenhalls KC will join the Board from 1 October. All join for an initial term of four years.
Professor Jean-Noël Ezingeard is Vice‑Chancellor and President of the University of Roehampton, where he serves as academic leader and Chief Executive since 2019. He is an experienced senior executive and board member with more than twenty years’ leadership experience in large, complex and regulated organisations. He has previously held senior roles at Manchester Metropolitan University, Kingston University and Henley Business School. He has extensive experience of board‑level decision‑making, audit and risk, quality assurance, and public accountability.
Sara Lawson KC was called to the Bar in 1990 and spent over 20 years in chambers prosecuting and defending all crime, including RASSO (rape and serious sexual offence) cases, and specialising in fraud and regulatory work. Sara was on the Government Regulatory List, she prosecuted for the Serious Fraud Office, HMRC and the CPS, including their specialist casework and fraud divisions. Most recently she spent 6 years as an employed barrister as General Counsel of the SFO before returning to the self-employed Bar.
Abiodun Michael Olatokun FRSA is a practising barrister at 36 Public and Human Rights, specialising in education, employment and public law. He has over a decade of non-executive and trustee experience and has worked within higher education regulatory frameworks, including as Deputy Chair of the Subject Pilot Panel for Law in the Teaching Excellence Framework, a national exercise assessing programme compliance for the Department for Education and the Office for Students. He also served for ten years as an assessor for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
Mark Fenhalls KC was called to the Bar in 1992. He took silk in 2014 and regularly appears in the most serious and complex of criminal cases from large scale fraud and corruption cases to murder and organised crime. Mark was Chair of the Criminal Bar Association in 2015-16, Leader of the South Eastern Circuit in 2019-20, and Chair of the Bar of England and Wales in 2022. Over the last 15 years, Mark has worked closely with senior Judiciary, state bodies and officials on a variety of projects and committees addressing capacity, sustainability and efficiency in the Justice System.
Professor Christopher Bones, Chair, The Bar Standards Board said:
“I am pleased to welcome four new Board members who all have different experiences and expertise that will bring value to the Board whilst complementing the skills and experience of our current members. Andrew Mitchell KC and Professor Leslie Thomas KC will be leaving us later in the year and I would like to thank them both for their contributions and commitment they have shown over the years to the Bar Standards Board."
