Speakers
Presentation
Protecting services that matter most in a financially stretched sector starts by looking at where your provider is already getting it right.
In her keynote speech, Deborah Johnston MBE, incoming Vice-Chancellor at the University of Bedfordshire, offers a senior leader's perspective on the value of Student Services. She’ll address how institutions that empower Student Services achieve far more, drawing on work with disabled students as a clear example. Using this lens, she’ll show what can be achieved when Student Services sits at the intersection of institutional activity, rather than being sidelined or treated as an afterthought.
Deborah’s speech will explore what’s possible when cross-team collaboration is enabled, when leaders take whole-institution approaches, and when streamlined, data-informed systems reduce staff pressure and enhance the student experience. She’ll also address how positioning Student Services in this way shapes outcomes and experiences for disabled students.
Deborah Johnston MBE is a Professor of Development Economics and the incoming Vice-Chancellor at the University of Bedfordshire, whose academic work and leadership focuses on inequality, poverty and wellbeing. She's a Professor of Development Economics and has published more than 55 journal articles and four books. Her academic work focuses on inequality and poverty. She grew up in Hounslow, Greater London, and was the first in her dual-heritage Irish-Pakistani family to attend university. She completed an undergraduate degree in Economics and an MPhil in Economics and Politics of Development at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Economics at SOAS University of London. She's a national leader for the Disabled Students Commitment and serves as Universities Disability and Access Ambassador for the UK Government Cabinet Office. She also holds a board position with a national stammering charity and, in 2024, was awarded an MBE for her work on stammering recognition in higher education.
:
https://www.beds.ac.uk/news/2026/january/university-of-bedfordshire-appoints-professor-deborah-johns
:
linkedin.com/in/prof-deborah-johnston-mbe-09321489