Trustee Board
Guiding your union
Our Trustee Board monitors, guide and ultimately takes responsibility for the way that the students' union operates. Our trustees are made up of the full-time members of our elected Officer Team, appointed current students (or 'student trustees') and appointed external trustees who bring a wealth and breadth of experience.
Together, they help form the strategic direction of De Montfort Students' Union (DSU), ensuring we meet the needs of all of our members at De Montfort University (DMU).
Geoff Kershaw
SME and Large Corporates Professional
Chair of the Board
With over 25 years of experience working in SME’s and large corporates, Geoff brings a wealth of commercial, change management and leadership experience to the board. He has worked in the UK and internationally for Walgreen Boots Alliance (formerly The Boots Company), as part of the strategy development team at Barclays Bank and latterly as Managing Director or Thorntons Retail, part of the Ferrero UK Group.
Currently Geoff runs his own business as an SME mentor and consultant, he is co-founder of a Dubai based Retail and Wholesale business and a Non-Executive Director of The Retail Summer School Ltd.
Phil Gilks
Higher Education Professional
Phil has developed a career within the sector that spans both universities and students’ unions. Currently the Chief Executive of City University of London Students’ Union and the co-chair of the City, University of London Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team. Phil started his journey in students’ unions as a student staff member before being elected President of Brighton Students’ Union. He has since worked for the University of Chichester Students’ Union and both the students’ Union and University at Queen Mary University of London.
Phil has joined DSU as an External Trustee to give something back to the sector and help DSU in the next steps along its journey. Phil is particularly interested in supporting DSU to develop and implement its new strategy, ensuring future success.
Rita Bullivant
Director of IT & Change
Rita was born and grew up in Leicester, her educational life and a substantial part of her early career was also based in Leicester.
Currently she is (in a professional capacity) – Director IT & Change for the Melton Building Society and has spent her career working in a variety of industries and volunteer roles at strategic levels including CPRE Leicestershire and the City of Leicester Museums Trust and was a magistrate for over 20 years.
At home she is married with 2 daughters, a dog, cat and plenty of fish.
Beverley Shears
Beverley Shears was appointed as an independent governor in August 2020. She Chairs the People and Culture Committee and is a member of the Remuneration Committee.
Beverley’s career has seen her carrying out a number of leadership and HR-related roles, including Head of Customer Experience for the Olympic Delivery Authority, Director of Offender Management East Midlands at the National Offender Management Service, Group HR Director for the Ministry of Justice and Department of Constitutional Affairs, and Deputy Managing Director and HR Director for Stagecoach South West Trains Ltd. More recently, Beverley has founded her own change consultancy, Blue Amaranth Consultancy Ltd, which provides advice on coaching, service transformation, organisational development, and people engagement strategies.
Beverley has non-executive experience on the board of the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, the British Transport Police Authority, and the Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust.
Luke Martin
BEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Luke made to decision to become a student trustee to be part of helping the SU bounce back from the pandemic as well as he could. He is eager to continue to explore some of the great work going on to make this happen.
DMU gave him the opportunity to study after the A Levels controversy of 2020 left Luke ineligible for his first choice of Uni. He is grateful to be a student of DMU and is glad he came, as the opportunities that have been made available to him have been much more impressive than those he is aware of from other Universities.
Mehul Parekh
PhD Law 2nd Year
Mehul became a student trustee to better serve his fellow students at the university by helping to make sure that decisions made within the union are within good faith and for the collective betterment for all students.
He chose DMU as his place to study as he loves the vibrant and diverse student and academic community which identifies and celebrates the individual success and abilities, whilst working towards the common goal of personal development through education.