Gareth Pierce becomes new chair of the Board of Directors

Posted by Peter Burnside on 15/11/2018

The BMC is pleased to announce the appointment of Gareth Pierce as the new chair of the Board of Directors.

Gareth Pierce has a wide-range of experience that will aid him in his new role as chair of the BMC Board of Directors. Not only does Gareth have significant governance experience in the contexts of limited companies, charities, and community interest companies, he was also a long-standing CEO of WJEC / CBAC, formerly the Welsh Joint Education Committee – the leading examination board providing assessment, training and educational resources in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Gareth has also worked closely with the Welsh assembly, is fluent in the Welsh language, and has been a member of the BMC-affiliated club, Clwb Mynydda Cymru for many years.

Taking up the role on an initial three-year term, Gareth is the BMC’s first chair following the agreement of a new organisational structure at the AGM in June 2018. This is a voluntary role and Gareth is looking forward to getting started; he will be working closely with the BMC president and CEO to ensure the smooth running of the work of the BMC Board of Directors, including the roll-out of the remaining recommendations as put forward by the 2017 organisational review.

Gareth commented: “BMC’s recent review provides an excellent basis on which to build its future as a representative and transparent organisation that meets the needs of its members, promotes and provides opportunities for young people, and works responsibly with a wide range of stakeholders. I am really looking forward to working with BMC’s superb staff and volunteers and building on the governance reforms that have already commenced under the guidance of Simon McCalla as interim chair and Nick Kurth before him.”

Biography

With a family background in the hill farming communities of north Wales, Gareth’s first experiences of the summits, in his early teenage years, were of Snowdon and Arenig Fawr. Following exploits such as Snowdonia’s ‘14 peaks’ during student days, basic rock climbing and snow-and-ice training at Plas y Brenin proved useful, including for visits to the Lake District, Scotland and the Alps.

Gareth volunteered with the outdoor activities of the youth organisation, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, before co-ordinating the South Wales programme of Clwb Mynydda Cymru during its early years and later being a member of what was then the Wales Mountain Leadership Training Board. A busy working life, skiing trips, and moderately competitive squash, vied with mountain activities for many years, but there has more recently been an opportunity to enjoy the challenges of the peaks and ridges of Torridon for the first time as well as long (always sunny!) days in the hills of south Wales.

Statistics and education have provided the underlying themes for Gareth’s salaried work, including spells as a statistician in health and housing sectors, teaching mathematics in a south Wales comprehensive school, lecturing in a business school, and tutoring for the Open University. During the most recent 20 years, Gareth was a senior manager and chief executive for limited companies in the education sector and has fulfilled a number of governance roles within the higher education and school sectors.