Chris Millward to join the Strategic Advisory Board of the JS Group as it expands its ambitions to help the least advantaged learners thrive in the graduate jobs market
We are delighted to announce that JS Group is further strengthening its Strategic Advisory Board with the appointment of Chris Millward. He will help drive the group’s ambition to be at the forefront of developing workable strategies to help graduates from the least advantaged families and communities thrive in the jobs market. He will team up with the company’s existing strategic advisors, Tricia King and Mike Thorne.
The JS Group is developing a ground-breaking new initiative to improve employment outcomes for graduates from the least advantaged families and communities. This is being developed in collaboration with both its partner universities and a selection of global employers, with the aim of bringing together practical and workable strategies to ensure that learners are not left behind at the end of their course.
Chris’s appointment will drive the JS Group capacity to accelerate its engagement with partner employers (public and private sector), universities, policy makers and sector thinkers to create a unique pathway to support the journey into graduate roles.
Chris brings a wealth of experience to this role having worked in senior roles at HEFCE from 2006 and then as the Director for Fair Access and Participation at OFS from 2018 to 2021. He is now Professor of Practice in Education Policy at University of Birmingham.
Commenting on his appointment Chris Millward said:
For too many students, their progression from higher education into graduate jobs is determined by the funds available to them to gain experience, make contacts and travel or move to work, as well as the cultures and practices of graduate recruiters. This is a particular challenge for students who study and work in the place where they grew up, which means that we are failing to unlock the potential of graduates in the places that could benefit from them most. I am pleased to be joining the Strategic Advisory Board of the JS Group to help develop new approaches to tackling this, drawing on its track record of support for the least advantaged students and partnership with universities as well as global employers.
Peter Gray, Chair & CEO of JS Group said:
At JS Group, we are on a really exciting and groundbreaking journey to bring together the really deep thinkers in both HE policy and practice with a selection of large graduate employers to genuinely help solve the problem of getting non-traditional learners into the workplace. Our work is focused on how large corporates can bring to bear their assets and experience to support learners in partnership with universities and utilizing our student engagement schemes to help get students ready for the challenging jobs market. What fascinates us is that this work is not institutional, or corporate specific, but has the capacity to scale into a much wider solution given our broad reach of schemes and the support we provide students throughout their journey.
