We work to fully understand our partners so that we can provide the best services and resources to meet your requirements and student needs.
JS Group has a team of over 60 staff with a wide range of expertise and experience who are committed to being trusted and knowledgeable partners working with institutions to deliver the best service to their students.
Tricia King brings a wealth of experience to this role having worked in senior roles in the university sector. For 11 years she was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Strategic Engagement at Birkbeck College in the University of London. More recently Tricia spent 3 years as Vice President Global Engagement at CASE. Tricia’s focus at the JS Group is scoping, developing and implementing innovative new services at the graduate employment stage of the JS Group student journey.
Tricia currently runs a consultancy and coaching business TKCC that she established in 2019.
Chris Millward will help drive the JS 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. 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.
Professor Michael Thorne has worked at UCL and Cardiff University, and was Pro Vice Chancellor at Sunderland, Vice Principal at Napier in Edinburgh, Vice Chancellor at the University of East London and prior to his retirement, Vice Chancellor at Anglia Ruskin University. He has chaired the government’s Advisory Committee on Libraries, the Parliamentary Skills Commission’s enquiry into Information, Advice and Guidance and was a member of the Board of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. He has most recently been appointed as the new independent Chair of the Mid and South Essex NHS Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP).
Julie joined JS Group in 2020 as Director of Academic Partnerships and in December 2023 has moved into the Strategic Advisory Board as our Student Engagement Portal Champion focussing on our portal innovation and development. Julie brings a wealth of senior sector experience to this role having been Executive Director for Students at the RAU, Academic Registrar at UWS, Director of Student Services at ARU and at London Met. She is a former Chair and Executive member of AMOSSHE over 9 years. Previously Professional Services Board Member at ARU, she is currently a Council Member at the University of Gloucestershire and Deputy Chair at Exeter Students’ Guild.
Director of Engagement
Alison leads our team of Engagement Partners and is responsible for ensuring all our Aspire schemes deliver exceptional benefits to students and universities. Before joining JS Group, Alison had senior roles at ADT and Wolters Kluwer.
IT Director
Brad heads up the IT team at JS Group and is responsible for the development of the Aspire platform and our data and analytics strategy.
CFO
Nick leads the Finance and HR function and has overall control and responsibility for all financial aspects of the JSGroup.
Prior to JSGroup Nick spent 5 years at Capita, where he was CFO of Capita Technology Solutions and most recently Managing Director of two resource management software companies. Nick has a wealth of financial and operational experience across a number of complex technology-based organisations having held senior positions at Talk Talk, BT, Thomas Cook and KPMG.
Chairman and CEO
Under Peter's leadership JS Group has become one of the most innovative companies in the UK Higher Education sector with a clear purpose of delivering better student outcomes.
Peter Gray
Chairman and CEO
Under Peter's leadership JS Group has become one of the most innovative companies in the UK Higher Education sector with a clear purpose of delivering better student outcomes.
Peter started his career as an engineer before moving to work in the family library supply business in 1990. In 2001 Peter bought John Smith & Son’s, an historic Scottish academic book retailer which traces its roots back to 1751.
During Peter’s tenure, he grew the academic retailing side to eventually include 32 shops in universities across the UK, a Legal Information Services business with a base in Fleet Street and a technology company that serviced the business needs.
In 2002 Peter was asked by the Government of Botswana to help them ensure university students in the country we able to use their government allowances to get the things they needed to succeed rather than to see the money wasted or taken into general living expenses. This initiative led to the creation and development of the Aspire technology platform, which manages bursaries and scholarships on behalf of universities to facilitate students being able to use their funds to buy the tools for study.
With clear data and analytics to help universities realise what their financial awards were being used for and, more importantly to shine a spotlight on student need it transformed how universities and government viewed their financial interventions for students.
With the growth in higher education in the UK and the strong footprint the Group already had, the Aspire platform was bought back to the UK and further developed into what is today the leading cashless bursary distribution mechanism in the UK. In 2019 Peter reorganised the Group, divesting the retail, legal and international businesses and now its entire focus is on its Aspire platform and unique delivery model in UK Higher Education, working with more than 30 universities and 250,000 students annually.
Throughout this journey Peter has built a very strong team that brings together both corporate and HE sector experience with a combined passion for helping students get the best out of their time at university and with a strong focus on developing new, innovative services to help deliver better student outcomes.
‘Diversity into Work’ champion
Tricia King brings a wealth of experience to this role having worked in senior roles in the university sector. For 11 years she was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Strategic Engagement at Birkbeck College in the University of London. More recently Tricia spent 3 years as Vice President Global Engagement at CASE. Tricia’s focus at the JS Group is scoping, developing and implementing innovative new services at the graduate employment stage of the JS Group student journey.
Tricia currently runs a consultancy and coaching business TKCC that she established in 2019.
Group Business Development Director
Peter is responsible for business development at JS Group working with universities and partners to see how our existing services can be improved to deliver better students outcomes and what new services and collaborations can be developed to support student continuation, attainment and employability. Prior to joining the JS Group in 2011, Peter held senior management positions in the information sector and is an adviser to a number of EdTech businesses and the Institute of Engineering and Technology.
Group Commercial Director
David has been at the forefront of the JS Group evolution with his leadership playing a major role in developing the e-commerce channels, building and improving supplier relationships, extending the range of products offered and being the champion of The Group’s eBook strategy.
