About Landex

Alex Payne

Chief Executive

Alex has been Chief Executive of Landex ‘Land Based Colleges & Universities Aspiring to Excellence‘ since January 2021. Prior to that, Alex was the Director Of Quality Enhancement at Landex. She has an extensive background in the Land Based sector which has included managing and developing a full range of curriculum including Higher Education, as well as driving and monitoring quality improvement. She has managed a number of specialist land-based centres and associated staff and resources. Her current industry involvement in Agriculture and Equine ensures she is in touch with current developments and challenges within the sector.

Alex brings to the role a significant understanding of land based industries, in addition to her experience as a manager in further education colleges, and more recently with Landex. In her spare time she farms with her husband in Yorkshire.

Alex will also assume responsibility for Landexs activity with Land Based Assessment Ltd. (LBAL), Land Based Learning Ltd. (LBL), and the National Land Based College (NLBC).

Lord Boswell of Aynho

Patron

‘Lord Boswell is an Oxford classics graduate and has a diploma in agricultural economics: he is a partner in the family farming business near Banbury, and was MP for Daventry from 1987 until 2010.

Tim Boswell MP entered John Major’s government in 1990 as an Assistant Government Whip, and following the 1992 General Election was promoted within the Whip’s Office and became a Lord Commissioner to the Treasury. Later in 1992, Tim Boswell was appointed Parliamentary under Secretary of State at the Department of Education and then moved to a similar role at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food until the 1997 General Election. In opposition he was variously a spokesman at the Treasury, Trade and Industry, and then Education and Employment. He also spent periods as the spokesman for Work and Pensions and Constitutional Affairs before announcing his retirement from the Commons. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Boswell of Aynho in the County of Northamptonshire in 2010′.

Baroness Byford DBE, DL

Patron

‘Baroness Byford of Rothley attended Moulton College as a student and is an honorary graduate of Harper Adams University College: she is an arable farmer in Suffolk and a member of the House of Lords. Lady Byford DBE was the Conservative spokesman for Food, Farming and Rural Affairs from 1997 until 2008, having been made a life peer in 1996.

Lady Byford is a Canon of Leicester Cathedral; President of LEAF; a member of the court and Under Warden of the Worshipful Company of Farmers: a patron of the Women’s Food and Farming Union, and a former patron of the National Farm Attractions Network and the Institute of the Agricultural Secretaries & Administrators. In 2007, she was elected President of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers; and in 2008, she received an Honorary DSc from Nottingham Trent University in recognition of her outstanding contribution and commitment to agriculture and rural life

Lord Curry of Kirkharle Kt, CBE, FRAgS

Patron

Donald Curry is married has two sons, a daughter, five grandchildren and lives in Northumberland. Since January 2010 he has been Chair of the Better Regulations Executive (BRE) based in BIS.
In 2009 he was appointed Chair of the Leckford Estate Management Committee – the Waitrose Farm and in August 2012 was appointed Chair of the Royal Veterinary College.

Lord Curry was appointed as a board member of the NFU Mutual Insurance Company in 1997 and was Chairman from June 2003 to December 2011.

He Chaired the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food reporting to Government in January 2002 and was responsible for overseeing the Government’s Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food until March 2009: he served as a Crown Estate Commissioner from January 2000 until December 2007.

He was a founder, of ‘At Home in the Community’ in 1990, a charity providing care and support for people with learning disabilities, and has continued to Chair the company since then. A trustee of Clinton Devon Estates and also Anglican International Developments (AID).

Lord Curry was awarded a CBE for his services to Agriculture in the 1997 New Year’s Honours list, a Knighthood in the Birthday Honours in 2001 and was appointed as a cross bench peer in The House of Lords in October 2011.

In 2004 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (DSc) by Cranfield University, an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Gloucestershire in 2005 and a Doctorate of Civil Law by Newcastle University in 2008.

Jeremy Kerswell

Chairman

Originally from a rural background in West Sussex, Jeremy went on to study Animal Science at Reading University, and it was after a short period of employment within both the animal and agricultural industries, that he decided to forge a career which would combine his passion for the natural environment with education.

Having previously worked at land-based colleges across the Southeast, Jeremy was appointed as the head of what was Cannington College in 2008, which had become part of the hugely successful Bridgwater College. He was known amongst his peers as the driving force behind the growth and success at Cannington at that time.

Having worked across the FE and HE sector in England for 18 years; Jeremy then became Principal of Plumpton College in October 2015.

Jeremy has been on the Board of Landex for over seven years, and chaired FE Sussex, a collaborative body comprising all colleges across the county for the past three and a half. He also leads WineGB’s national training and education group.

After 28 years in the sector, Jeremy is proud to be leading Plumpton on the next stage of its journey as it enters its centenary year, and also to have the privilege of becoming the Chair of Landex where he is excited to work with education providers across the UK at a more important time than ever before for the sectors they support.