Joel Arber
Group Managing Director
j.m.arber@reading.ac.uk
Joel is an experienced executive leader. He has held leadership roles in commercial consultancies in the advertising industry; in Higher Education as a Pro Vice-Chancellor; and in the charity sector as Chair of FCAT, a ten-school Multi Academy Trust with a turnover of £45 million.
Joel joined SUMS in 2019. As Group Managing Director he has led the growth of SUMS Consulting. During this five-year period, SUMS’ membership has doubled in size, while the turnover of the consultancy business has more than trebled. Much of this growth has been down to SUMS’ ability to support university transformation at scale. SUMS has managed multi-stranded, multi-year transformation and efficiencies programmes at several institutions in this period: delivering high impact at exceptional value-for-money.
Joel is a passionate believer in the power of Higher Education to transform lives. However, he also believes that the sector needs to change radically, improving its efficiency and effectiveness, if it is to remain relevant and financially sustainable. Recognising that universities can’t just cut their way to strategic success, he focuses his consultancy practice on delivering Target Operating Model and Efficiencies programmes, and on leading SUMS’ Marketing, Student Recruitment and Communications practice.
Joel holds an MA in history from the University of Edinburgh and has recently completed a certificate in Public Sector Leadership at Cornell University.