Lena Marvao
External Governor
Biography
Lena, a scientist by profession, started her working life in the pharmaceutical industry where she spent ten years working in various management roles, including Research & Development, Validation, Systems Implementation, Regulatory Affairs, and the commercial start-up and running of a small-scale High Performance Liquid Chromatography production plant.
In 1996, the family relocated to Devon and Lena took the opportunity to retrain as an educationalist, spending eighteen years working in Further Education and Higher Education Colleges, where she held various positions such as Senior Tutor, Head of Chemistry / Curriculum Team Leader, Designated Safeguarding Officer and STEM Coordinator. Lena is committed to ‘Personalised Learning’ tailoring pedagogy, curriculum and learning support to meet the needs and aspirations of individual learners. She is passionate about finding ways of removing the barriers which currently block the learning of far too many students, such as race, gender, disability, social and economic background.
More recently, her career has progressed to the third sector where she has gained experience as Operations Manager for a local Community Health & Wellbeing Centre and Hospital Hub, managing the day to day running of five departments. She was also the Centre Manager for a local Trust and currently works for the County Council.
Lena’s interests mostly revolve around education, sport and music. She supported her local community as a volunteer for Oxfam, Relate and Make Lunch charities. Lena was Chair of Governors at a local 4 to 16 years all-through school and a Director of the Devon Association of Governors. She enjoys weekly Spinning, Urban Funk, Dance Mix and Pilates classes and likes holidays involving Skiing and Kayaking. Lena also sings in a local choir, plays piano, classical and folk guitar.