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Stephen Jackson

Chairperson

Stephen joined the BID Board in 2016 and represents the interests of members in the education sector. He has a strong background in finance, and most recently was Commercial Development Director at Nottingham Trent University. He is also on the board of Marketing Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

Stephen is a qualified Accountant, having started his career at Bass plc, progressing into several senior financial roles in the company’s pubs, restaurants and holiday centre subsidiaries. He then moved to Crest Hotels and was part of a small team that acquired, for Bass, Holiday Inn. Upon completion of the acquisition, he became Chief Financial Officer for Holiday Inn – Europe, Middle East and Africa and later moved to Hong Kong as Chief Financial Officer and Head of IT for Holiday Inn – Asia Pacific.

He was later seconded, as acting Managing Director, to establish new businesses in South Africa for Bass’s Leisure subsidiary. Stephen was then invited to join the Board of John Ryan Company and was appointed Executive Vice-President and Global Chief Financial Officer, with additional responsibility for IT, Logistics and HR. His next move was to join the Board of easyCar as Finance Director/Company Secretary. In 2003, Stephen joined Nottingham Trent University where he held the post of Chief Financial and Operations Officer and was co-opted as an executive member of the Board of Governors for 12 years.  He was appointed as Commercial Development Director in 2015, a position he held until 2017.

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Megan Powell Vreeswijk

Vice Chairperson

Megan joined the board in 2021 and has extensive business start-up and entrepreneurial experience. As Head of Enterprise at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), she has recently been involved in building a new £9m enterprise innovation centre funded by NTU and MHCLG (ERDF) which houses start-up, high growth and innovation driven SME’s, university spin outs, student and graduate businesses.

Megan’s background is in design, product development, fashion, textiles and manufacturing. Having run her own businesses and helped others raise funding and start theirs, she is well versed in the needs of new business growth. 

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Samantha Gordon

Director & Treasurer

Sam is the Chief Financial Officer at Bistrot Pierre restaurant group, based here in Nottingham, a position that she has held since March 2020. Prior to this, Sam spent 12 years in the sports industry, latterly at Nottingham Forest Football Club and previously Norwich City Football Club, in addition to Non-Exec Director roles with the British Basketball Federation and Norwich City Community Sports Foundation.

Sam first came to Nottingham in 2016 and feels passionate about the potential to make it an even better place to live, work and visit.

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Ben Dorks

Director

Ben is Chief Executive of Ideagen PLC a company of nearly 1,000 global employees and one of the UK’s fastest growing technology stocks listed on the London Stock market.

He has wide-ranging commercial experience gained over an extensive career of start-ups to international M&A experience.

He is passionate about making Nottingham a vibrant business first city, supporting a hybrid work life balance and creating employment opportunities both now and for the next generation.

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Richard Johal

Director

Richard Johal joined the Nottingham BID board in July 2017 to represent the interests of the BID’s hotel members. Richard is a Director of the St James Hotel located on Rutland Street, as well as being Chairman of the Nottingham Hospitality Association (formerly the Nottingham Hoteliers Association). Born in Nottingham, after completing an economics degree in Manchester, Richard had a brief spell in private banking before joining the family business, which has various hotel, conferencing and commercial property interests in Nottingham.

He has spent over three years as General Manager of the hotel, leading on its rebranding from Rutland Square Hotel to St James Hotel, as well as being a Director of the hotel and his family’s other businesses.

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Kelly Marshall-Hill

Director

Born in Nottinghamshire, Kelly is director and co-founder of The Tonic Communications, a Nottingham PR agency. After studying in Sheffield and at Nottingham Trent University, she established a career in PR before journeying to Australia to work for globally-renowned comms group, Omnicom at Porter Novell. 

Back on home soil, Kelly held management roles in two UK agencies before co-founding The Tonic and establishing the company’s HQ in the Lace Market. 

Kelly lends her experience to deliver on Nottingham BID’s vision, championing the city as a vibrant and exciting destination at a pivotal time.

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Polly Reade

Director

During the years that Polly has worked in the hospitality sector, she has gained experience in a range of different areas of the industry – bars, restaurant, events, and opening venues, skills that she will put to good use as a director of Nottingham BID.

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Nigel Wheatley

Director

Nigel, who is originally from Nottingham, became a director of Nottingham BID in 2016 due to his position as general manager of the Victoria Centre. 

He moved back to the city in 2014 from his role as general manager at intu Derby following the announcement of the centre’s £40 million remodelling and refurbishment scheme. Nigel previously worked at Next, Disney, Selfridges and Hamley's – gaining experience internationally throughout Europe, India, Russia, Vietnam and the Middle East among others.

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Geoff Williams

Director

Geoff has been on the Nottingham BID Board since its formation in 2012, and is also chairman of the Independent Advisory Group which represents the interests of independent businesses in the city.

He is the director and co founder of The Tokenhouse, an independent gift shop on St Peter’s Gate that he opened in 1973 with his wife Diz. He is also the director and founder of Lime Gallery incorporating Framework picture framers on Derby Road, another of the city’s independent businesses.

Geoff first came to Nottingham on a school trip to Nottingham Playhouse in 1967 and liked it so much he came here to study and hasn’t yet found a reason to leave.

He is passionate about keeping Nottingham a vibrant and pleasant place to visit.

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Aaron Wilson

Director

Over the last two years Aaron has been supporting multiple independent businesses within the hospitality and retail sectors. This has focussed on helping them navigate through the pandemic, continuous improvement and delivering key change projects to enable growth.

Previous to this he has spent over decade working in multiple utility companies within the city where he was responsible for delivering business improvements and IT change projects.