Stuart Coussins

Background

About Stuart Coussins

Personal Profile: I am a strategic education and skills consultant with senior leadership experience across the higher education, further education, and climate-tech sectors. Following my tenure as Executive Head of Quality & Compliance at Oxford Business College, I now support institutions and organisations navigating complex regulatory landscapes, sector transformation, and skills-driven innovation. My current portfolio spans: • Governance and quality assurance for UK higher education providers (OfS, Ofsted, ESFA) • Academic and operational policy development • Programme validation and modular curriculum design • Skills strategy for emerging sectors (e.g. low-carbon energy, retrofit tech) • Investor and roadmap support for edtech and impact-led SaaS platforms As a consultant, I have advised both public and private HE institutions on OfS conditions of registration, strategic governance, and academic assurance, with a particular focus on change-readiness, regulatory alignment, and institutional growth. My contributions include designing risk-based governance frameworks, auditing academic policies, and shaping QSR preparedness. Alongside this, I advised a pre-seed climate-tech start-up building a B2B SaaS platform to accelerate low-carbon retrofit delivery through enterprise energy partners. My work focused on workforce enablement, skills metrics, and role-based learning architecture to support installer behaviour change and compliance in line with UK decarbonisation and EU Fit for 55 targets. Previously, at Oxford Business College, I led the development and implementation of a new Corporate Academic Governance Framework (CAGF), risk dashboards, and regulatory engagement protocols during a period of sector-wide scrutiny. Prior to that, I managed a £5m HE portfolio at USP College, securing OfS registration and a TEF Silver rating while delivering high-performing student experience outcomes. I bring deep expertise in compliance-led leadership, institutional resilience, and education for transition economies. I am currently open to interim, fractional, or permanent opportunities in higher education leadership, academic governance, skills strategy, and regulatory transformation.