Carol Cook - Bloomsbury Institute London

I joined the Board of Bloomsbury Institute (then the London School of Business and Management) in 2017 and was appointed to Chair a year later. My previous board experience has been in relation to charitable arts organisations.

I left school at 16 and didn’t know what to do with myself. I was a slow starter! I eventually decided to pursue a career as a lawyer and qualified as a solicitor when I was 31. I worked in a large high street practice in Huddersfield working primarily in the areas of company law, commercial law and employment law. I left private practice in 1995 and have since pursued a career in legal professional education and training, working in both the public and private sector.

In 2011 I undertook a secondment to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) where I developed expertise in the regulation of education and training. I took up the post of Manager, Quality and Standards at the SRA in 2013, joining the education and policy team at the beginning of its work to introduce a new solicitor qualification.

I am currently self-employed and have undertaken recent consultancy work for CILEx Regulation, the Cost Lawyers Standards Board, Kaplan and the College of Chinese Integrated Medicine.

Interests

I believe wholeheartedly that everyone should have the opportunity to learn, whether that be in a formal education setting or in a work and training environment.

Obtaining a law degree was the first (and essential) transformative step for me, but I would say that this was just the start and I have been lucky to work with diverse and talented colleagues from whom I have been able to learn. I am passionate about initiatives, behaviours and attitudes that strive to create an enabling environment which provides such opportunities for all.

I am also interested in the role and function of regulation. When working at the SRA I led on some red tape initiatives in relation to education and training. As a consequence I’m much more inclined to question it now!