UK PBC Governing Board

Catriona Cannon
Since June 2021, Catriona has been Librarian and Director of the Library Transformation Programme at the University of London, a programme of change and investment across the University to transform the student experience, develop the library’s digital offering and create a unique centre for knowledge and engagement within Bloomsbury. She has held leadership positions in a wide variety of higher education institutions including most recently as Deputy Librarian of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford and Vice-President of Reuben College, Oxford, where she also served as Senior Responsible Owner for the project to redevelop listed buildings into the College home.

Ann Rossiter
Ann is Executive Director of SCONUL, the professional association for academic and research libraries in the UK and Ireland, including almost all UK university libraries. She has been in post since 2010, before which she was a government Special Adviser including in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. She has a background in public policy research and consultancy and has written extensively on a wide range of policy issues including the development of public services.

Andy Appleyard
Andy is the Senior Director of Operations North and Commercial Services at the British Library, the UK’s national library and custodian of more than 170 million collection items. In addition to overseeing day-to-day operations at Boston Spa. He leads the Library’s £100 million development programme, which will deliver a third high-density, automated, low-oxygen print repository by autumn 2026. Prior to joining the British Library, he served as Plant Manager at (Nippon) Denso Marston Ltd, where he oversaw the manufacture of automotive heat exchangers.

Azhar Hussain
Azhar is the Head of Product at Jisc, providing strategic direction to drive the development, delivery, and long-term success of products and services that support library and research functions within UK higher education. He combines deep product management expertise with strong commercial acumen and has a proven track record of shaping product portfolios, guiding sector-informed innovation, and delivering high-value outcomes for customers and stakeholders. Before joining Jisc, Azhar held senior roles in higher education and the NHS, bringing over 15 years of experience in research management and the strategic advancement of digital services in education and research.

Jane Saunders
Jane is Associate Director for Content and Discovery at the University of Leeds Libraries.  Keen to work with others to improve access to content she is a member of the Jisc Library Hub Community Advisory Board, the Libraries Board of the Open Journals Collective and SCONUL’s Technology and Markets Strategy Group.  She is also a member of RLUK’s Collections Strategy Network and convenes the network’s Print Storage Group.

Ruth Livesey
Ruth is Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation and Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her teaching and research has involved collaborations with libraries and archives in universities and the in public sector over many years in relation to nineteenth-century literary heritage. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Theo Stubbs
Theo is Head of Academic Services at the University of Huddersfield, a role he has held since 2022. Prior to joining Huddersfield, he held various roles at Imperial (where he was also involved in the UKRR project), King’s, and Leeds Arts University. He is also a member of the Academic Libraries North Steering Group and the European Print Initiatives Collaboration.

Michael Williams
As Head of Collection Development & Management, Michael leads the strategic development of physical and electronic collections in support of research, teaching and learning. He is responsible for collections policy, acquisition and description of modern collections, for Legal Deposit and for collection management, which includes the off-site Library Storage Facility in Ely.Michael has 25 years’ experience in academic libraries, starting his career in Oxford where he worked on the Google Books digitization project and the £80m refurbishment of the Weston Library, part of the Bodleian Libraries. His professional interests include library buildings and large-scale collection management.

David Prosser
Since March 2010 David has been the Executive Director of RLUK, the representative body for the UK’s leading research libraries.  Before moving to RLUK, he was, from 2002, the founding Director of SPARC Europe, an alliance of over 110 research-led university libraries from 14 European countries advocating new models of scholarly communication.  Previously, he spent ten years in science, technical, and medical journal publishing.

Joanna Little
Joanna is a programme and project manager with a background in local government and higher education. Prior to working for RLUK, she was a programme manager at the University of Sussex. Before that she was a programme manager for the London Borough of Brent. The UK PBC is the third library programme she has managed.