Our People

Ms Kirsten Gillingham

Member of Common Room

Director of Commercial and Capital Finance

MA (Oxon), BA and MA (Cantab)

Kirsten is a qualified accountant with over 30 years’ experience in public finance, the last half of which have been spent in higher education finance and management. She graduated in Natural Sciences from King’s College, Cambridge.

Before becoming Director of Commercial and Capital Finance in the University’s Finance department she was Bursar at St Antony’s College, prior to which she was the Estates Bursar at Kellogg College, with responsibility for all the operations of the college. Previously she was the Director of Finance at the University of Brighton where her responsibilities encompassed the finance division, and the university’s student accommodation and catering services. Her other roles have included consultancy, housing finance, local authority accounting and government audit.

Kirsten is Vice Chair of CIPFA’s Academies, Colleges and Universities Panel, and Chair of the River Learning Trust (a multi-academy trust). She has contributed to publications on higher education finance and to the Institute of Education’s MBA in Higher Education Management.

She has held non-executive board positions in a range of not for profit organisations including schools, training centres, housing associations and her professional accountancy institute.