Baroness to visit University

Shadow Minister for Children, Schools and Families, Baroness Sandip Verma, will visit the Compton Campus on Friday, 13 November 2009.

The lecture, organised by the Management Research Centre, is titled Achieving in Business and Education and will take place in room CA026 from 12.30pm to 1.30pm, including time for questions.

Professor Mike Haynes, Joint Head of the MRC, said: “The University is pleased to be able to give staff and students the opportunity to hear a distinguished politician and businesswoman whose successes have enabled her to make a mark in the community both nationally and locally.”

Baroness Verma was elevated to the House of Lords in 2006 and in the same year was promoted to the front benches as Shadow Minister for Health, Education and Skills and Opposition Whip. In the process she became the first South Asian woman to sit on the front benches, across both Houses of Parliament.

Subsequent promotions have seen her appointed as Shadow Minister for Universities, Innovation and Skills in 2007 and Shadow Minister for Children, Schools and Families in 2008.

Baroness Verma has a background in business, having established a family textiles business with her husband in the 1980s, supplying high fashion garments to high street stores in the UK and Europe. When the textiles industry in the UK declined, they set up two businesses they now run. Domicillary Care Services Ltd provides personal care to assist users to live in their own homes, while DCS Foods Ltd is the sole distributors for rice suitable for diabetics in the UK and Europe and was the winner of the 2008 New Product category of the Food and Drink Innovation Network awards supported by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA).

The seminar is aimed at academics, students and interested members of the public. The event is free and people interested in attending can contact Stephen Greenfield on stephengreenfield@wlv.ac.uk or call 01902 32 1772.

Further information

Picture: Baroness Sandip Verma

For more information please contact Vickie Woodward in the Media Relations Office on 01902 322736