Senior Leadership Team

Kate Board, Chief Executive

Kate Board joined the organisation in 2008. Before this, she worked for thirty years for the British Council. Beginning her career as a Teacher of English in Afghanistan, Kate subsequently worked at senior management level in a number of countries including Colombia, Germany, Spain and Peru before taking on the post of Regional Director for the Americas (2000–2002) and later Geographical Director, with responsibility for the whole of the Overseas Network (110 countries) and a member of the British Council’s Executive Board (2005 – 2008).

Born in Oxfordshire in 1952, Kate spent most of her childhood in Hampshire. She was educated at La Sagesse Convent in Romsey, Hampshire and Royal Holloway College, University of London where she gained a BA (Hons) degree in German and English.  She later obtained an MA with Distinction from the University of Leeds in Applied Linguistics and Phonetics and worked as a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Phonetics in the English Dept at the University of Ghent in Belgium.   

Kate’s many years working abroad has developed her passion for languages and intercultural understanding.  She feels enormously privileged to have had the experience of an international career and wants to encourage and inspire young people to learn languages so that they can also experience the world first hand in their working life.

Geoff Swinn, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Education and Skills

Before taking up this post, Geoff was Languages Strategy Adviser for Sheffield local authority where he produced the City Languages Strategy; supported MFL in schools; contributed to the 14-19 skills agenda and community languages developments; participated in improved programmes for schools requiring support; promoted good practice; liaised with key partners and stakeholders; represented Sheffield regionally and nationally; provided high-quality INSET for teachers and implemented national priorities for MFL. Geoff participated in a number of CILT projects by acting as Comenius Manager and primary languages Regional Support Group coordinator for South Yorkshire, Lead Professional for the Secondary National Strategy/CILT KS3 MFL Dissemination and Development Programme and as a National Trainer for the KS2 Framework Training Programme. As a member of the steering group for the Vocational International Project Sheffield, he was a recipient of the European Award for Languages 2006. Geoff is a National Executive member of the National Association of Language Advisers.

Following an honours degree in French and History and a PGCE from the University of Leeds, Geoff had a 29 year career in languages teaching. The last six years of this saw him in senior management positions as an Assistant Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher of a large Specialist Language College. He had previously had responsibility for staff development and been Head of Upper School and Head of Lower School.

Teresa Tinsley, Director of Communications

Teresa Tinsley has been Director of Communications at CILT, the National Centre for Languages, since 2003 and is responsible for the strategic development of the organisation’s communications, information services and marketing. Her responsibilities include CILT’s web presence, library and research services, events programme, publishing operations, and PR activities.

Teresa has wide experience of European projects. She directed the ELAN research project on the economic value of languages to European business, and was co-leader of the Council of Europe’s VALEUR project (Valuing all languages in Europe). Before joining CILT in 1992 she was a staff member of the Spanish Embassy in London and was instrumental in developing the promotion of Spanish as a foreign language in the UK. She served for eight years as governor of a London comprehensive school and has been Secretary of the Association for Contemporary Iberian Studies.

Teresa was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, but spent her childhood in the West Country where she attended Edgehill College, Bideford and North Devon College, Barnstaple. Her first degree is in Spanish and Linguistics (Essex University, 1979) and she has a post-graduate qualification in Education from the Institute of Education, London. She has lived and worked in Spain and has used her Spanish and French language skills in working environments in both public and private sectors. She is the author of several books including an adaptation/translation of a Spanish Grammar, and regularly contributes to press and journals. 

Ceri James, Director - CILT Cymru

Growing up in a Welsh-speaking household in Swansea and having a mother who was a teacher of foreign languages, Ceri was made aware at an early age of the importance of all languages, and of the disadvantages of remaining monolingual. Having studied French and German (Joint Hons) at Jesus College, Oxford, Ceri’s first post was as a teacher in a comprehensive school in Oxfordshire. He later became Head of MFL at a Welsh-medium comprehensive school in South Wales.

In 1989 he left teaching to join the Welsh Joint Education Committee as an examinations officer (GCSE & A Level), and developer of teaching resources for MFL. During his time with WJEC he also joined its European Unit, successfully bidding for and managing a number of Socrates transnational projects. In the late 1990s Ceri started to collaborate with CILT, and worked closely with the late Peter Boaks to bring the National Comenius Centre of Wales to WJEC, UWIC and the University of Wales, Bangor. Ceri became an employee of CILT in 1999, and was delighted when CILT Cymru was launched in 2002 as the ‘delivery arm’ of the first Welsh Assembly Government strategy for MFL.

Ceri became Director of CILT Cymru in 2004, and leads a small but dynamic team based in Cardiff Bay. He remains as convinced as ever of the value of learning languages, and of the contribution that they can make to developing skilled, mobile and tolerant individuals and societies. On a personal level, however, he concedes that learning Polish is not as easy as it might have been 30 years ago!