Biography
Simon started at the RAU as Finance Director, then became University Treasurer, and is now Executive Advisor. He chairs the Research Degree Awarding Powers Steering Group and the Partnerships Committee, and is Vice-Chair of the Development & Fundraising Steering Group. He is also the RAU’s representative on the Oxford University Delegacy of Military Instruction. Simon sits on the Vice-Chancellor's Executive Group, and attends all Council, Finance & Estates, and Audit & Risk committee meetings.
After graduating with degrees in Finance from Birmingham University, and Management from Oxford University, Simon worked as an investment banker on Wall Street for 10 years, and then in the City of London, specialising in trans-Atlantic and global mergers and acquisitions, ultimately as an Executive Director. He then returned to the US, and ran his own Real Estate company in Virginia for 10 years. Following this, Simon was appointed as the first Senior & Finance Bursar of his old Oxford college, where he spent seven and a half years transforming its financial health, and serving on all the college's core committees. As part of that financial restructuring, he executed a £20m private placement with a 50-year maturity, at a fixed rate of 2.525%, representing the keenest terms of any Oxford private placement at the time.
