Meet the Board

Alan Brayley, Past President

Alan is the founder and Chairman of AB Glass Ltd, the multi award winning manufacturers and Installers, Alan has a number of other business ventures and is a well-known and active member of the local business community. Alan is also a retired  Army reservist with over 20 years’ service. Alan says “starting a business from scratch can be a lonely place at times, it is stressful and all-consuming but the rewards can be mind-blowing”. Alan brings a wealth of personal and business experience to the board of the Swansea Bay Business Club.

Alison Vickers, Treasurer

Alison is a partner at regional chartered accountants, tax and financial planners, Bevan & Buckland. She is a fully qualified chartered accountant and provides financial, accounting and tax advice and support to a range of owner-managed businesses throughout South-west Wales. She specialises in the not-for-profit sector and regularly runs training courses for charities.

Natasha Fulford, Board Member

Natasha is the Managing Director of multi award-winning PR and communications agency reThink PR & Marketing. A former broadcast and national newspaper journalist, Natasha started working in PR in 1999 for one of the UK’s largest agencies. Since returning to Swansea in 2003 she has helped position reThink PR & Marketing as one of Wales’ most respected communications agencies, which has sat on the highly coveted Welsh Government approved supplier framework for almost ten years. She has won numerous industry awards for her PR work and is one of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ most awarded PR professionals in Wales.

Jonathan Richards, Board Member

Jonathan is a Relationship Director with Lloyds Bank covering the Swansea and West Wales market, supporting SME clients with turnovers between £1m – £25m. He has over 18 years experience as a Commercial Manager, where his role involves the management of a diverse portfolio of clients who operate in a number of different industry sectors.

Mark Sullivan, Board Member

Mark is the managing director of Thomas Carroll Brokers Swansea Ltd.  With more than 30 years of commercial insurance experience, Mark has a wealth of knowledge across a variety of business sizes and sectors, ranging from property and construction to life sciences and manufacturing risks.  Mark serves on the Swansea and West Wales Chartered Insurance Institute council and is to become the local president for the second time in 2020.

Ryan David Miles, Board Member

Ryan is the Co director of Miles Hire Limited, a plant , tool and powered access company with depots in Swansea, Bridgend and Cardiff.  Originally starting in 2003 with his brother Darren and father David, the family company has grown with several depots, winning “Hire company of the Year” in the UK in both 2017 and 2020, the only Welsh company ever to do so.  Ryan is passionate about promoting the construction industry and is co director of the Welsh Construction show, the largest construction specific event in Wales.

Louisa Huxtable-Thomas, Board Member

Louisa is an Associate Professor in the School of Management and leads on engagement and impact, as well as coordinating our Executive Education provision. Combining theories and empirical knowledge gleaned from the fields of business, social science, education and psychology, Louisa’s research interests relate to how people’s behaviours, either as leaders, entrepreneurs or policy makers have an influence on societal and economic welfare.

Louisa had a varied early career encompassing work in environmental consultancy, policy making at Regional and Local Government level as well as business support and incubation. Louisa’s doctoral research brought all of this prior knowledge together and identified the ways in which businesses can successfully participate in environmental policy making.  After completing her PhD in 2009, Louisa’s research interest increasingly moved towards business and management, rather than environmental policy, but always in parallel to practical projects that worked directly to assist the economy of Wales.  Louisa has played a key role supporting businesses through projects such as incubation, innovation and commercialisation as well as early stage R&D. Not limiting herself to the field of entrepreneurship, Louisa has also worked with academics in fields as diverse as healthcare, e-marketing, education, low carbon energy, information systems, manufacturing and tourism. Most recently she has been working with renowned colleague Professor Paul Hannon to deliver a programme of entrepreneurial leadership development to senior managers of Malaysian Universities.