Organising Committee

Linda Spinks
Continuous Improvement Lead at University of Cambridge, Chair of LeanHE North and Midlands and member of the European and Global Steering Groups

Linda has worked at the University of Cambridge since 2004 both as a Business Analyst and more recently asContinuous Improvement Lead within the Change and Programme Management Office. She is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, an LCS accredited trainer, and has been delivering training in continuous improvement to staff across the collegiate University since 2017. In addition to this, she has worked with many teams to help them improve their processes.

She is an active member of the LeanHE Global community, as Chair of the North and Midlands and a member of European and Global steering groups and by presenting at conferences. She has contributed chapters to the books "Global Lean for Higher Education - A Themed Anthology of Case Studies, Approaches, and Tools" (Yorkstone), and "Hoshin Kanri in Higher Education - A Guide to Strategy Development, Deployment, and Management" (Balzer and Sinha).

---

Kelly Billington
Digital Improvement Analyst

Trained in Lean and Graphic Design, Kelly has combined these skills, along with her specialist knowledge of the MS Suite, to support the development of digitally enabled improvement across the university.

---

Elena Carpenter
Continuous Improvement Advisor 

Lean Practitioner qualified, Elena's skills and experience span learning and development in banking, youth work and the charity sector, finance and internal ops for an impact consultancy and business analysis for the University’s Finance Division. The common thread across these is change.

Elena believes successful change happens when you plan for the impact on people, process and organisational culture collectively. Outside of the University Elena is a qualified coach and works with clients in a variety of settings.

---

Michelle Fordham
Continuous Improvement Advisor 

With a background in publishing and operations, Michelle is Lean Six Sigma qualified and trained in change management. Pragmatic and process minded, she combines active support of continuous improvement activity across the University with the delivery of LCS (Lean Competency System) accredited Lean training to University colleagues.

---

Rebecca Shipley
Continuous Improvement Advisor 

Rebecca has worked the University of Cambridge since 2020 and has been part of the Continuous Improvement team since November 2021. She is an LCS accredited trainer and in 2023 received a distinction in a Level 4 Improvement Practitioner Apprenticeship. Her interest in all things continuous improvement was piqued when she attended Introduction to Lean training and realised that there was a whole framework for what she thought was just common sense thinking. Rebecca loves getting involved in some process mapping and can be found extolling the virtues of 5S and the impact/difficult matrix to anyone who will listen.

She has presented at previous Lean in HE conferences and contributed to a chapter in "Hoshin Kanri in Higher Education - A Guide to Strategy Development, Deployment, and Management" (Balzer and Sinha).