David Mason

Appointment: 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2013

David Mason retired after six years as Principal/Chief Executive of Coleg Gwent in February 2004. Before that he was Principal/Chief Executive of Amersham & Wycombe College in Buckinghamshire for five years during which time he was a member of the then FEFC Regional Committee.

A mathematics graduate from Swansea University with a master’s degree in Operational Research from Liverpool University, David spent his early post-university years in the computer industry. From 1969 he pursued a career in further and higher education and in 1983 was appointed Principal of Stroud College in Gloucestershire.

In 1987, David left the further education sector when he joined the Civil Aviation Authority as General Manager of their College of Air Traffic Control being promoted to Director of Recruitment & Training in 1989. He moved to Amersham & Wycombe College as Principal/Chief Executive in 1993.

David has been a member of the Board of the Association of Colleges, Vice Chair of fforwm (now Colleges Wales) and a non-executive Director of Careers Wales (Gwent) Limited. He has also been Wales’ Education Liaison Officer for the Institute of Directors and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Newport.

Since his retirement, David has undertaken a number of part-time consultancy projects in further education including two interim Principal posts, one managing the closure of the college and the other managing a merger.