Introducing Oriel’s Incoming Treasurer Margaret Jones

After completing her MA in Jurisprudence at Pembroke College, Oxford, Margaret trained as an accountant with KPMG Peat Marwick. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales and a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia. Margaret credits her time at Oxford with giving her the skills required to forge a career path defined by her curiosity and ability to tackle complexity, whatever field she finds herself working in.

Margaret’s early career after qualifying specialised in business transformation in the Financial Services sector and the Lloyds Market. Her particular interest in the change management issues around the implementation of the then-emerging Enterprise Resource Planning systems led her to work on major projects for Oxford University Press, GlaxoSmithKline, Cable and Wireless and T-Mobile.  Following a family move to Australia and an enjoyable career break she was appointed as Director of Finance and Corporate Services for the Royal Sydney Botanic Gardens and Centennial Parklands leading the integration of the Finance, IT, Administration, HR, Governance and Ministerial Liaison, and Philanthropy and Corporate Partnership functions. 

On returning to the UK, Margaret was appointed Finance and Corporate Services Director, and subsequently Chief Executive Officer of the Cyber Security Challenge, a not for profit organisation whose mission is to encourage new and diverse talent into the cyber security industry. She has designed and delivered immersive programmes and cyber security competitions for a range of organisations and in doing so developed a keen interest in the ability of this emerging discipline to provide opportunity for the socio-economically disadvantaged through early engagement and education.

Asked what drew her away from the Cyber Security Challenge to this role at Oriel, Margaret said: “I would say that there are two themes that run through all my experience: the desire to work on complex endeavours which deliver a social good, and the enjoyment of working on challenges that are best served by a team effort. The world is facing complex and difficult times and Oriel is nurturing our deepest thinkers who will be faced with tackling these; I want to use my wide corporate experience to provide the best environment for these thinkers to do their work. I’m looking forward to becoming an Oriel Fellow and to working with the Provost and other members of the College’s Governing Body.”

When taking a break from applying her analytical skills to work projects, Margaret is a keen orienteer and travels widely with her family to compete in the sport. This year she took part in the OMM-Lite for the first time, which proved an enjoyable experience even though the weather proved rather too good for a proper challenge!

We look forward to welcoming Margaret, who will become the College’s first female Treasurer, to Oriel. Margaret succeeds Wilf Stephenson, who is retiring after 16 years at the College.