"I first began working with Steve in a position that many student officers find themselves in; having unexpectedly won an election and now facing the reality of running an organisation and being accountable to thousands of my peers. To this day I remember one of my very first encounters with Steve when he was the NUS Development Worker for my region. As a newly elected officer, full of plans and ego, Steve had challenged some changes I wanted to make to the governance of my union. I was disgusted that NUS were trying to tell me how to run my union! However I wasn’t the first new and naive student officer Steve had worked with and he was able to use his experience and expertise to coach me to apply tried and tested principles to my leadership allowing me to recognise for myself why the changes I had wanted to make were a bad idea. This is a highly valuable trait in someone in a leadership position.

In the three years I worked with Steve as a local SU officer, he was able to provide constructive advice for the vast array of challenges that student officers are confronted with at some point in their term of office. As a president in a further education college students’ union, the kinds of issues I needed help with were vast; I had a tiny budget for campaigning and activities; most of my membership were part time and work based students and there were often challenging relationships between my union and my institution. I was able to successfully overcome many of these challenges because of the quality of advice and support and grow to become a better leader in the process. Steve’s approach is not to blindside with clichés or theory, but is practical and grounded in extensive experience.

While supporting me as a students’ union president and later as an NUS Vice President, Steve’s commitment and expertise was consistent. As VP Further Education I was able to see Steve work with staff, other sabbaticals, and students first hand. It was immediately clear to me that Steve’s understanding of the techniques and methods required to get the best out of student officers is a special talent in a movement with student leaders with diverse backgrounds, characteristics and ambitions. As a manager at NUS, Steve was characteristically responsive to the needs of the membership, for example by adapting training programmes to better address the issues a particular cohort of students faced and consistently demonstrated efficient deployment of resources, including properly utilising the skills of the staff team. On a personal level, Steve is a pleasure to work alongside and will be an asset to your team."

"I found Steve to be a highly effective and engaging partner to CollegesWales - always proposing constructive avenues for mutually beneficial work. His organisational skills were plain for people to see in the way he soundly managed NUS Wales. I enjoyed working with him and would hope to work with him again at some point in the future."

"I have worked with Steve in various capacities for many years and what I rate most about him is his positive, enthusiastic, ‘can do’ attitude. That makes him a joy to work with. He always works from a strong values driven position and has the intelligence to make good decisions. Coupled with hard work, commitment and efficiency it makes him a really effective leader. Having worked with many other people who work with him I know that he is respected and held in high opinion by them. He’s great!"