MIUC Leadership

Yair Ziv – Investor and Vice-President of the Board

Mr Yair Ziv a well-known entrepreneur with 30+ years of international experience in mining, oil & gas, commodity trading, corporate finance and hi-tech investments. Mr Ziv has a vast experience in capital markets and commercial property investment management in the OECD and in emerging markets. From 1993 to 2003, he served as a Director of Subsidiaries for Topland Group PLC, a major investment company in UK commercial property, with a portfolio valued at over GBP 2.5 billion.

He has a degree in political science from Tel Aviv University and, after some further academic study and a period in the Israeli Foreign Office, he became the General Manager of Meridian Commodities, a group trading in bulk grains and foodstuffs. During his time at Meridian Commodities, Yair acquired expertise in international finance, banking and company administration. In the past he was also a director and CFO of Target Resources, a London AIM quoted diamond & gold mining company.

Yair is a co-founder and a shareholder of Marbella International University Center & JumpGate Ventures LP, a Venture Capital firm that invested in over 30+ start-ups in the digital technology space in Israel, UK and the US. Yair is fluent in English and Hebrew.

Prof Dr Nada Popovic Perisic – FMK President, Singidunum University

President and founder of the Faculty for Media and Communication in Belgrade. Minister of Culture in the Government of the Republic of Serbia (1994-1998). Ambassador of Serbia to the UNESCO in Paris, France (1999-2001).

She graduated at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in 1972 (General Literature with Theory), and at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade at the Department for Philosophy. She completed her M. A. work at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in 1976 on the topic of “Roland Barthes’ Views on the Nature of Meaning in Literature”. Between 1972 and 1974 she was a fellow of the French government at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, France, with Roland Barthes as professor. She completed her doctoral thesis “The Notion of Women’s Writing in Contemporary French Literary-Theoretical Thought” in 1987 at the University of Zagreb, the Faculty of Philosophy.

Elected to the title of scientific adviser in 1988. Lectured at the Université Bordeaux 3 in Bordeaux (1980-1984), at the Université Lyon 2, in Lyon (1988-1991), and at the Université Paris 7, Jussieu, France (1991/92 and 2002/2004). She was also a fellow of the Scientific Community of the Republic (of Serbia) at the University of New York in America (1988). From 1987 to 1991 she was one of the co-director for two programs of postgraduate studies at the Inter-University Center in Dubrovnik. The program “Beyond Images: Women, Culture and Art” organized by the Institute for Literature in Belgrade, Université Paris 7 and the University of Amsterdam and program “The Feminist Dialectic of Enlightenment” organized by the University of Amsterdam, the University of Utrecht, the University of Berlin, the University of Frankfurt and the Institute for Literature in Belgrade.

Published over 50 articles in domestic and foreign journals, and has translated the following books from French into Serbian: Jean Piaget, Le structuralisme and Georges Mounin, Linguistique et philosophie. She is author of the book Literature as Seduction. A member of the Associations of Writers from 1980. She was permanent critic of poetry of the Serbian weekly NIN.

Prof Dr Peter John- University of West London, Vice-Chancellor and CEO

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter John, has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s 2020 New Year honours list for his outstanding work and service to higher education.

Professor John has worked in the sector for more than 30 years and joined the University of West London in late 2007 after a successful career at universities from all quarters of the sector.

A graduate of the Universities of Wales, London, Oxford (Jesus College), and Bristol (where he obtained his doctorate), Peter was originally an historian but is now a leading educationist. He is the author of seven books and numerous papers in journals. His latest book: Dimensions of Marketization in Higher Education was published by Routledge in 2016 (with Joelle Fanghanel). His first book, Civilisation Britannique, was published by Hachette in 1992 and is still used extensively in French Universities. During his academic career Peter was the recipient of over £3m in research funding, holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Plymouth, and is a visiting professor at the Universities of Fuzhou and Shaoguan in China.

In 2015 he was a finalist for the Guardian’s most Inspiring University Leader of the Year and in 2017 led the University of West London to being awarded the Times Higher Outstanding Senior Leadership Team as well as being shortlisted, a year later, for the prestigious University of the Year Award.

Prof Dr Anthony Woodman –  University of West London, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost for Health

Professor Woodman is Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost for Health with a remit to drive research, enterprise, innovation and external engagement across the University.

Until 2007 Professor Woodman was Professor of Translation Medicine at Cranfield University, prior to becoming chief executive of ICRI Global Research; a privately owned knowledge-based organisation providing support and training in clinical drug development in India, Singapore and the UK. Anthony joined the University of West London in October 2011.

Professor Woodman studied at Sunderland Polytechnic before gaining a master’s degree with distinction in experimental pathology / toxicology followed by a doctorate in pathology both from the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, University of London, with postdoctoral experience at Dublin City University and John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford. His research discipline is molecular oncology and specifically the development and implementation of diagnostic and prognostic platforms informing care and management of cancer patients; research that has been undertaken in collaboration with major pharmaceutical companies including Roche (formally Boehringer Mannheim) and GSK. With over 125 full papers and conference proceedings, Professor Woodman’s area of translational medicine was rated 4* in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.