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Alex Svensson

Member of the Nomination & Governance Committee

Appointed 1 October 2026

Alex Svensson is a Partner at Cevian Capital. Since joining in 2014, he has played a leading role in investments across a range of sectors and geographies. Alex has worked closely with Pearson for six years, during which time Cevian has become Pearson’s largest shareholder. He brings strong knowledge of the business along with deep expertise in corporate strategy, capital allocation and governance. Alex served on the Shareholders’ Nomination Board of Tieto Corporation, the leading Nordic software and technology company

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Vivek Sharma

Appointed 1 October 2026

Vivek Sharma is the CEO and co-founder of Quantelix, which is commercialising quantum technology-enabled biosensing in a handheld device. Previously, he was CEO and co-founder of InStride, an enterprise skilling and education-technology company. Vivek also held leadership roles at The Walt Disney Company and Yahoo, having previously worked at McKinsey. He currently serves on the boards of JetBlue Airways, Coforge, and Kaiser Permanente. He is a member of Caltech's Information Science and Technology Advisory Council and an adjunct professor of data science at the University of Southern California.

Vivek graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, and holds an MBA from INSEAD, France. 

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Michael Barkin

Appointed 1 October 2026

Skills and experience

Michael Barkin serves as President and board director of Clear Secure, Inc., the secure identity company providing frictionless experiences across travel and digital applications, primarily in the United States. He will transition into an advisory role at CLEAR in October. Prior to CLEAR, Michael served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Vail Resorts, where he also led strategy and development. He also served as a Principal at KRG Capital Partners and worked at Bain Capital Partners and Bain & Company. Michael is the Board Chair of Evolve Vacation Rental Network, Inc.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College and a Masters in Business Administration from Stanford University.

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Simon Robson

Appointed 8 May 2026

Skills and experience

Simon brings extensive financial leadership from Sky, one of Europe’s largest media, technology and connectivity businesses. Having joined Sky in 1997, he has held a number of senior finance and strategy roles, including CFO of Sky Deutschland from 2015 to 2018, followed by Deputy Group CFO, before being appointed Group CFO in June 2020. A chartered certified accountant, Simon brings a strong track record of delivering high-impact financial strategy and operational excellence.

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Costis Maglaras

Member of the Audit and Reputation & Responsibility Committees
Appointed 1 November 2025

Skills and experience

Costis is Dean of Columbia Business School, where he is also the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business. As a trained technologist he has a focus on enhancing curriculum and learning to meet the demands of the rapidly changing global business landscape, and fostering a greater understanding of the role of technological breakthroughs in solving business challenges. His fields of expertise include machine learning and AI, social networks and quantitative finance. Costis has been with Columbia Business School since 1998. His industry experience over the past 15 years has been focused on different aspects of qualitative investing and trading at organisations including ADIA, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Mismi.

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Arden Hoffman

Member of the Reputation & Responsibility and Remuneration Committees
Appointed 1 June 2025

Skills and experience

Arden is the Chief People Officer and Senior Vice President at General Motors, a position she has held since 2023, overseeing Human Resources, Facilities, Security and Charitable Giving. These functions play a critical role in fostering a culture of innovation, ensuring the company attracts, retains and develops top talent in a rapidly evolving industry. She brings to the Board a strong background in human resources and talent development in the global automotive, technology and financial services sectors. Prior to General Motors, Arden served as Chief People Officer at Cruise and as Global Head of Human Resources at Dropbox, and has held senior positions in HR at Google and Goldman Sachs. She currently sits on the Advisory Board of Berkeley's College of Letters and Sciences and the Transformation CHRO Leadership Program.

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Omar Abbosh

Appointed as Chief Executive 8 January 2024

Skills and experience

Omar has a career spanning more than 30 years driving growth and transformation for leading multinational companies. He joined Pearson with a background steeped in technology and innovation, and with a deep understanding of how to shape and execute successful strategies in a world of disruption.

Most recently, Omar was the President of Microsoft Industry Solutions with responsibility for driving sales, service and solutions across Microsoft’s largest customers. While there he led industry and technical business units, including strategy, engineering, partnering and sales teams that shaped product roadmaps and strategic campaigns. Prior to Microsoft, Omar spent three decades at Accenture where he helped to orchestrate the company’s digital transformation, and led a large and highly successful business unit. He served in numerous senior leadership roles at Accenture, including Chief Strategy Officer and ultimately as Chief Executive of the global Communications, Technology and Media business.

Omar is a Non-Executive Director of Autodesk, Inc., a multinational software corporation. He was previously a Non-Executive Director of Zuora, Inc., an enterprise SaaS company. He holds a degree in electronic engineering and information sciences from the University of Cambridge and a Master’s degree in business administration from INSEAD.

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Alex Hardiman

Member of the Audit and Reputation & Responsibility Committees
Appointed 1 June 2023

Skills and experience

With more than 15 years of experience in media and technology, Alex brings to the Board deep expertise in consumer product strategy and growth, scaling subscription and digital advertising businesses, and high-quality journalism and content.

Alex currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at The New York Times, where she oversees the company’s News, Cooking, Games and Audio products that power its digital business. She also leads its enterprise-wide approach to generative AI. Alex previously spent a decade at The New York Times in several leadership roles before leaving for Facebook in 2016 where she served as Head of News Products, overseeing news experiences for Facebook consumers and publishers. Alex also spent time at The Atlantic as its Chief Business and Product Officer where she relaunched the company’s consumer offerings and subscription model.

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Alison Dolan

Member of the Audit and Remuneration Committees
Appointed 1 June 2023

Skills and experience

Alison brings to the Board extensive commercial and operational finance experience, specifically in digital businesses. In January 2025, she joined the Board of Marks and Spencer Group plc as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to this, she was the Chief Financial Officer of Rightmove plc between September 2020 and September 2024 and she held several senior financial positions at Sky plc, including Group Treasurer, Director of Finance and was the Deputy Managing Director at Sky Business. She later moved to News UK to serve as Chief Strategy Officer at the forefront of the business’s digital transformation. Alison has a master’s in Finance from University College Dublin.

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Omid Kordestani

Chair of the Nomination & Governance Committee
Appointed 1 March 2022

Skills and experience

Omid is an international businessman who serves on the board of the fintech company Klarna Group plc. He was Executive Chair of Twitter, Inc. between October 2015 and May 2020, and a Director until October 2022.

From August 2014 to August 2015, Omid served as Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer at Google and previously as Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development.

From 1995 to 1999, Omid was Vice President of Business Development at Netscape Communications Corporation, and prior to that held positions in business development, product management and marketing at The 3DOCompany, Go Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Company.

Drawing on over 30 years of experience in Silicon Valley, Omid pursues his passion for technology, science, medicine and education through active investments in technology start-ups and advising entrepreneurs.

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