Lorna Walker

Vice-Principal Strategy, Performance and Culture

Lorna’s role brings education, people and enterprise together to drive UHI’s strategic direction, ensuring we measure our performance and create an inclusive culture which promotes our values and an excellent experience for our students.

Lorna has had an extensive career in leadership roles in both the private and public sectors. She believes a good customer experience is the natural consequence of a good employee experience, and that business success is achieved more readily when these factors come together. 

Lorna graduated in business and marketing, with a postgraduate masters in employment law. She began her career in local government, moving into higher education in 2015 as the director of human resources at the Royal College of Art. 

Lorna joined UHI as a member of the senior executive team in March 2021 to lead greater alignment in organisational design and people practices across our partnership and moved into her current vice-principal role in November 2022. She retains a key interest in human resource management, organisational design and development, and equality, diversity and inclusion. Her current portfolio also includes institutional strategy, corporate communications, planning and performance, IT and digital infrastructure and student experience.

She has played an active role as a member of the executive committee for Universities HR and she mentors aspiring and newly appointed HR directors. She is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and an institutional champion for Advance HE’s ‘Aurora’ programme which supports the development of women into leadership roles in higher education.