Professor Petra Wend joined London Metropolitan University’s Board of Governors as an Independent Governor in March 2023. Petra serves on the People, Finance and Resource Committee.
Professor Petra Wend is the immediate past Principal and Vice-Chancellor at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. Before that, Petra held a number of academic and leadership roles in English universities. Petra originally read Italian and French Language and Literature, and Education at the University of Münster (Germany) and gained a PhD (Italian Language and Literature) at Leeds University. Petra is a linguist by background, but has also researched and published on institutional strategies, leadership and management. Petra is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and has been a member of a number of its committees. Petra is a Chair or Member of a number of national and international boards and speaks frequently on higher education topics at British and international events. This encompasses being Chair of the Board of Hamburg University in Germany.
Petra has campaigned for and worked in widening participation in universities both in her various leadership roles in Higher Education but also as a Commissioner for Widening Access for the Scottish Government. Petra regularly advises Ministers of Education in Germany on research and research strategies for universities and audits German universities’ internationalisation strategies for the German Rectors’ Conference. For her work in widening participation in higher education she was awarded a CBE in 2020 and an honorary doctorate in the same year.
