“My portrait was taken in the Green MacCurdy Room. I love to take Old Members through to this room to chat about Corpus. The room represents both conversation and community to me, two essential ingredients of collegiate life. I think it is the richness of the conversations and of our interactions as a community that are usually the source of donors’ deep attachment to College, so this room embodies those qualities for me.

I am seated with the Book of Benefactors, usually in a display case in the Taylor Library and in which the names of major donors are beautifully inscribed. 

Behind me are books from my school. I read MML at Oxford, all down to the might of a tiny nun, Sister Gabriel, who on receipt of my A level results gave me the key to the modern languages bookstore and told me to take a copy of every French and Italian book and read as many as possible before my interview at The Queen’s College. Without her direction, I would not be in this photograph.

 In my pocket, I am holding a jade heart, passed down from my grandmother to my mother and which I will pass on to my children. I come from a family of Lancashire weavers and miners. The women were hardworking and proud and had high hopes for the betterment of the next generation. It gives me joy to think I have achieved their dream – to be well educated and to be offering service to education in my current role.

I never consciously think about being female. My whole focus is on getting a good job done and Corpus offers the opportunity to do good work for the best cause in the world – brilliant education in a world-class environment.”

Rachel graduated from The Queen’s College, Oxford, with a degree in Modern Languages (French and Italian). She has sat on its  Governing Body Development Committee since 2010.  After graduating, Rachel pursued a career spanning 20 years in the retail sector, specifically in the Head Offices of Marks & Spencer and Tesco. Rachel’s career evolved from leading buying departments to strategic restructuring and change management projects, ultimately heading up training and development for the majority of Tesco Head Office functions. Rachel moved to Corpus from St Catharine’s College, where she was Deputy Director of Development. Whilst there she used her expertise to support the development and delivery of their strategic plan, and played a major role in fundraising for the resulting £65m campaign.

For the last 15 years Rachel has been a governor and latterly Joint Chair of Governors at Hockerill Anglo-European College, a leading State secondary school in Bishop’s Stortford. In that time she set up its Development Office and fundraising function for two multi-million pound capital projects. At a local level, over the past 25 years Rachel has also been involved in numerous village clubs, committees and charities, raising funds for local causes.