Christina Matthews is a higher education leader, innovator, and thought leader in student success, employability, and institutional transformation. As Executive Director of Student Life at University of Staffordshire, she leads a comprehensive portfolio encompassing student support, wellbeing, student engagement, careers and employability, academic and digital skills, international student services, safeguarding, and student success initiatives.

Over the course of her career, Christina has led major organisational change programmes designed to improve student outcomes, strengthen graduate employability, and create more connected and personalised student experiences. Her work focuses on how universities can integrate support, skills development, career readiness, analytics, and emerging technologies to help students thrive both during and beyond their studies.

Christina is the creator of the Integrated Student Outcomes Model (ISOM), an innovative framework that combines personalised capability assessment, artificial intelligence, student support, employability development, and longitudinal outcomes measurement. Her work explores how institutions can move beyond fragmented interventions towards whole-institution approaches that demonstrably improve student success and graduate outcomes.

She is an active contributor to the global higher education community through sector publications, conference presentations, peer review, editorial leadership, and innovation initiatives. Christina serves as an Assistant Editor for TEAM (Technology, Education, Assessment and Management) and has acted as a peer reviewer for multiple international journals. She has also been invited to judge international awards recognising excellence in educational innovation and student impact.

Her interests include student success, educational innovation, employability, artificial intelligence in higher education, learning analytics, student wellbeing, institutional strategy, and the future of higher education. As a QS Reimagine Education Awards judge, Christina brings both strategic leadership experience and practical expertise in evaluating innovations that create measurable and lasting impact for learners, institutions, and society.