LLA Leaders’ breakfast

Professor Shearer West became the University of Leeds’ fourteenth Vice-Chancellor and President in 2024. An internationally respected art historian, she previously held senior leadership roles across the UK higher education sector. She earned a BA in Art History and English from the College of William and Mary in the USA and a PhD in Art History from the University of St Andrews. In recognition of her contribution to higher education, she was awarded a CBE in the 2021 Queen’s New Year Honours.

Following early work as an editor for the Grove Dictionary of Art, Professor West built a distinguished academic and leadership career at the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham before moving into major national and international roles. These included Director of Research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Head of the Humanities Division at Oxford, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Sheffield, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham.

Alongside her university leadership, she has held numerous board and advisory roles in the UK and globally, contributed to major research and policy initiatives, and published widely in art history. She is also a board member and deputy chair of the Russell Group, which provides strategic advice, policy development and representation for the UK’s 24 leading research-intensive universities.

Born at St Luke’s Hospital in Bradford and raised in Batley Carr, Dewsbury, he studied at the University of Leeds, completing both his degree and postgraduate research. He worked for the European Parliament from 1979 to 1983 before helping to establish the national charity Church Action on Poverty, where he worked until 1987. He was a Leeds City Councillor (1980–1987), chairing the Industry and Employment Development Committee, before he was elected MP for Leeds West in 1987, serving until 2010. During this time, he held ministerial roles in the Department of Trade and Industry and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and later served on Select Committees.

He has lived in Armley since 1986 and is married with three children and five grandchildren. Alongside his formal roles, he has remained closely involved in community life in West Leeds, volunteering locally and serving as Chair of Bramley Baths and Leeds Citizens. He has also been a trustee of several charities, including New Wortley Community Centre, BARCA Leeds, Citizens UK, and the Living Wage Foundation. A lifelong sports fan, he follows Leeds United and Leeds Rhinos with enduring optimism.