Board of Directors

Martin is a Chartered Accountant who moved into commercial, community and workplace mediation when he qualified as a commercial mediator after training with CEDR. Martin is a Civil Mediation Council (CMC) Registered Mediator, is an Expert Determiner with the Academy of Experts, as well as being a member of the Society of Mediators.

Denice Houslin has been an active member of the College since 2012, becoming Chair of the Practice Standards committee, and a member of the board, in 2021. She trained as a mediator in 2007, initially in neighbour and community mediation, before becoming a college accredited mediator, supervisor and trainer. She now specialises in mediation with families in pre-social care and social care settings, workplace mediation in the NHS and in training new mediators, in particular social care professionals, training over 100 mediators to date. As well as all things mediation, she works three days a week, as a senior manager for a benevolent charity, supporting engineers and their families. In her spare time Denice volunteers with Adventist Radio London, recording a monthly show with three others called ‘Family matters’.

Ryan joined the College’s board of Directors in 2019. He currently supports the College in maintaining and advancing standards, event organisation and website development.

His contributions to access and inclusion within mediation were recognised by the College of Mediators and The Civil Mediation Council when he was awarded community mediator of the year 2018-2019.

He is a Family Mediator, FMC accredited to mediate financial and child arrangements, qualified civil and commercial mediator, disability mediator, qualified master mentor/coach and provides disability awareness training.

Ryan has completed over 500 mediations. He co-founded the disability mediation standards and sits on the working group for the equality and diversity standards.

You could describe Ryan as tenacious after having approximately 200 operations due to multiple eye conditions. Although being a blind mediator has many hurdles, he has managed to overcome these by refining and developing his mediation techniques/processes.

Memberships: College of Mediators, Family Mediation Council, Family Mediator’s Association, European Mentoring and Coaching Council.

Ryan is an advocate for disability rights and has worked alongside the Equality and Human Rights Commission and was a Samaritans for 9 years.

He runs his own successful mediation company Access Mediation Services.

Chris Makin joined the Board early in 2021 to help develop civil & commercial mediation in the College. He is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, of the Chartered Management Institute and of the Academy of Experts, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He is accredited as a mediator by the Academy of Experts and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and is also an accredited expert determiner (a specialised form of arbitration). After a 20-year career as a general practitioner, from sole trader to partner in an international firm, he has been a full-time forensic accountant and expert witness for over 30 years. Having spent far too long with lawyers and in courts of law (in which, regrettably, he is still active!) he is a keen advocate of mediation (120 to date) and expert determination (40 to date). At ICAEW he has served on the forensic committee and the ethics advisory committee, and he continues to serve on the investigation committee at the Academy of Experts. He also serves as a volunteer counsellor for chartered accountants with ethical and disciplinary problems.

Hugo Besterman joined the Board in 2022 as a specialist in SEND Mediation. Whilst he has experience of mediating in other contexts, education is his area of expertise. In addition to completing around 50 mediations per year, he supervises and mentors a growing team of mediators. He created a popular SEND-specialist training course that he delivers to mediators (accredited by the College and CMC), along with a range of bespoke workshops that he has devised for other parties in mediation e.g. council officers, teachers, and parent groups. Before training as a mediator, he spent 14 years as a biology teacher in several different types of school. During his teaching career, he held positions in senior leadership and took on significant responsibility for the pastoral care of pupils. On top of his busy mediating schedule, he travels widely to present to key stakeholders in the education sector about the benefits of using mediation to resolve disputes in schools. Hugo is passionate about education in the broadest sense, especially the rights of children and young people to have access to it, regardless of their circumstances. He has dedicated his career to helping schools, families and education authorities foster constructive relationships.

Prof. Andrew Goodman LLB MBA PhD FCIArb FInstCPD FRSA has 44 years’ experience as an independent commercial barrister and nearly 30 years as an international consulting mediator (CEDR 1993). He is an award-winning thought leader in the field of mediation and mediation advocacy, and practices in up to 20 jurisdictions both as a mediator and an IMI Mediation Advocate, trainer and consultant. Andrew holds a number of visiting academic posts and advises governments, Bars, corporations and institutions on conflict avoidance and dispute management systems. He is a Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple and a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators.

Starting from a professional background in social work child care; adult mental health; family therapy; psychotherapy; area team management, and ten years as head of Social Work Education, Ruskin Anglia University Cambridge. His M.Sc is in ‘The Sociology of Mental Health’. Tony has over 35 years of experience as a mediator, practice consultant, trainer and author.

Given that 30 years ago mediation was only just evolving in the UK, there were very few service providers or trainers, other than in Family mediation. With significant help from existing specialists in those fields, he developed other contexts and subsequently trained hundreds of mediators in Family; Community/neighbour; Health Care Complaints Conciliation; Victim Offender and Workplace mediation contexts, until they had established their own services and training.

Over ten years he designed and delivered culturally appropriate, - ‘Communitarian/Collectivist’, training - as opposed to the predominant, ‘Western individualist’ models - to over 1,400 Shia Imami Ismaili Muslim mediators, in Pakistan; India; Kenya; Uganda; Tanzania; Syria; Afghanistan; Portugal; UK; USA; and Canada.

He has presented papers and workshops at several international conferences, and published over 40 articles on mediation. He is one of the founder members of the College of Mediators, formerly the UK College of Family Mediators. Now retired from practice, he continues to write, is a College advisor and is an active member of the Professional Standards Committee.

He has published three books to date:
 Mediation Skills and Strategies. A Practical Guide. (2012 Jessica Kingsley). Also published in Spanish.
 Mediation and Dispute Resolution. Contemporary Issues and Developments. (2021 Jessica Kingsley).
 Dealing With Disputes and Conflict. A Self-help Tool-kit for Resolving Arguments in Everyday Life. (2022 Routledge), hopefully soon to be translated into Arabic, by a special Syrian friend Hazim.

Tony’s next book is work in progress and will be very different.

Martha has been helping people to resolve problems for almost 30 years, both as a barrister and a mediator. She trained in mediation at the same time as being called to the Bar, and for many years practised in both spheres, adapting her skills according to which hat (or wig and gown!) she was wearing.

In 2016 she retired from the Bar, wishing to focus all her energy on mediation as the preferred option for conflict resolution, recognising the benefits of a non-adversarial, user-friendly and accessible forum.

She is currently Chief Operating Officer at Global Mediation Limited, specialising in the development and promotion of SEND mediation, dedicated to helping to resolve disagreements and improve relationships between local authorities and families with children or young people with special educational needs or disabilities.
In these exciting time for mediation, Martha is keen to work as a representative of the College of Mediators with members, Government and other professional organisations to spread the word as to the positive impact mediation can have on all areas of dispute.

Louisa Spicer joined the Board in June 2024. Having previously practiced as an employment lawyer she moved into working in HR in 2007, with a focus on contentious employee relations.

She qualified as a workplace mediator in 2019 and champions mediation as a restorative approach to help employees resolve conflict constructively, rather than relying on rigid formal procedures that seldom improve relationships between those involved. She is pleased to serve as a representative of the College of Mediators, working to expand the role of mediation in a wider range of conflict while also supporting members in their mediation practice.