Professor Colin Riordan CBE, former President and Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University, UK has been appointed as the Association of Commonwealth Universities’ (ACU) next Secretary General and Chief Executive following a competitive recruitment process. He served the same position on an interim basis since September 2023 after Dr Joanna Newman, left the ACU after 6 years to take up the role of Provost at SOAS University of London, UK.

Before joining Cardiff University, Professor Riordan worked as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex, UK having been appointed in 2007. Prior to this, he was Pro Vice-Chancellor and Provost of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Newcastle University in the UK since 2005. 
Professor Riordan taught English as a foreign language at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in Germany (1982-84) and was Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer in German at Swansea University (1986-1998). He became Professor of German at Newcastle University in 1998, where he remained until his move to Essex in 2007.

Read more at : https://www.acu.ac.uk/news/colin-riordan-appointment/