Walter Denz
IALC President
Director, Liden & Denz Language Centre

Walter Denz grew up in Zurich, Switzerland and graduated from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in International Relations in 1989. He moved to London for an M.Sc. degree in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and settled in early 1992 in post-communist Russia. Together with a partner, he set up the Liden & Denz Language Centre, one of the first private institutions for the teaching of Russian as a foreign language. Later, Walter ventured into tour operating (inbound and outbound) and in 2004 opened a sister school in Moscow. Today, Liden & Denz is the biggest private educator for Russian in Russia.

Alexandra Borges de Sousa
IALC Vice President - Membership
Director, CIAL Centro de Linguas

Born in Lisbon, Portugal, Alexandra has a degree in International Relations as well as post graduate studies in this area. Her involvement in languages started early on, when she studied English, French and Spanish in the family’s school CIAL, a leading name for Portuguese as a Foreign Language since the early 1970s. Alexandra joined the school in 1991 after graduating. She also worked in the organisation of Expolingua Portugal, Portugal’s language fair, from 1989 to 1998. Since then, she has devoted herself full-time to CIAL, fulfilling the roles of marketing, course organisation and supervision. Alexandra served as an IALC Membership Committee member from 2002 to 2005. She is also involved in the Quality Assurance Scheme as an inspector.

Judith Hands
IALC Vice President - Quality Assurance

Managing Director and Owner of Torquay International School
Judith Hands first became involved in Language Travel in 1977 and she has been an owner and Director of Torquay International School since 1979. Originally Judith studied Hotel Management and Tourism but soon found that the world of Language Travel was far more interesting and exciting. Judith has served on the General Council of ARELS (now EnglishUK) and the ARELS Criteria Committee and has been a member of IALC since 1990. She feels that the international dimensions and people involved in IALC make it one of the best associations one could ever wish to belong to.

Rebecca Brincat
IALC Secretary - Treasurer
Director, B.E.L.S. Gozo, Malta

Rebecca grew up in Malta. She is qualified as a Director of Studies, holding a Cambridge DELTA qualification and Marketing Executive, with a Bachelors Degree in Communications from the University of Malta. She spent 5 years teaching at various schools in Malta gaining experience in both General and Business English teaching. After that she went on to join her father Donald in the running of his language school. Since the school is a small one her role is split between leading the academic and marketing departments.

Wolfgang Graser
IALC Vice President - Promotions
Director, Good Hope Studies, Cape Town

Wolfgang was born and grew up in Austria. He was originally trained as an officer on cruise ships and worked in this profession for six years with the aim of becoming a ship's captain. However, after visiting South Africa for the first time, he fell in love with the country and moved to Cape Town in 1994 together with a friend. In 1995 they opened Good Hope Studies as only the second international language school in South Africa. Wolfgang is a director of the company and mainly responsible for agent relations and all marketing activities at the school.

Matt Collingwood
IALC Regional Director for the Americas
President, Tamwood International College Ltd.

Matt was born in Kingston, Canada and studied International Finance and Marketing at the University of Ottawa. His interest in international education began when he was selected to attend a bi-lateral university exchange in La Paz, Bolivia where he studied Spanish and International Relations. As owner and President of Tamwood, Matt has been an active board member of the Private English Language Schools Association and the Canadian Association of Private Language Schools. Tamwood has two adult centres and three junior summer centres in Canada.

Giorgia Biccelli
IALC Regional Director for Europe
Director, Linguadue in Milano

Giorgia grew up in various places around the world and attended both Italian and international schools. She studied in Bonn and Aachen in Germany where she obtained a M.A. Degree with honours in Romance Philology. While at university, she worked as an assistant at the Department of Romanische Philologie, Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule Aachen. She then moved to Milan and worked as a marketing assistant in a multinational company for food export products. In 1996 Giorgia became marketing assistant at Linguaviva, Florence. Since January 2001 she has been the director of Linguadue Italian language school in Milan, a branch school of Linguaviva Educational group.

Angus Tuck
IALC Regional Director for Africa / Asia Pacific
Managing Director, South Australian College of English

Born in Adelaide, Angus was raised in a small country town in South Australia. He studied Civil Engineering and received his first degree from the University of Adelaide followed later by as Masters Degree from the University of New South Wales. Angus’ professional engineering career of some 20 years involved him in the planning, project management and management consultancy assignments in Australia and Asia. In 1987 Angus with his wife, Helen Cox, founded the South Australian College of English and later the Tasmanian and Whitsundays Colleges of English. Since that time in a long and successful partnership with his wife Helen, he has been responsible and actively involved in college business and promotion work.

Jan Capper
IALC Executive Director

Jan Capper grew up in southern England and studied German and French at the University of Bradford. After eight years in the travel industry in London, where she worked as a group travel executive and product manager, she joined the Pitman School of English as marketing manager in 1989. From 1994 to 1995, she lived in Berlin, working for IALC member GLS Sprachenzentrum while studying for the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma. In 1996, she returned from travels in West Africa to run the newly established IALC Secretariat. Now based in Canterbury, Jan oversees the work of the Secretariat, and also works as a translator and writer.

James Swift
IALC Ombudsman

James Swift is the former owner of the LAL English language schools, which were members of IALC during the 1980s and 1990s. Now retired, James was also a co-director of Frosch Touristik and LAL Sprachreisen, and chaired the German agency association FSDV. He brings to the role of IALC Ombudsman the perspective of both school owner and study travel agent.

The IALC Ombudsman mediates between IALC schools and agencies or students in disputes or complaints that cannot be settled at an earlier stage of the IALC Complaints Procedure.