WSET New Directions with Michelle Brampton CEO of WSET

This show was published Friday, October 3, 2025

Overview

Michelle Brampton is CEO of WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust), joining them in 2022. Michelle is from Shropshire and studied business management with German in Leeds. After graduating, she started out in finance roles at Muller Dairy and Sony before moving to consulting at Arthur Anderson. She then joined Treasury Wine Estates in finance on a short contract and stayed for 19 years, rising to Managing Director of EMEA. After leaving Treasury, Michelle embarked on a 6 month course in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) before joining WSET as CEO.

In this chat, we go behind the scenes at WSET and hear about the changes Michelle has instigated in terms of the ethos and approach, especially with their APPs (Approved Programme Providers), and the culture within the WSET itself and the leadership team. They have embraced technology in the exam process and digitalisation of certificates and have brought in technical expertise to develop more student-friendly educational materials for the qualifications.

We discuss how AI is being explored by WSET in the exam assessment process and how the WSET website is being overhauled and revamped for launch in 2026.

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The music used for the UK Wine Show is Griffes de Jingle 1 by Marcel de la Jartèle and Silence by Etoile Noire.