CfBT - Education Trust >

About us >

How We are Governed

Members login

CfBT Education Trust has ten Trustees who make up the Board of Trustees. They are legally responsible for all of CfBT’s affairs and are ultimately responsible for the performance of the organisation and the quality of service it offers clients and beneficiaries.

In practice they delegate this responsibility to the Operations Committee which oversees the day-to-day management of CfBT.

There are two other key committees, which the Trustees also delegate responsibility to:

  • Education Committee, which oversees the educational impact of the Trust’s work. It also decides on the funding for CfBT’s research and development projects;
  • Audit Committee, which provides an independent oversight of the CfBT’s systems of internal control and financial reporting. It also oversees risk management and associated areas such as insurance.

Meet the Trustees

John Harwood, Chairman of Board of Trustees

John Harwood was appointed Chairman of Trustees in November 2004. He had helped to establish the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and was its first chief executive from 2000 until he retired in late 2003. Previously he had been the chief executive of two local authorities (Oxfordshire County Council and Lewisham Borough) and had worked in the ILEA, the GLC and Hammersmith and Fulham. Among his other interests, he is a senior associate fellow of Warwick University Business School and a member of the Court of Oxford Brookes University. From time to time he takes on other roles; in 2004 he was the interim chief executive of Cumbria County Council and until March 2008 he was the chief executive of the Food Standards Agency.

Cameron Bowles

Cameron Bowles joined CfBT Education Trust as a trustee in March 2005.  He is currently director, education thematic group, for the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).  AusAID has a particular focus in the Asia-Pacific region.

Cameron moved to AusAID from Education Action International, a London-based charity focused on education with refugees and in countries affected by conflict in Africa and the Middle East, where he was chief executive.

From 1996-2002, Cameron was director of Trócaire (Northern Ireland), an international development charity working in Africa, South East Asia and Central America where he specialised in institutional capacity building work.  Prior to this, Cameron has more than 10 years corporate experience including working for the corporate bank Bankers Trust, Australia based in Sydney. 

 

John Fielden, Chairman of the Audit Committee

John has practised as a management consultant in higher education policy and management since 1969.  He is a chartered accountant, and has been a partner at KPMG in charge of their public sector management consultancy practice which included higher education.  In 1993 he set up the Commonwealth Higher Education Management Service (CHEMS), the research and consultancy service of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

He now runs an independent consultancy and has carried out over 250 higher education projects in over 40 countries specialising in Higher Education policy studies for agencies and governments.

John is the author of many articles on higher education management as well as the standard UK textbook on university administration. He has been a member of the governing body of four universities or colleges.

Anita Higham OBE

Anita's career has been in secondary education including two headships - Sheldon School in Wiltshire from 1979 to 1984 and Banbury School in Oxfordshire during 1985-1998.  In 1996 she received an OBE for services to education and training.

During 1999-2001 Anita was non-executive director of the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Hospitals Trust followed by a role as foundation chair of North Oxfordshire's Primary Care Trust until 2006. 

Anita is a trustee of a SureStart centre and a member of the Public Involvement Forum of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire NHS Mental Health Trust which is committed to monitoring the Trust's provision for child and adolescent mental health.  Anita promotes appropriate working links between health and education.

Sara Hodson

Sara is an experienced management developer, facilitator and leadership coach.  She is Governor of the University College for the Creative Arts and formerly of the Surrey institute of Art & Design University College and is also on the Nominations Committee of UCCA where, earlier this year, she supported the Clerk to the Board in a board skills audit and recruitment for three new governors.

Previously Sara worked as Head of HR for Investment Banking at Citibank and she has been a non-executive director of an NHS Trust.  She has been a lead consultant on a leadership development programme for the senior executive team of the government's e-Delivery team, based within the Cabinet Office as well as on a similar project within HM Revenue and Customs.

Sara continues to be a lead instructor on Citigroup's global leadership programmes, working with groups across Europe, Africa and the USA.

Iain MacArthur

In the 1980s Iain MacArthur worked for CfBT on language projects in Morocco and Qatar and for immigrant populations in London. He has an MSc in Applied Linguistics and has taught in England and for CfBT in Germany. Iain has also held posts at Kingsway College, London and the University of East London. He now works for a wine importer.

John Webb

John Webb spent some 20 years in education, management and then educational publishing with Oxford University Press both in the UK and overseas. He has been associated with CfBT since its foundation. In 1984 he moved into management consultancy specialising in organisational development work for the education sector before broadening his work into the health sector, arts bodies, not-for-profit organisations and the United Nations. John retired from Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2000 and continues to work with educational and arts bodies on a part-time basis. He is chairman of governors of his local school in Somerset and also of the Federation of 17 maintained schools in the area.

Marion Headicar

Marion Headicar became chief executive of Oxford City Council in 2001, having been appointed to overhaul the poorly performing authority.  In 2004 she moved to Portsmouth City Council, a unitary authority, with a brief for organisational change.  Previously she had lectured in urban regeneration and planning at Leeds Metropolitan University before joining the Department of Environment in 1988, where she worked on a range of initiatives: sponsoring the urban development corporations, establishing a new environmental regeneration team and setting up the Environment Task Force for the New Deal.  She is currently an independent management consultant, specialising in strategic and organisational planning.

Graham Colls

Graham Colls is Chief Executive of Magna Housing Group, a not-for-profit housing organisation working mostly in Dorset, Somerset and Devon.  He was previously Chief Executive of Two Castles Housing Association.  He holds degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Durham, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and a school governor.

Stephen Yeo, Chairman of the Education Committee

Stephen Yeo is a writer, consultant and author of a wide range of books and articles mostly on social history and adult learning. Stephen was principal of Ruskin College, Oxford from 1989 to 1997 and Director of the Heart of England TEC over the same period. After Ruskin, Stephen became Honorary Professor in History at the University of Warwick, visiting Professor in the Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics and Chair of Co-operative Futures and of the Board of Management of the Co-operative College. He has retired from these positions, to write and work with CfBT.

Operations Committee

The Operations Committee has delegated responsibility for the day-to-day management of CfBT and is made up of eight executive and four non-executive members.

Executive Members

Neil McIntosh – Chief Executive

Richard Birkett – Commercial Director

Tim Emmett – Development Director

Margaret Abbott – UK Services Director

Lesley Moore – Schools and Justice Services Director

Tony McAleavy – Education Director

Joanne Smithson – Planning and Corporate Services Director

Andy Breckon - Lincolnshire School Improvement Services Director

Jonathan Greenwood - International Operations Director

Non-Executive Members

John Harwood – Chairman

John Fielden

Stephen Yeo

Dr Peter Phillips OBE