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CfBT Education Trust has 11 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 DL, 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.

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.

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.

Sara Hodson, Chair of the Nominations Committee

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.

Sue Hunt, Chair of the Audit Committee

Sue is a Chartered Accountant who spent 18 years with global accountancy firm KPMG, initially in the audit practice and latterly as a director in advisory providing advice to clients on the financial and commercial aspects of mergers and acquisitions. During that time she worked with a range of clients from the public and private sectors, both in the UK and internationally. She was also instrumental in establishing a multi-disciplinary healthcare group at KPMG which specialised in providing advice to NHS Trusts preparing for Foundation Trust status, a new governance structure for acute and mental health hospitals. Sue is currently a Non Executive Director for NHS Direct which provides expert health advice, information and reassurance over the telephone, website and through digital TV services nationally and 24/7.

Stuart Laing

Stuart Laing joined CfBT Board of Trustees as Appointed Trustee – International in October 2008. He was also elected Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in October 2008. A career diplomat since 1972, with service mainly in the Middle East and North Africa, but also in Western and Central Europe, he was appointed British High Commissioner in Brunei, then Ambassador in Oman, and most recently Ambassador in Kuwait. He has served on the Boards of British Schools in Cairo and Riyadh, and is on the Board of the Trustees of the British University of Kuwait, which plans to open in 2009.

Margaret Platts

Margaret Platts, a Cumbrian by birth, has spent most of her teaching career working in inner city schools in Bradford, West Yorkshire.  She took up her first post in Yorkshire after working for a year in Switzerland.  She retired from the Headship of a large girls’ comprehensive school in Summer 2009.

Margaret was awarded the M.B.E. in 2000 for services to education and the community.  She was Convenor for Bradford Secondary Heads and chaired the Schools’ Forum.  She is a former Chair of Governors of a local Primary School.

Her interests are in travel, gardening, sport (especially tennis) and books.

Sir Jim Rose, Chairman of the Education Committee

Jim was formerly Her Majesty's Inspector (HMI) and Director of Inspection for the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).  He retired from Ofsted in July 1999 and has since acted as a consultant to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DSCF) on nursery and primary education, and workforce training.  At the request of the Secretary of State, he chaired the 1999 Independent Scrutiny of the National Assessment Tests for Primary Schools.  He is a member of the Board of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and chairs the QCA 0-14 Advisory Group.

Jim has advised several overseas governments on school inspection and has considerable international experience of school educational systems.  He was invited by the Secretary of State to lead the Independent Review of the Teaching on Early Reading (2006) and published an independent review of the primary curriculum in April 2009.

Dr Tim Walsh

Dr Tim Walsh is Vice-President for Corporate Affairs for Pitney Bowes Inc responsible for industry, government and regulatory affairs in international markets (2003-to date).  In this role, Tim works with EU institutions, government departments and post offices on rules, pricing and arrangements governing access to and payment for postal services worldwide.  Dr Walsh previously held a number of senior positions within Royal Mail including as head of commercial strategy and as director of international affairs.

Tim is an Economics graduate from Exeter University and took his Ph.D at the University of Bath on the aspect of labour market economics. He is author of various academic papers on postal reform, infrastructure services and economic development.

Tim is a former member of the Governing Body of his local school (2000-06) and is currently a member of the board of St Mary’s University College, Twickenham (2006 – to date). Tim is married with two children.

John Webb, Vice Chairman

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.

Philip Wood

Philip Wood has had a career in business and finance spanning more than 30 years.  He is a qualified chartered accountant and spent 14 years in Price Waterhouse where he was a partner specialising in audit and advisory work.  He joined Reuters in 1990 where he stayed for 14 years in a number of senior management roles including Deputy Group Finance Director and Managing Director, Business Development.  In 2004 he left Reuters to join a renewable energy company as CEO.  He raised £13m and floated the company on the AIM market.  He left the company in 2006. 

Philip continues to be a non-executive director of TIBCO Software Inc, a west coast USA software infrastructure company with a market capitalisation of approximately $1.3bn.  He joined the company’s Board when it was a start up and currently chairs the Compensation Committee.  Philip has been a governor of a local voluntary aided primary school in Sevenoaks for 19 years.  He was also a member of the Schools Examination and Assessment Committee.  He is married with 2 children who are both at university.

Operations Committee

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

Executive Members

Richard Birkett – Financial & Commercial Director

Andy Breckon - Lincolnshire School Improvement Services Director

Tim Emmett – Development Director

Jonathan Greenwood - International Operations Director

Tony McAleavy – Education Director

Neil McIntosh – Chief Executive

Joanne Smithson – UK Services Director

Wendy Woodcock - Schools & Nurseries Director

Non-Executive Members

John Harwood – Chairman

Sue Hunt

Stuart Laing

Sir Jim Rose - Chair of the Education Committee

Philip Wood