Speakers

Anne-Marie has led the Brilliant Club since March 2020. She has developed the charity’s strategy, scaled existing programmes and led the establishment of new areas of work. She is widely acknowledged as a powerful voice in social mobility and education and has advised institutions, ministers and policy makers.

During her time as a Director at King’s College London Anne-Marie provided strategic, institution-wide leadership for social mobility and had significant successes in widening participation, student success, academic support, communication, evaluation and fundraising. Anne-Marie helped to establish the What Works Centre for Access and Student Outcomes and co-founded an award-winning parental engagement and community organising endeavour, Parent Power.

For over six years Anne-Marie held a public appointment as the Independent Chair of the Department for Education’s Bradford Opportunity Area and has significant expertise in place-based working.

Anne-Marie has a Masters with Distinction in Public Policy and Management from Birkbeck, University of London. She holds a University of Oxford Teaching Award and was awarded an MBE for services to higher education in 2018.

Georgia Gould was appointed Minister of State (Minister for School Standards) at the Department for Education on 6 September 2025. She was previously Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office between 9 July 2024 and 6 September 2025. Georgia was elected as the MP for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale in July 2024.

Hannah Woodhouse is the Executive Director of the Children and Education Directorate, and is responsible for children and families, and education and skills at Bristol City Council. Prior to this, Hannah was the regional schools commissioner for South West England.

James Townsend is an Executive Director at the Reach Foundation, where he leads the Cradle to Career Partnership and Reach's leadership programmes for aspiring Head Teachers and and Trust CEOs. James has previously held leadership roles at Teach First and STiR Education, where he helped found and grow the organisation to reach over 200,000 teachers globally. He started his career as a history teacher in east London.

Leora Cruddas is the founding Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts – the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England. She has advised successive governments and sits on several Department for Education advisory bodies. She was recently the vice chair of the Head Teacher Standards Review Group, a member of the external advisory group for the Schools White Paper, SEND National Implementation Board and the Regulatory and Commissioning Review.

Prior to founding CST, she was Director of Policy and Public Relations for the Association of School and College Leaders. Leora has six years of experience as a director of education in two London local authorities. She is a visiting professor at UCL Institute of Education. Leora was made a CBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honours.

Maggie has worked for many years in senior leadership positions in schools and local authorities. She was the director for leadership development, research and succession planning at the NCSL in England and interim chief executive until 2013.

She now works internationally with leaders and their teams in education and other sectors fostering practices that reduce stress, anxiety and overwhelm and increase effectiveness and resilience through the practice of presence & compassionate leadership. She is the author of Leading with Presence; it's an inside job, published in 2022 by Cadogan Press.

She is a Trustee of L.E.A.D. Academy Trust, of Bedfordshire Schools Trust, The Chair of the School of Contemplative Life, and has just finished a nine year term as a trustee of The Story Museum, Oxford; a museum dedicated to the power of story to change lives.

She was awarded the CBE for services to Education in 2014.

Sophia is a recent graduate from the University of Cambridge. She now works for the Reach Foundation, a charity whose mission is to combat the inequality gap that still exists in our education system in the UK. She is currently writing a book exploring the intimate stories of students, teachers, families and community leaders in one of London’s toughest boroughs.