Speakers

Alistair Wood is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Edapt, an organisation that gives legal support to teachers in employment disputes. Alistair previously served as assistant principal and head of sixth form at North London Collegiate School Dubai, and held teaching positions at Wellington College and North London Collegiate School Jeju in South Korea.

Ben has worked at senior positions with the public sector for many years and was part of a pilot programme for aspiring business managers run by the National College, achieving an Advanced Diploma in 2013. Ben joined STEP in 2014, and since that time has embedded a business strategy which has facilitated STEP’s growth from four schools in Croydon to 20 across London and the south east, as well as ensuring consistently strong outcomes for pupils. Currently, Ben’s remit includes oversight of the STEP Ahead Teaching School Hub, as well as all functions that support the education offer of the trust. 
 
As part of Ben’s commitment to the education sector, he has been involved in shaping various pilots organised by the department, including the SRMA and mentoring CFO programmes. This is in addition to supporting the department on bespoke projects and undertaking trust reviews on behalf of regional directors as well as at the request of trust boards. Keen to support the sector in other ways, Ben also speaks at national conferences and has been commissioned by Ambition Institute and Fig Tree International to present on their executive programmes. 
 
Ben is a qualified accountant and recently completed his NPQH. Ben is a Fellow of the Institute of School Business Leaders and past Trustee of the Institute. 

Carl Parker is a professional with extensive experience in industrial relations across the private and public sector. He is ASCL’s former Head of Industrial Relations where he was responsible for consultation and negotiation with local authorities, school trusts and the independent sector. Over recent years, he has supported many school leaders in an increasingly tense industrial relations climate in education. His expertise in the field is further supported by his educational background, having completed a degree in economics and administration with a focus on labour and industrial relations from the University of Warwick.

Catherine joined Leadership Edge as an Associate Coach in 2019 and became Owner/Director in 2022. A former secondary assistant headteacher (teaching and learning) and award-winning primary Governor, she also brings 10 years’ experience of working in the corporate sector, adding to her perspective on system-level leadership and organisational development. Catherine holds ILM Level 7 qualifications in both executive coaching and coaching supervision and is passionate about embedding empowering, ethical coaching conversations into the heart of school culture, to develop and sustain colleagues across the sector. After meeting her husband while at Durham University, she moved from Berkshire to Cheshire, where she is now a forever-learning parent in a neurodivergent family, enjoying mini-breaks to North Wales and daily walks with her enormous bernedoodle.

Chris Benson is the first serving headteacher in the UK to publicly disclose living with ADHD on a national level. He has lived neurodivergence as a pupil, a teacher, a headteacher of 15 years — and as the parent of an autistic son and a daughter with ADHD who spent eight months unable to face school (EBSA). He knows what it looks like from every seat at the table. That changes everything about how he works with schools.

Neurodivergence is not a deficit to be corrected. It is a difference to be understood. Educators don’t need to be experts in neurodevelopmental conditions — they need to be experts in the children in front of them.

Dale Fahey is Head of Partnerships at MyNewTerm, where he leads on building strong, strategic relationships with schools and trusts.

With a background in education and a passion for digital innovation, Dale works closely with partners to ensure the platform delivers real impact.

Elaine is the Director of People at Active Learning Trust, a values-led school trust, with a family of 21 schools based across Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. Previously, Elaine has worked in HR roles for over 25 years across a variety of organisations, including Cambridgeshire County Council and Local Government. She was also Assistant Director for HR at EPM, primarily working with school trusts across the country.

Emma Hughes is a Partner and Head of HR Services at Browne Jacobson with a 20-year career in HR spanning significant change and organisational transformation across multiple sectors. A specialist in employee relations and trade union matters, Emma brings extensive practical experience of collective consultation, dispute resolution and ACAS conciliation, both as a former in-house HR Director and in her advisory work with clients. She has established and managed JNCCs and supports clients across all aspects of the machinery for consultation and negotiation with trade union colleagues.

With a keen interest in employee engagement and culture, Emma has in recent years focused significantly on coaching senior leaders through the complexity of people leadership, trade union disputes and delivering training to leaders at all levels on managing staff relationships. She is a keynote speaker on Browne Jacobson's HR Visionary Pathway, a CPD programme for strategic leaders in education.

Emma has been with Browne Jacobson for nine years and is a member of the firm’s Education Board. She is a Trustee at Education Support and at the Institute for Employment Studies (incorporating IPA). A former Chair of Trustees for a 16-school trust in Worcestershire, she previously served as HR Director at Academy Transformation Trust and led HR for Ark Schools' regional schools in Birmingham.

Helen Kitchen represents Talent Architects, a consultancy helping schools become great places to work. She brings over two decades of corporate PR, branding, and communications expertise to the education sector, focusing on how trusts attract and retain staff. Prior to her current role, Helen spent two decades managing corporate reputations across global sectors and operating as an independent communications consultant. Over the last two years, she has worked directly with HR directors and executive leaders in school trusts to bridge the gap between human resources and communication. Helen specialises in auditing messaging, defining clear Employer Value Propositions (EVPs), and treating communication as a vital recruitment tool. Her practical approach ensures schools move past standard job listings to showcase their unique employment offer and keep top talent.

John is originally from Liverpool and spent his secondary years on the Isle of Man, giving him experience of both urban and rural education. His teaching career began in 2001 in a middle school in Settle, North Yorkshire, before moving to London in 2003, where he has remained.

During his time in London, John has held senior roles including SENCo, inclusion leader and deputy headteacher, and has been headteacher in three schools across Newham, Barking and Dagenham, and Croydon and Sutton. He is now Executive Director of Primary at STEP Academy Trust.

John’s work has consistently focused on serving communities facing high levels of deprivation, with a clear moral purpose to raise aspirations and improve outcomes for children. Since joining STEP, he has been recognised as a National Leader of Education and now leads trust wide leadership development and the strategic oversight of SEND, including training, coaching and talent mapping.

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.

Lisa is an experienced HR leader with over 25 years in the public, private, and third sectors. She has worked in the education sector for over a decade, bringing a deep understanding of how effective people strategies can shape and support school communities to thrive.

As Director of People, Lisa plays a pivotal role in supporting the trust’s mission to transform the lives of children by creating an inclusive, enabling and values-driven working environment. She is passionate about empowering leaders and staff to flourish so they can deliver the very best outcomes for children.

Lisa is currently completing her ILM Level 7 qualification in Executive Coaching and has recently begun a Certificate in Reflective Supervision in Education. These reflect her commitment to nurturing leadership capability and building reflective, supportive cultures across the trust.

Driven by a strong belief that our people are the ones that will transform lives, Lisa’s ambition is to make the trust the greatest place to work in the South West, where every colleague feels valued and inspired and are developed so they can really make a difference.

Tamsin has combined the skills and experience from a career in primary leadership and then in business and operations in secondary schools to now lead on operations and innovations at the Ted Wragg Trust. She loves working with leaders in education to create organisational cultures where staff feel valued, included and empowered to transform lives and strengthen communities to make the world a better place. Growing up in Torbay and having lived most of her life across the region of Devon and Cornwall she is passionate about making the South West the best place in the country to go to school and to go on to have a life of opportunity.