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.

James is Assistant Principal for Civic Responsibility at Dixons Academies Trust, where he has worked for six years. His work looks at developing the role of school trusts and schools as anchor institutions in communities. Outside of teaching, he has worked in policy and politics in the UK, US and New Zealand.

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.

Jonathan Roe is the CEO of Thrive Co-operative Learning Trust - a multi academy trust of 10 schools in Kingston upon Hull serving pupils and communities in some of the most deprived English localities. He has recent experience in primary headship and was the primary standards lead for Thrive. Prior to going ‘upstream’ and entering the teaching profession Jonathan began a ‘down stream’ career in community development and has worked in London and the North East with people struggling to survive drug and alcohol addiction and homelessness. For the last 30 years he has worked in education and now leads a Co-operative trust of 5,500 pupils and 850+ staff. Jonathan is the National Chair of Coop Schools and advocates for pupils, parents and staff having agency in their schools, their communities and their lives.

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.

Sharath is a globally recognised authority on leadership at inflection moments. He is an acclaimed advisor, speaker and author supporting leaders and organisations to futureproof success. Sharath has also established a Generational Success Lab to help organisations across sectors navigate the generational inflection moment in our workforce and society.

Sharath teaches leadership at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He is the author of two influential books, Inflection: A Roadmap for Leaders at a Crossroads and Intrinsic: A Manifesto to Reignite our Inner Drive. He was made an OBE in the Queen's 2022 New Year's Honours. He holds degrees from Cambridge University (First Class Honours), Oxford University & INSEAD (MBA with Distinction).

Sharath lives in London with his wife and two boys. He is a keen reader, restaurant and theatre goer, traveller, and a nationally competitive pickleball player. He is currently working on Inheritable, an intergenerational novel.

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.

Susan Acland-Hood has been the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education since September 2020.

Susan’s previous roles in government include Chief Executive at HM Courts and Tribunals Service; Director of Enterprise and Growth at HM Treasury; Director of Education and Funding at the Department for Education; Policy Advisor on home affairs and justice, and then education policy at Number 10; and Head of Strategy at the Home Office.

She has also held senior roles in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and in the Social Exclusion Unit. Her civil service career began in 1999 at the Department for Education and Employment.