Speakers

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.

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.

Since January 2012, Sir Jon Coles has been Group Chief Executive of United Learning, a group of over 100 academies and independent schools founded in the 19th century. Prior to this, he spent much of his career in the Department for Education after qualifying as a teacher, including four years on its board as Director General for Schools. Before that, he was Director of 14-19 Reform and Director of London Challenge, wrote various green and white Papers, took the 2002 Education Act through Parliament, implemented the infant class size pledge and developed a strategy for e-government on secondment to the Cabinet Office.