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Samira Sadeghi

Director of Trust Governance, CST
Samira Sadeghi is Director of Trust Governance for CST. Prior to that, she was Head of Governance and Company Secretary at Academies Enterprise Trust, a multi-academy trust with 57 schools, and served as Regional Governance Officer at Ark Schools for four years. Before moving to the UK with her family in 2010, she was a criminal defence attorney and spent 12 years representing clients on California's death row in their post-conviction proceedings.
09:40

1 Main programme

Welcome remarks

Welcome remarks from Samira Sadeghi, Director of Trust Governance, CST.

10:15

1 Main programme

Keynote panel: Shared challenges, smarter responses: Making governance sustainable

This panel brings together practitioners from outside the education sector to explore the shared pressures shaping modern governance. From heavier board‑reporting demands and limited capacity to emerging risks such as AI, cybersecurity, and geopolitical instability, boards across sectors face similar challenges. Our panel will examine practical responses that reduce fluffload, make governance more sustainable, and offer insights trusts can use to strengthen strategic focus, manage risk, and support better decision making in a rapidly changing environment.

12:10

1 Main programme

Keynote panel: Governance at scale

As the sector moves toward a fully trust‑led system, more trusts will operate at significant scale. We know that scale profoundly changes governance, and trusts need clarity about how to evolve governance as scale increases. Drawing on insights from rapidly growing Catholic trusts, this keynote introduces our joint paper for consultation, setting out the principles of effective governance at scale and exploring why these will matter for every trust in the years ahead.

15:00

1 Main programme

Keynote panel: Listening to our young people

This panel discussion with Shuab Gamote, co‑author of <em>Inside the Mind of a 16‑Year‑Old</em> and lead author of the more recent <em>Inside the Mind of a NEET</em>, will draw on his two major projects that centre young people’s voices. We will explore what meaningful listening really requires, what young people say when they are genuinely heard, and how trusts can build governance approaches that respond to their insights with honesty, humility, and purpose.

15:40

1 Main programme

Final reflections and close

15:05

1 Main programme

Principles of an effective safeguarding audit: A trust-led approach

CST's Samira Sadeghi will introduce a project to develop practical new support for trust-led safeguarding audits in partnership with our Safeguarding professional community. She'll set out the vision for a framework and principles that can be used in trusts of all sizes to underpin developmental and supportive audits, and how community members can share ideas and experience to help shape them.