Trustees

Ben Brown Is currently Head of UK and Ireland for Optoma Ltd, having previously been head of market development for Promethean and the education businesses lead for Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and XMA in the UK. He has worked in the education technology sector for over 15 years and has developed a real passion for advancing the use of technology to support teaching and learning. He had previously sat on the Board of Trustees at the David Ross Education Trust and still sits as Vice Chair of Governors at one of the schools there.  His real focus was to support the development of technology and innovation strategy at the trust, he was also heavily involved with the Risk and Audit committee throughout his time as a trustee, a committee he still sits on.  More recently he has been a trustee at the Tackley Education Trust. Ben has, throughout his career, looked at the challenges in education and how technology is best placed to resolve them.  This has led to him working closely with the DfE as well as Academy Trusts such as ARK, Reach2 and United Learning on driving forward the use of the right technology for them and their schools. Ben lives in Northamptonshire with his young family and enjoys his chance to visit Sheffield at the weekends to support his beloved Sheffield Wednesday.

An experienced leader and organisational psychologist, Chris has worked across the public, private and not-for-profit sector and is currently Director of Governance and Compliance at Liberty Academy Trust.

A leading consultant in organisation transformation, change, and leadership, prior to joining the education sector, Chris was the Chief Executive of a not-for-profit start-up leading on national policy and advocacy. He has experience of driving organisational strategy and improvement, including compliance, risk and assurance. Chris is familiar with both practical and strategic roles deploying his evidence led and values driven skills.

Chris is committed to strengthening the organisations he works with to ensure they can work effectively, deliver public benefit and enhance their role in civic society. Chris is a former army reservist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Married to Geoff, he lives in Berkshire and has interests which include cycling, wine and twentieth century art. Chris’ real passion is his Labrador, Dolly.

Faye graduated from Northumbria university with a degree in Biology before teaching Science in London. Faye is currently Executive Director at Steplab, having previously been a director at Teach First, leading their approach to developing teachers and mentors across their ITT programmes and ECF Programmes. Having worked in education and charity leadership for 14 years, Faye has professional skills and expertise relating to programme design, strategic planning, teacher development, organisational leadership and contract bidding and management.  Faye is particularly passionate about raising outcomes for children in the most disadvantaged of circumstances to ensure a fair education for all.

Faye has worked closely with schools and the Department for Education on numerous strategies, including membership of the expert advisory group for teacher wellbeing, advising on the new Ofsted education inspection framework for Initial Teacher Training and supporting the development of the reformed NPQ in leading teacher development.

Marina grew up in South Yorkshire and, since graduating with a BA (Hons) in English in 2005, has spent her career working with, for and around the NHS.  With over 19 years senior leadership experience, Marina has worked at Director-level in both operations and strategy within the NHS at a local, regional and national level. She currently leads a complex system programme in a joint role across NHS England London Region and the 5 London Integrated Care Boards.

Her passion for systems leadership approaches to resolving complex societal problem centred on the wider determinants people face in relation to life chances drove her to undertake post-graduate study in Public Health, looking particularly at the ways in which employment, housing and health can help reduce neighbourhood inequalities.  Having led the development and introduction of new care models via the integration of general practice into a large NHS Trust, Marina’s is keen to put her experience to use within the multi-academy trust system to ensure all children are given the best possible start in life.

Claudia Bickford-Smith began her career as a teacher and has extensive Board-level experience in education: learning design, edtech, qualification and assessment development, and school operational management, working with Headteachers and their leadership teams, Ministries of Education, Regulators and Awarding Bodies.

Claudia has led large-scale curriculum and assessment innovations, teacher professional development programs, and accessible online assessments, impacting schools worldwide. She is passionate about inclusive pedagogy, wellbeing-driven education, and sustainable school growth strategies to enhance the quality of education.

As CEO of Aldates Global Education, focuses on developing sustainable growth strategies for schools. She is also actively involved in AI in Education research at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, alongside her role as a Governor at a primary school in Cambridgeshire. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Harvard Graduate School of Education Professional Community.