Governance

John Vickers

Chair of Trustees, July 2017 to present

John has more than 35 years’ experience of working in comprehensive schools in rural, urban and inner-city environments, including over 20 years as a secondary head teacher in Birmingham, North Yorkshire and Coventry.

More recently, he has worked as a freelance education consultant in association with three Local Authorities and a wide range of individual secondary schools in Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, and Bradford. His main focus has been challenging and supporting senior leadership teams and governing bodies of secondary schools to secure school improvement.

Heather Morris

Trustee from October 2015 to present

Now retired, Heather’s longstanding career in education began in 1970, when she joined Birmingham City Council’s Education Department, progressing to Principal Officer in the employee relations team of Human Resources.

In 2007, she moved to work in a secondary school in the south west of Birmingham which had recently come out of Special Measures and then became part of a multi academy trust.

As part of her administrative role, Heather led and managed teams of various sizes, and worked with others to interpret legislation, terms and conditions of service for support and teaching staff and advised schools. Her areas of expertise included HR, Finance, Site and Health and Safety. She was the only non-teaching member of the Senior leadership team.

Brian Cookson

Trustee from March 2018 to present

Brian has continuously taught in secondary schools since qualifying in 1973. Although qualifying in Humanities, he developed and taught pre-vocational programmes and was a vocational programme assessor. Together with a colleague, he developed, promoted, taught and became Director of what became a nationally acclaimed 16-19 programme known as TOPS for students who otherwise may have left education with few qualifications.

Brian undertook work in research into the development of pre-vocational education at Warwick and Keele Universities. He has maintained this firm interest and recently completed a 6 year period working with the European Commission ET 2020 Group in Brussels with specific remits in Entrepreneurship Education and Transversal Skills.

Brian has a strong trade union background. Following on from local union roles, he has been a member of the NASUWT National Executive for 20 years.
Brian is still a member of the TUC General Council. He was also Lay Auditor, responsible for auditing the work commissioned by the European Commission, for 8 years for the ETUCE representing education trade union members across Europe and based in Brussels.

Brian has been a member of the England and Wales Teachers’ Pension Advisory Board and the Scottish equivalent. He remains a member of the Scottish Teachers’ Pension Board. He has also been Chair of Trustees of a private pension scheme since 2009.
He is passionate about education, teaching and working with young people.

Sam Henson

Trustee from December 2019 to present

Sam currently works for the National Governance Association, where he oversees NGA’s policy, information and research service, ensuring it adds to the learning of the organisation and best improves the governance of schools, while supporting the chief executive in leading the organisation to achieve positive change in the policy of school governance. He is also the main policy lead for NGA’s work on multi academy trusts and has specialised in MAT governance structures and schemes of delegation since joining NGA in early 2015. His other responsibilities include overseeing the delivery of NGA’s e-newsletter and bi-monthly magazine, ‘Governing Matters’ to NGA members. He is the joint author of the ‘Staying in Control of Your Destiny’ series and has been lead author on NGA’s induction guide ‘Welcome to Governance’ for the last three years, and now ‘Welcome to MATs’.

Sam has worked in school governance for 10 years. Before joining the NGA, he worked for a large multi academy trust with more than 30 schools, leading an in-house governance team, supporting the trust board and it’s academy committees across a national network of academies providing training, advice and guidance. Prior to that, he worked for a local authority and in the financial services sector.

Paulette Osborne

Trustee from January 2022 to present

Paulette has been working in education for over 25 years and is really proud to have had a long and outstanding career as an educator, mentor and system leader.  Paulette was the  Headteacher at St Matthew’s CofE Teaching  and Research School until her retirement in August 2019.

She is passionate about reading and St Matthew’s was  the first school, nationally, to be  awarded the Egmont Reading for Pleasure School of the Year Award, in 2018.

As part of her  National Leader of Education role, Paulette has sat on a range of DFE advisory committees and over the last 10 years has held a number of board positions on both local and national Multi Academy Trusts.

As the Assistant Director for School Improvement at Birmingham Education Partnership, Paulette brings expertise in all aspects of Primary education.

Paulette’s work to raise school standards and impact the life chances of generations of young people has been recognised, at the highest levels. She was awarded an MBE for her services to education – she took the whole school down to London to meet the Queen! She was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Aston University, for her ‘significant contribution to raising attainment amongst young people, in the Aston and Nechells areas and across the city of Birmingham’.

Alex Yip

Trustee from April 2022 to present

Councillor Alex Yip is the Councillor for Sutton Wylde Green ward, Birmingham City Council, has been a Birmingham Magistrate since 2009, a school governor since 2007 and a trustee of the City of Birmingham Orchestra (CBSO) since 2018

After graduating from Leicester University with a Masters in International Relations in 2004, he taught English in Shanghai for a year after volunteering in Ghana and Zambia. He has since returned many times spending considerable time volunteering across Africa through the Conservatives Friends of International Development (CFID) programs teaching budding entrepreneurs business skills in Rwanda and Tanzania in 2017 and 2018. Currently a Birmingham City Councillor, as the Shadow Cabinet Member for Vulnerable Children and Families he focuses on SEND matters for the city. He was also a Parliamentary candidate standing in Edgbaston during the 2019 General Elections. He was a past Board Director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF), a passionate supporter of raising Mental Health awareness regularly fundraising for MIND mental health in the past and a property developer having previously ran a chain of Chinese takeaways. A committed Christian, and a proud Brummie, he enjoys playing chess, skiing, badminton, and is a very happy father of two.

Maxine Rowley

Trustee from September 2022 to present

Maxine has extensive NHS senior management experience working across predominantly primary care, commissioning & procurement, strategic planning ( including organisational growth planning), writing policies and SOP’s. Leading on mobilisation of new services, including project management of new premises, overseas healthcare services, safeguarding lead and Quality Director which includes CQC preparation and readiness for inspections.

Maxine has a positive approach, passionate and motivational to deliver good quality services to patients and empowering teams in an ever-changing Healthcare landscape!

Max, lives locally with her husband and youngest of 3 son’s. Her passions include, spoiling 5 beautiful grandchildren, photography, learning new cooking techniques and enjoying life, its precious!

David Watson

Trustee from November 2022 to present

A highly experienced educationalist, David’s career to date has included headships in both Birmingham and Manchester. In parallel to this, he has held leader and director-level positions for national and regional educational bodies, as well as being an Ofsted inspector. His strong track record of success delivering positive impact at school, system, local, regional and national level, saw him awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List for services to education. Throughout his career, David has successfully delivered sustained improvement in both pupil and Ofsted outcomes. He also has a keen interest in developing leadership programmes to encourage and nurture highly effective leaders and staff, alongside a values-led approach to driving strategy, where all stakeholders play their part. Before joining Venturers Trust in 2020, David was the CEO and Executive Principal of Changing Lives in Collaboration Trust, based in Manchester.

Tim Sewell

Member from August 2011 to present

Qualifications: BA (Hons) Public Administration, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing

Tim is a Managing Consultant at Sewell & Wood Recruitment & Consultancy. He has extensive experience in governance in the semi-public sector and of operating in the private sector, with a longstanding track record of running multi-million pound turnover and investment organisations. Tim has held many board positions, including Chair of the Birmingham Social Housing Partnership. His professional positions in social housing organisations include 11 years as Chief Executive of the Family Housing Association (Birmingham) and Group Corporate Services Director of the Anglia Housing Group, Norwich. He brings more than 10 years of School Governor experience.

Sir David Carter

Member from May 2022

David was the national schools commissioner from 2016 to 2018, with a focus on building capacity and school improvement across multi-academy trusts. Before his appointment, he was the first regional schools commissioner for the South West.

David is a music graduate of the University of London and has taught music in comprehensive schools across the country since he started teaching in September 1983. In 1997, he became headteacher of Cirencester Deer Park School in Gloucestershire.

He was principal of John Cabot City Technology College in Bristol in 2004, before becoming CEO of the Cabot Learning Federation from 2007 to 2014. David led the growth of the federation to include 12 schools and successfully applied to become one of the first teaching schools in the country. He was one of the first national leaders of education (NLEs) and received a knighthood for services to education in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2013.

Sally Taylor

(Representing The Diocese of Lichfield Educational Trust Ltd) Member from February 2022 to present

The Diocese of Lichfield Education Trust is a company limited by guarantee and a charity registered with the Charities Commission. The purposes of the company is to be the Diocesan Corporate Member of each Church of England Academy in the Diocese. DLET will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that statutory inspections take place as required by the Education Act. DLET will also support improvement and transformation of standards and will require accountability of the members of each Church of England Academy in respect both of ethos and standards.

DLET is the appointing body for foundation members of local governing bodies in Church of England Academies and approves the appointment of Trustees to Academy Trusts of which it is a corporate member.

The DDE and the Chair of the DBE Committee are ex-officio Members of the Company with a further 3 members appointed from the Committee.

A representative of the Lichfield DBE will act on behalf of DLET at Members meetings.

Heather Morris

Trustee from October 2015 to present

Now retired, Heather’s longstanding career in education began in 1970, when she joined Birmingham City Council’s Education Department, progressing to Principal Officer in the employee relations team of Human Resources.

In 2007, she moved to work in a secondary school in the south west of Birmingham which had recently come out of Special Measures and then became part of a multi academy trust.

As part of her administrative role, Heather led and managed teams of various sizes, and worked with others to interpret legislation, terms and conditions of service for support and teaching staff and advised schools. Her areas of expertise included HR, Finance, Site and Health and Safety. She was the only non-teaching member of the Senior leadership team.

Jane Hounsome

External Challenge Partner

Jane is CIMA qualified and had several years’ financial experience in the automotive, banking and property retail sectors, plus additional experience of running her own business prior to working in school finance where she has been for the last 11 years.

For the first 5 years she was a School Business Professional (SBP) in 2 schools before joining an education finance consultancy where she has been for over 6 years before recently retiring.

These roles allowed Jane to develop her skills and experience in recruiting and managing finance staff, budgeting and forecasting techniques and management reporting. In both the schools where she held a SBP role, Jane established the finance department from scratch.

Latterly as a finance consultant, Jane was also one of the first School Resource Management Advisors (SRMA) appointed by the ESFA when the SRMA programme was formally rolled out having gained accreditation in December 2019. Since then, she has completed over 30 reviews in a variety of academy settings. She is also supporting West Coventry Academy up to its transfer to Arthur Terry Learning Partnership.

Alex Yip

Trustee from April 2022 to present

Councillor Alex Yip is the Councillor for Sutton Wylde Green ward, Birmingham City Council, has been a Birmingham Magistrate since 2009, a school governor since 2007 and a trustee of the City of Birmingham Orchestra (CBSO) since 2018

After graduating from Leicester University with a Masters in International Relations in 2004, he taught English in Shanghai for a year after volunteering in Ghana and Zambia. He has since returned many times spending considerable time volunteering across Africa through the Conservatives Friends of International Development (CFID) programs teaching budding entrepreneurs business skills in Rwanda and Tanzania in 2017 and 2018. Currently a Birmingham City Councillor, as the Shadow Cabinet Member for Vulnerable Children and Families he focuses on SEND matters for the city. He was also a Parliamentary candidate standing in Edgbaston during the 2019 General Elections. He was a past Board Director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF), a passionate supporter of raising Mental Health awareness regularly fundraising for MIND mental health in the past and a property developer having previously ran a chain of Chinese takeaways. A committed Christian, and a proud Brummie, he enjoys playing chess, skiing, badminton, and is a very happy father of two.

Brian Cookson

Finance Committee from July 2018 to present

Brian has continuously taught in secondary schools since qualifying in 1973. Although qualifying in Humanities, he developed and taught pre-vocational programmes and was a vocational programme assessor. Together with a colleague, he developed, promoted, taught and became Director of what became a nationally acclaimed 16-19 programme known as TOPS for students who otherwise may have left education with few qualifications.

Brian undertook work in research into the development of pre-vocational education at Warwick and Keele Universities. He has maintained this firm interest and recently completed a 6 year period working with the European Commission ET 2020 Group in Brussels with specific remits in Entrepreneurship Education and Transversal Skills.

Brian has a strong trade union background. Following on from local union roles, he has been a member of the NASUWT National Executive for 20 years.
Brian is still a member of the TUC General Council. He was also Lay Auditor, responsible for auditing the work commissioned by the European Commission, for 8 years for the ETUCE representing education trade union members across Europe and based in Brussels.

Brian has been a member of the England and Wales Teachers’ Pension Advisory Board and the Scottish equivalent. He remains a member of the Scottish Teachers’ Pension Board. He has also been Chair of Trustees of a private pension scheme since 2009.
He is passionate about education, teaching and working with young people.

Sam Henson

Finance Committee from July 2020 to present

Sam currently works for the National Governance Association, where he oversees NGA’s policy, information and research service, ensuring it adds to the learning of the organisation and best improves the governance of schools, while supporting the chief executive in leading the organisation to achieve positive change in the policy of school governance. He is also the main policy lead for NGA’s work on multi academy trusts and has specialised in MAT governance structures and schemes of delegation since joining NGA in early 2015. His other responsibilities include overseeing the delivery of NGA’s e-newsletter and bi-monthly magazine, ‘Governing Matters’ to NGA members. He is the joint author of the ‘Staying in Control of Your Destiny’ series and has been lead author on NGA’s induction guide ‘Welcome to Governance’ for the last three years, and now ‘Welcome to MATs’.

Sam has worked in school governance for 10 years. Before joining the NGA, he worked for a large multi academy trust with more than 30 schools, leading an in-house governance team, supporting the trust board and it’s academy committees across a national network of academies providing training, advice and guidance. Prior to that, he worked for a local authority and in the financial services sector.

Maxine Rowley

Finance Committee from September 2022 to present

Maxine has extensive NHS senior management experience working across predominantly primary care, commissioning & procurement, strategic planning ( including organisational growth planning), writing policies and SOP’s. Leading on mobilisation of new services, including project management of new premises, overseas healthcare services, safeguarding lead and Quality Director which includes CQC preparation and readiness for inspections.

Maxine has a positive approach, passionate and motivational to deliver good quality services to patients and empowering teams in an ever-changing Healthcare landscape!

Max, lives locally with her husband and youngest of 3 son’s. Her passions include, spoiling 5 beautiful grandchildren, photography, learning new cooking techniques and enjoying life, its precious!

David Watson

Finance Committee from November 2022 to present

A highly experienced educationalist, David’s career to date has included headships in both Birmingham and Manchester. In parallel to this, he has held leader and director-level positions for national and regional educational bodies, as well as being an Ofsted inspector. His strong track record of success delivering positive impact at school, system, local, regional and national level, saw him awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List for services to education. Throughout his career, David has successfully delivered sustained improvement in both pupil and Ofsted outcomes. He also has a keen interest in developing leadership programmes to encourage and nurture highly effective leaders and staff, alongside a values-led approach to driving strategy, where all stakeholders play their part. Before joining Venturers Trust in 2020, David was the CEO and Executive Principal of Changing Lives in Collaboration Trust, based in Manchester.

Brian Cookson

Workforce Committee from September 2022 to present

Brian has continuously taught in secondary schools since qualifying in 1973. Although qualifying in Humanities, he developed and taught pre-vocational programmes and was a vocational programme assessor. Together with a colleague, he developed, promoted, taught and became Director of what became a nationally acclaimed 16-19 programme known as TOPS for students who otherwise may have left education with few qualifications.

Brian undertook work in research into the development of pre-vocational education at Warwick and Keele Universities. He has maintained this firm interest and recently completed a 6 year period working with the European Commission ET 2020 Group in Brussels with specific remits in Entrepreneurship Education and Transversal Skills.

Brian has a strong trade union background. Following on from local union roles, he has been a member of the NASUWT National Executive for 20 years.
Brian is still a member of the TUC General Council. He was also Lay Auditor, responsible for auditing the work commissioned by the European Commission, for 8 years for the ETUCE representing education trade union members across Europe and based in Brussels.

Brian has been a member of the England and Wales Teachers’ Pension Advisory Board and the Scottish equivalent. He remains a member of the Scottish Teachers’ Pension Board. He has also been Chair of Trustees of a private pension scheme since 2009.

He is passionate about education, teaching and working with young people.

Heather Morris

Workforce Committee from September 2022 to present

Now retired, Heather’s longstanding career in education began in 1970, when she joined Birmingham City Council’s Education Department, progressing to Principal Officer in the employee relations team of Human Resources.

In 2007, she moved to work in a secondary school in the south west of Birmingham which had recently come out of Special Measures and then became part of a multi academy trust.

As part of her administrative role, Heather led and managed teams of various sizes, and worked with others to interpret legislation, terms and conditions of service for support and teaching staff and advised schools. Her areas of expertise included HR, Finance, Site and Health and Safety. She was the only non-teaching member of the Senior leadership team.

Maxine Rowley

Workforce Committee from September 2022 to present

Maxine has extensive NHS senior management experience working across predominantly primary care, commissioning & procurement, strategic planning ( including organisational growth planning), writing policies and SOP’s. Leading on mobilisation of new services, including project management of new premises, overseas healthcare services, safeguarding lead and Quality Director which includes CQC preparation and readiness for inspections.

Maxine has a positive approach, passionate and motivational to deliver good quality services to patients and empowering teams in an ever-changing Healthcare landscape!

Max, lives locally with her husband and youngest of 3 son’s. Her passions include, spoiling 5 beautiful grandchildren, photography, learning new cooking techniques and enjoying life, its precious!

John Vickers

Chair of Trustees, July 2017 to present

John has more than 35 years’ experience of working in comprehensive schools in rural, urban and inner-city environments, including over 20 years as a secondary head teacher in Birmingham, North Yorkshire and Coventry.

More recently, he has worked as a freelance education consultant in association with three Local Authorities and a wide range of individual secondary schools in Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, and Bradford. His main focus has been challenging and supporting senior leadership teams and governing bodies of secondary schools to secure school improvement.

Paulette Osborne

Trustee from January 2022 to present

Paulette has been working in education for over 25 years and is really proud to have had a long and outstanding career as an educator, mentor and system leader.  Paulette was the  Headteacher at St Matthew’s CofE Teaching  and Research School until her retirement in August 2019.

She is passionate about reading and St Matthew’s was  the first school, nationally, to be  awarded the Egmont Reading for Pleasure School of the Year Award, in 2018.

As part of her  National Leader of Education role, Paulette has sat on a range of DFE advisory committees and over the last 10 years has held a number of board positions on both local and national Multi Academy Trusts.

As the Assistant Director for School Improvement at Birmingham Education Partnership, Paulette brings expertise in all aspects of Primary education.

Paulette’s work to raise school standards and impact the life chances of generations of young people has been recognised, at the highest levels. She was awarded an MBE for her services to education – she took the whole school down to London to meet the Queen! She was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Aston University, for her ‘significant contribution to raising attainment amongst young people, in the Aston and Nechells areas and across the city of Birmingham’.

Alex Yip

Trustee from April 2022 to present

Councillor Alex Yip is the Councillor for Sutton Wylde Green ward, Birmingham City Council, has been a Birmingham Magistrate since 2009, a school governor since 2007 and a trustee of the City of Birmingham Orchestra (CBSO) since 2018

After graduating from Leicester University with a Masters in International Relations in 2004, he taught English in Shanghai for a year after volunteering in Ghana and Zambia. He has since returned many times spending considerable time volunteering across Africa through the Conservatives Friends of International Development (CFID) programs teaching budding entrepreneurs business skills in Rwanda and Tanzania in 2017 and 2018. Currently a Birmingham City Councillor, as the Shadow Cabinet Member for Vulnerable Children and Families he focuses on SEND matters for the city. He was also a Parliamentary candidate standing in Edgbaston during the 2019 General Elections. He was a past Board Director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF), a passionate supporter of raising Mental Health awareness regularly fundraising for MIND mental health in the past and a property developer having previously ran a chain of Chinese takeaways. A committed Christian, and a proud Brummie, he enjoys playing chess, skiing, badminton, and is a very happy father of two.

Anna Balson

Director of Education – Primary

A National Leader of Education (NLE) Under her dedicated and inspirational leadership, Anna took Mere Green Primary school from a struggling one-form entry, undersubscribed ‘requires improvement’ primary school to an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted outcome in just two years and is now a very popular, oversubscribed two-form entry community primary school.

She maintains strategic responsibility for Mere Green but her wider role now sees her responsible for school improvement and performance management across all primary schools within the group. Anna delivers training, leadership support and challenge to head teachers and leadership teams, as well as developing partnership-wide systems for assessment and portfolios of evidence.
Anna has an outstanding record of accomplishment as a school leader.

Deirdre Duigan

Director of Education – Secondary

David Watson

Trustee from November 2022 to present

A highly experienced educationalist, David’s career to date has included headships in both Birmingham and Manchester. In parallel to this, he has held leader and director-level positions for national and regional educational bodies, as well as being an Ofsted inspector. His strong track record of success delivering positive impact at school, system, local, regional and national level, saw him awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List for services to education. Throughout his career, David has successfully delivered sustained improvement in both pupil and Ofsted outcomes. He also has a keen interest in developing leadership programmes to encourage and nurture highly effective leaders and staff, alongside a values-led approach to driving strategy, where all stakeholders play their part. Before joining Venturers Trust in 2020, David was the CEO and Executive Principal of Changing Lives in Collaboration Trust, based in Manchester.