Team Bios

Ben was a governor at Millennium Primary for several years during its turnaround.

Owner of Millennium Minis Nurseries in London. Their ethos is around childcare being a core community asset and as well as sponsoring children's sport activities across the area, they gift 25% of their profits to local community organisations.

There are sites in Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Stratford and West London. He will be expanding further over the next few years and each site will offer similar support to their local communities. Later this year he is starting a training company to work with local residents to train them for a career in child care and is complementing this by becoming one of only three nurseries in London to pay the London Living Wage.

Having previously run his own businesses in recruitment and insurance, Ben now uses that commercial expertise and entrepreneurial spirit in combination with a passion for education to run innovative nurseries across London.

Anna is a civil servant for central government, currently working in the Government Equalities Office on legal protections against discrimination. She spent two years on secondment with REAch2 Academy Trust, heading up their governance and policy team - where her big learning point was the real value of the 'fresh pair of eyes' brought by volunteers involved in governance.

Before 2015, Anna had a range of education policy and delivery roles in central government, including on academies, school improvement, school qualifications and specialist school status.

Anna loves living in SE London and has daughters in primary and secondary schools. She has lived and worked in France, Belgium and South Africa, where she helped set up a charity providing educational resources, library facilities and reading support for township schools.

Eben works at REAch2 Academy Trust as the Head of Strategy and Data, with further responsibilities for Risk, Policy, and Systems. Before this, Eben was trained as a teacher of maths and then worked as a civil servant for central government within the Department for Education. Eben is also a serving co-opted school governor for a Local Authority school near his home in South East London.

Martin is a solicitor with over 15 years of private and in-house experience in the banking sector. He is now a lawyer for the Department for Education. Martin has expertise in lending to public sector entities, notably further and higher education providers. He has volunteered in school governance, as both a local governor and trustee, since 2014.

Sarah is a chartered accountant with over 20 years of experience, specialising in financial planning and reporting, risk and controls and investor relations. She began her career with Deloitte and then held senior finance roles within Johnson Matthey Plc.

Tiff is co-founder and Chair of Trustees of Maritime Academy Trust and a Trustee of the National Institute of Teaching. A long-standing National Leader of Governance, she was also a founding member of Independent Governor Support (IGovS). She is Director of the market-leading Education practice at PLMR, one of the UK's leading independent communications agencies, ranked in the top 50 in the UK and top 200 globally. She specialises in all aspects of communications, PR, public affairs, crisis and reputation management for education organisations across early years, schools, further and higher education, skills and training providers, edtech and charities. She was awarded an OBE in the King’s New Year Honours List 2024 for services to education.

Lou is passionate about creating spaces where people can thrive, whether that is within organisations, institutions or places. She has 20 years' experience working in the space of developing people, which started in HR at Sainsbury's through to most recently developing leaders in charities and social enterprises. Her current work focuses on training and development, specifically in the areas of leadership, social change, innovation and enterprise.

Having worked across private, higher education and charitable organisations in both small and large organisations, in a variety of roles, she believes her varied experiences enable her to identify different ways of doing things, taking the best ideas from one space to another.

Outside of formal work, she is a Museum of Happiness trainer and has been a registered waste collector, both equally amazing learning experiences in creating positive change.

Lou believes 'there is little success where there is little laughter' and that the power of play and creativity is an underrated tool in identifying innovative solutions to our greatest challenges.

Nick is CEO of Maritime Academy Trust and a National Leader of Education. Throughout his more than 20 years as a teacher and leader, Nick's focus on developing and motivating staff has led to the transformation of numerous schools.

He was inspired to create Maritime because of his belief that the key to improving children's life chances is by always looking for ways to drive meaningful collaboration. With authentic collaboration, staff can share ideas, reduce workload and learn from each other, creating opportunities that will have a massively positive impact on the children and communities they serve.

Nick has a passion for curriculum design that balances the knowledge and skills needed to prepare children for whatever comes next, and getting the most educational impact possible with every available resource. He has three children of his own and is a governor at his boys' school.

Sunny is passionate about the business in general and has worked in the big blue chip company with extensive international leadership experience. Sunny has a track record of leading sustained cultural and behavioural change, setting up new facilities, establishing a global fast make supply chain and delivering annual services contracts worth more than US$1 billion. The recent EMBA study at Cambridge further enhanced strategic leadership development.

Mark Chatley is Chief Executive Officer of Coppice Primary Partnership, a multi-academy trust of four primary schools in Kent.

He has worked in primary education and school leadership for many years and is passionate about creating great schools where children, staff and communities can thrive. Mark brings experience of school improvement, trust leadership, governance and organisational development to his role as a trustee at Maritime.

James Zuccollo is Director for School Workforce at the Education Policy Institute, where he conducts research to help close the gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. An economist by background, he previously led economic research at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, ran the macroeconomic research programme at the think tank Reform, and began his career as a consulting economist in New Zealand.

James spent seven years as a school governor across three South London primary schools. He tutored A-level maths and economics with The Access Project for several years. As a trustee, he brings expertise in school data, alongside experience of school governance.