Our Trustees

David is a senior leader for the St John’s Ambulance charity and an experienced trustee and school governor. He began as a parent governor for Bromley Pensnett Primary School, where his own children were educated.He is a creative and innovative manager of transformative change and systems development across public and charitable sector services.

He has served as a chair of governors in both primary and secondary phases of education.

His commitment to working with children and families in challenging circumstances is hugely impressive.

Viv has been a teacher for 40 years of which 21 years has been as a headteacher. She has recently retired from her post as Executive Headteacher at Colmore Infant & Nursery school which is a DfE designated teaching school. Viv has also been chair of the Birmingham Performance and Commissioning Group for the last 5 years where she has led the co-ordination of school improvement for both primary and secondary schools across the city.

As a National Leader of Education, she has supported many schools facing challenging circumstances. She has worked closely alongside leadership teams and provided training and coaching for class teachers and governing bodies.

As a Birmingham girl, Viv is exceptionally proud to have been a Birmingham headteacher, giving something back to the city which has provided her with so many opportunities.

Cheryl has recently retired from her post as headteacher of Colmore Junior School where she served for over twenty years. Rated ‘outstanding,’ Colmore Juniors is a popular school, situated in a suburb of Birmingham and serving a very mixed ethnic and socio-economic community. Cheryl was appointed as a National Leader of Education in 2007 and her school gained teaching school status in April 2013. Cheryl is a member of the Birmingham Performance and Commissioning Group working in partnership with Birmingham Local Authority to broker school improvement support for schools. In addition, she has trained and worked alongside HMI to support schools in complex and challenging circumstances. She has served as an occasional OFSTED team inspector on section 5 and section 8 school inspections.

Cath is a town planner by profession. She has over 17 years senior leadership experience in local government, managing planning, building control and a range of regulatory services. Since 2013, as an independent consultant, she has worked for both private and public clients including Oxford City Council and the London Borough of Hackney. With significant expertise in major developments, project, programme and change management as well as experience of chairing/participating in management teams, boards and partnerships she is committed to using these skills as a Trustee.

Bernard represents Worcester Diocesan Academies Trust. He is an experienced school improvement adviser and a committed Christian. He helps the Trust to ensure it promotes the Christian distinctiveness of Beechwood CE Primary School and advocates for the values and moral purpose of all the Trust schools.

David is an experienced biochemical engineer. He worked at Cadbury in Bournville, Birmingham for 35 years. David worked across the organisation in technical roles including:

• a wide range of process and product development projects
• leading UK product development for chocolate and sugar confectionery
• leading the production planning department for the Assortments factory
• leading global chocolate process development
• creating the Cadbury Chocolate University

Since retiring, David has worked as a technical consultant for confectionery businesses, sorting out technical business issues for both start-ups and multi-nationals.

David is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Birmingham in the Chemical Engineering Department.

David is an experienced school governor. He served at Wychall Primary School from the mid 90’s and was chair of governors when the school joined the Trust and also served as a governor at Shenley School in Birmingham.

David is currently a serving governor at Chawson First School in Worcestershire

In his spare time David enjoys playing in a brass band, where he is treasurer and singing with the Worcester Male Voice Choir, of which he is both secretary and a serving Trustee.

David enjoys skiing, windsurfing and hill climbing. He spends most of his summers watching Worcester County Cricket Club.

John is the Finance Director of another Multi-Academy Trust in Birmingham. In this role he is responsible for the financial sustainability and development of the Trust and provides high-quality leadership and management of the Trust’s finance and business functions. This enables the Trust to run efficiently and effectively and ensures delivery of good financial management so that public money is safeguarded and used appropriately.

Previously, John was a Finance Consultant in the education sector for eight years. He has worked in nurseries, maintained schools, academies and multi-academy trusts. John has worked in Catholic, C of E and non-faith schools so has a strong overview of finance across all educational provision.

Robert is the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer and has also taken on the role of Trust Safeguarding Lead. In this position, he oversees child protection and safeguarding across all Trust schools and works closely alongside school leaders, school designated safeguarding leads and staff.

He is deeply committed to driving forwards and embedding the Trust’s culture of safeguarding and is responsible for working alongside the Trustee Safeguarding Lead to create the Trust Board’s Annual Safeguarding Report.