Bursar’s Review ISBA Annual Conference 2019

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS 34 Sarah Pinch Sarah Pinch Chart PR, FCIPR, MIoD, is managing director of Pinch Point Communications. She originally trained as a journalist and TV director for the BBC. For the past 17 years she has worked in corporate communications and marketing. Sarah has worked across all sectors and has extensive experience of crisis and issues management, including advising a number of independent schools. Her corporate communications expertise includes stakeholder management, crisis and issues management, internal communications and employee engagement and the translation of brand essence into reputational worth. In 2011, she won the inaugural Institute of Directors and Chartered Institute of Public Relations PR Director of the Year award for her work with the board at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust. In 2015, Sarah was president for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and is a non-executive director of the Health and Safety Executive. Helen Tucker Helen is head of the independent schools team at Stone King. Prior to joining, Helen was head of the education sector team at Ashfords solicitors, and head of legal for The Girls’ Day School Trust, a group of 25 schools. Helen has also completed her tenure as chair of governors at a school in Bristol. Helen counts a number of large school groups as clients, specialising in advising on risk across the group structure. Her recent experience includes strategic projects such as mergers and acquisitions of independent schools and cross-sector collaborations. Helen also handles a wide range of operational issues, including complex safeguarding cases, crisis management and PR, educational negligence claims and responding to allegations of discrimination from pupils and parents. “Helen Tucker’s team …is noted for its ‘very high-quality service, well-pitched advice and quick response times'. Tucker is ‘extremely thorough', and has ‘a real practical understanding of how schools function.” – The Legal 500. Tilden Watson Tilden is an accountant and qualified internal auditor. He initially spent 17 years of his career grappling with public sector finance, policy, audit and risk issues. This experience gave him a wide grounding in real risk and reputation issues, which included being part of the crisis response team to the Braer oil tanker grounding in 1991, managing a critical life dependent service failure and being an audit manager in an organisation with a toxic political culture. Tilden subsequently spent two years in the Treasury, drafting risk management policy particularly around embedding risk in government departments and major government projects. For the past 12 years, Tilden has worked for Zurich delivering risk, reputation and resilience-related services to nearly 300 key Zurich clients. For three years, Tilden managed Zurich’s strategic risk consultancy in the UK that supports clients in embedding risk management at the heart of their operations. In 2014 Tilden was appointed as Zurich Municipal's new head of education. Outside of Zurich, Tilden is a vice chair of governors at his local school and sits on the Performance and Audit Committee of The Conservation Volunteers, a major UK charity. C4 11.55 – 12.55 FUTURE OF IT FOR SCHOOLS Mark Reynolds, chair Mark is the founder of Hable, a specialist education consultancy practice which launched in January 2015. Education IT has been his specialism and passion for more than 10 years, during which time he’s worked with customers, partners and government organisations to drive change and help people learn in new ways. His previous role was leading the education team at Microsoft UK. Mark left Microsoft to build a start-up that inspires people to do great things, then empowers them with useful technology. Hable offers expert consultancy and learning experiences, to help clients dream big and deploy fast. Mark studied English and sociology at the University of Manchester, he is also a parent governor at Rush Common Primary School in Oxfordshire. Panel Tim Collins Tim Collins is a co-founder and CEO of Studentnomic, an exciting UK EdTech, which is changing the way school apps are used to streamline administration and raise the standards of parental engagement. Studentnomic is committed to making the future of school IT a better one and is working with organisations including University College London’s Educate Programme and Amazon's EdStart to unlock the future of technology in a way that can empower schools. Alan Hodgin For the past 19 years, Alan has helped schools make a positive difference to pupils’ learning with education technology at RM Education, a leading technology partner for UK schools. Alan heads RM’s wide offering for independent schools. He co-authored ISBA’s IT Survey 2018 and has an in-depth understanding of the unique needs and challenges of the independent sector, and how ICT can help to deliver a school’s vision and ambitions. Mark Steed Mark Steed spent his career working in top independent schools before moving to Dubai in September 2015 to take up the reins as the director of JESS. In the UK he worked as a teacher, head of department and boarding housemaster prior to his two senior leadership roles as headmaster of Kelly College in Devon www.theisba.org.uk