ISBA

48 www.theisba.org.uk CONFERENCE SPEAKERS Simon Bevan Simon has more than 22 years’ experience advising schools and colleges in all aspects of education employment law for VWV. He has become the first port of call for many clients, his focus being to understand you and your school’s needs. He has developed expertise in incident management, safeguarding and safer recruitment, restructuring, salary scales, contracts and procedures, as well as information and consultation arrangements. He leads the firm’s safer recruitment training programme which is now in its twelfth successful year of supporting the sector’s safeguarding training needs. Simon spent his early career lecturing in law in universities. He is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) and was previously a school governor. He is a regular speaker at national and regional education conferences and writes for numerous publications on sector specific issues. Sam Coutinho (As before) Eve Jardine-Young Eve has been principal of Cheltenham Ladies’ College since 2011, and has worked in education for over 25 years. She had held academic and pastoral roles in both single sex and co-educational schools, having originally studied engineering science at Cambridge University and worked in industry for a time. She is chair of the World Leading Schools Association (WLSA) and has spoken on themes relating to leadership and education in the UK, Washington, Prague and Hong Kong. She has written on leadership, careers of the future and the fourth industrial revolution, holistic education and wellbeing, and professional development within education. A deputy lord lieutenant for Gloucestershire, she is also a trustee of the Barnwood Trust, whose work supports marginalised and vulnerable adults in leading more independent lives. Deeply committed to environmental initiatives, she has an interest in conservation, sustainability, design, social enterprise, microfinance and development economics, having been born and raised in Malawi. David Smellie (See David’s biography on page 16) Alistair Wardell Alistair is a partner and head of restructuring south region at Grant Thornton. With over 20 years’ experience in restructuring Alistair is fortunate to have worked across a broad range of sectors including independent schools. Alistair uses robust scenario planning, effective re-modelling and realistic financial forecasting to help businesses to set a clear purpose and optimise performance. He has vast experience in helping businesses, boards and business owners, together with banks, lenders and investors, to address highly sensitive and problematic commercially distressed organisations. His key focus is to ensure these organisations develop granular and measurable insights about their future. Highly experienced in restructuring and insolvency, Alistair’s team helps business leaders produce and, importantly, implement plans that deliver in line with stakeholder expectations. Where necessary, to maximise such stakeholder value, Alistair takes insolvency appointments with the key intention to help protect a business, its employees, customers, suppliers, lenders and other creditors. F3 14.00 – 15.00 Is it possible to retain good staff? Managing staff unrest Ben Collingwood, chair Ben is a partner at Moore Barlow and an experienced lawyer who specialises in wide ranging areas of education law. He advises independent schools on reputation issues, pastoral, safeguarding, historic abuse allegations, admissions/exclusions, parent/pupil complaints, data protection and GDPR compliance, parent contracts and employment/HR matters. He has written and spoken widely on these issues at ISBA, BSA, IAPS and AGBIS conferences and has provided comment in The Times, The Guardian, The Lawyer and Law Society’s Gazette. Ben serves as a trustee of his local Parochial Church Council in Sussex and is a member of the Safeguarding and Child Protection Association, the Employment Lawyers’ Association and the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship. Jane Drew Jane Drew is director of human resources at Charterhouse. She is responsible for HR strategic development, operational HR and staff-related aspects of compliance. A chartered fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, Jane has pursued an HR career, so far spanning 25 years. Prior to joining Charterhouse in 2007, Jane ran her own HR management consultancy. Before this, Jane was head of HR for four AXA PPP healthcare subsidiary companies. For the five years to 2011, she was an accredited independent public appointments assessor focused on the appointment of non-executive chairs and directors to Trust boards within the National Health Service. She is a lay member of the Remuneration Committee for the Diocese of Guildford, and is president of The City of London Squadron Association for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, having served as a reservist herself for 20 years. Abbey Gough Abbey has been chief operating officer at Eastbourne College since 2019. She was educated at Brighton and Hove High School for Girls before studying business and management at the University of Exeter, graduating with a first class honours degree. Abbey started her career at UBS investment bank on the trading floor, working in structured products and risk management. From there, Abbey moved to Deloitte where she qualified as a chartered accountant and spent 10 years working in audit and capital markets during which time she had two children. In February 2016, Abbey moved out of practice and into industry, taking on the role of head of finance at Glyndebourne before moving to Eastbourne College. Adam Mcreae-Taylor Adam is a senior associate at Moore Barlow and specialises in employment and education law. He advises on issues such as unfair dismissal, discrimination cases, safeguarding, parent contracts and data protection issues including in relation to the GDPR. His approach is to work with schools and charities to ensure that they are managing their staff fairly and lawfully, as a happy workforce. This not only helps an organisation thrive and grow, but also prevents managers from being distracted by disputes. Where contentious issues do arise, Adam is experienced in employment tribunal litigation and regularly advises on employment claims such as unfair dismissal, whistleblowing and discrimination. Adam trained and qualified in employment law with a Magic Circle firm in London. Before joining the schools & charities team at Moore Barlow LLP (formerly Barlow Robbins LLP), he spent two years working in-house for a charity which gave him an invaluable perspective on how to provide practical advice on the issues charities commonly face.