Meet The Team

Phil is a qualified social worker and has had a successful career in children and adults social care. He was Head of Wellbeing and Social Care at Calderdale Council with responsibility for a staff team of over 1,000 people and revenue budgets in excess of £60m and took the service through major changes. Since 2013 Phil has undertaken a number of interim assignments throughout England, focusing on change management and the interface between health and social care. Phil has been a Trustee at Impact since 2016 and has a strong commitment to enhancing children’s wellbeing and life chances. He is helping to transform Castle Hall Academy, which joined the Trust in September 2018 and where he chairs the LGB. Phil is also a governor at South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

John successfully managed in textile and manufacturing for 20 years. His managerial experience involved leading extensive business change and development into new markets.

John has been involved in school governance for over 20 years, first as a parent governor then as a community/co-opted governor and Chair of governors for 10 years. He had a leading role in the relaunch of the local governors’ association, Calderdale Governors’ Association and has been part of the following Local Authority groups: Calderdale Safeguarding Children’s Board, Calderdale Partnership School Improvement Board and The Schools’ Advisory Capital Group.

Daniel is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and additionally holds the CERA risk management qualification. He has over 10 years’ experience working in the pensions and institutional investment industry mainly focusing on investment risk management for corporate schemes with assets up to £8bn.

Daniel has over 2 years previous management board experience for a small charity based in Leeds.

Mike is an expert in change management. He has led teams through significant change in the private sector and in education. Mike currently works for Lloyds Banking Group helping to improve customer-colleague interactions through a mix of long term strategic planning and rapid change.

Mike also has 8 years’ experience as a parent governor in the primary sector. He was chair of governors for 3 years, leading the board through a five-year change plan, including transforming the senior leadership team to support a 5-year change plan.

Stuart is an experienced educational leader with a wealth of experience achieved across a host of different educational landscapes. Stuart is currently the Principal of an inner-city Secondary school in Bradford, having previously served on the Senior Leadership Team at Leeds College of Bradford. He was also a founding member of the Leeds Learning Alliance. Previously he worked as a Head of English for the Rodillian Multi Academy Trust and co-ordinated both GCSE and A-Level English at Bradford Grammar School for over a decade prior to this. Stuart also has a wealth of governance experience, having previously worked as the Vice Chair of Governors at both John Smeaton Academy and also Castle Hall Academy, where he took responsibility for overseeing the quality of teaching and learning.

Ashley is a practising Barrister in Leeds. In respect of child protection, he regularly appears in the Family Court in both private family disputes and in public law care proceedings where he deals with all aspects of proceedings, including fact finding hearings in respect of all forms of alleged abuse of children.

Prior to joining the Bar, Ashley worked for one of the Commonwealth’s largest employment law and HR consultancy companies where he advised by telephone and in writing on all things employment law and HR as well as having appeared regularly before the Employment Tribunal on behalf of clients. Ashley continues to advise and represent clients in Employment disputes in his current practice.

Liz has been involved in school governance for 10 years as co-opted and community governor on primary, secondary IEB, and Alternative Provision boards. Over the past 15 years she has worked for the North Halifax Partnership charity, which runs Sure Start Centres in Calderdale; and develops community led policy development in local authority and civil service.

Jo has been involved with Rail Transport for 24 years where she has enhanced the performance of large multi-site businesses which have multiple stakeholders. She has led many large and diverse teams through periods of change and has worked closely with government departments on matters of policy and strategy. She has managed large capital investment portfolios across the country and has gained considerable experience in risk management in a safety critical environment. New to the education sector, Jo brings her senior general management experience to Impact to provide a fresh perspective.