The Trustees
Mrs Lisa Fathers - Chair of the Board
Lisa joined the board in February 2024 and was appointed as Chair in March 2024, having been recruited through a national process.
Lisa has always believed that as an Education Leader she has a wider personal responsibility to the sector and the wider system. Lisa has undertaken a number of governance roles previously: Trustee at a small multi academy trust, Trustee at a large national charity, Chair of a national wellbeing board. Lisa is currently Deputy Chief Executive Officer of a multi academy trust, providing high quality and inclusive education to a family of primary, secondary, and special schools. Lisa is also a National Leader of Education (SLE) working closely with the DfE, other multi academy trusts and local authorities to improve collaboration and school improvement capacity to ensure that more schools can deliver a good education for all our children. Lisa represents education on the Mayoral Reform Board at Greater Manchester. Lisa is a values-driven leader always putting children and young people at the heart of decision making.
Claire Hewitt - Vice Chair
Claire joined the Board in June 2021 having heard about the opportunity via the Academy Ambassadors programme. She is committed to making a difference and improving life chances for young people and this has underpinned her work in education. After starting out as a Chemistry teacher she spent over twenty years working in a variety of senior leadership posts including leading an 11-18 school and being headteacher of an all through school.
Claire has been involved in school inspections and was previously a governor of a free school in Manchester where she chaired the Teaching and Learning Committee. Although Claire is now retired, her passion for educating young people continues and she is involved in voluntary work as a maths tutor. In retirement she is enjoying having more time for walking, cycling and playing the piano.
Mr James Annetts - Trustee
James has extensive experience of serving as a governor over a number of years, including serving as Chair and Vice-Chair of primary and secondary academies. James brings knowledge and expertise from working as a senior executive officer and civil servant for the Department for Education. James’ knowledge of the education sector governance arrangements, the regulatory requirements of academies and his professional expertise related to teacher recruitment, further strengthens the knowledge and expertise of the Trust Board.
Mr Mick Kay - Trustee
Mick is the founding CEO of a West Yorkshire based multi academy trust providing high quality and inclusive education to a family of primary, secondary, all-through and alternative provision academies.
Mick is a system leader working closely with the DFE, RD, LAs and other providers to improve connectivity and increase capacity across the system, ensuring support is targeted at schools that need it most.
Mick is a values-driven leader, with a people-centred approach, driven by the mission to improve social mobility and social inclusion. Working collaboratively with partners, Mick has a track record for delivering sustainable school improvement strategies that lead to significant improvements in outcomes for children and young people.
Mick is in his fourth year as a Trustee at South Pennine Academies, and served as the Chair from March 2022 to the beginning of March 2024 .
Mr Mark McGowan - Trustee
Mark is a qualified accountant who has significant leadership experience in large companies abroad. Mark has worked in consultancy in the information management sector and has experience of advising companies that are seeking expansion and growth into Asian markets. He brings expertise from having spent 21 years in auditing, being the audit partner for three schools (abroad) so consequently has some understanding of the financial pressures on the education sector. He is currently a non-exec director of the South African Chamber of Commerce in Singapore and is also the Vice President (Operations) for Procosec Asia (in Singapore) and a Director of K-2 Partners in South Africa. He will add significant value to the broader strategic discussions at Trust Board meetings and will provide useful oversight of financial matters using his professional qualifications and experience as a Group CFO.
Ms Sarah Mitchell - Co-opted Trustee
Sarah brings extensive project and change management skills as well as audit expertise to the Trust Board, having worked for companies such as Deloitte, Yorkshire Building Society, Lloyds Banking Group, Co-operative Banking Group. She brings a wealth of knowledge in delivering challenging projects within time, cost and performance criteria. The Board will benefit from Sarah’s ability to build powerful relationships and networks alongside her strong influencing skills. Sarah also brings excellent understanding of effective governance and assurance frameworks and will strengthen the Board with her legal and regulatory expertise.
Mr Matt Risley - Trustee
Matt is a proven business leader in the media sector, and currently sits as Managing Director of 4Studio at Channel 4. 4Studio serves as Channel 4's in-house digital agency, which is focused on reaching, engaging and monetising audiences wherever they're spending their time (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok etc). He heads up the business' largest team outside of London, serving as a Senior Leader in Channel 4's Leeds office, and has grown the department from scratch, since 2020, to a team of 120 people. Creatively minded but commercially driven, he is familiar with running a business which has public accountability and close scrutiny of funding, and brings with him a wealth of strategic planning and target setting expertise, which is used to challenge and support the Trust Board, and the Executive team of South Pennine Academies.
Ms Adele Spencer - Trustee
Adele works as Head of Procurement and Legal for Benenden Health, a company which provides health care and support including insurance services for private and corporate clients (often in conjunction with the NHS). Adele joined Benenden Health about 10 years ago and, as much of their support work is outsourced, she built and led the team that managed all the contracts with suppliers.
She has worked extensively with contracts and contract negotiations and leads a small team of lawyers who manage the technical aspects of the work. Equally, she liaises with external lawyers, under contract, for their more complex cases spending about £50m annually on contracted services. Adele is also a Trustee to the company’s Pension Scheme which has around 400 members and thus she is used to attending trustee meetings to support and challenge the oversight of the pension funds.
Prior to working for Benenden Health, Adele worked for the local authorities in Hull and York working on procurement matters. Whilst in Hull she was involved in some aspects of Children’s’ Services including the procurement of private foster care and play initiatives. In addition, she has worked on the procurement of FM services for councils including major cleaning contracts. Adele brings her broad experience to the Trust Board and, whilst her specialism is in procurement and contract negotiations, she will add value to discussions relating to finance, compliance and risk as well as all matters relating to procurement, as well as routine strategy.
Mr Dean Watkin - Co-opted Trustee
Dean is currently Headteacher at Newsome Academy, a secondary school in Huddersfield which is part of the Impact Education MAT. He is interested in every aspect of education and has a wealth of experience of working in challenging schools. Now in his fifth senior leadership role, he has an all-round experience of all strategic areas of whole-school and trust leadership.
Dean grew up in a working-class family in a mining town in South Yorkshire and knows at first-hand the true-life impact that quality education has for children. This is at the core of everything he does.