David is currently the Independent Chair of the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee for the West Midlands Combined Authority as well as a Chair of a local Primary School and local Parish Councillor in Warwickshire.

David is now retired, but his career was largely leading change and improvement within both Public and Private sectors, with some long standing third sector supportive roles. He has also worked with many government departments and agencies to advise them on change.

Kate is currently the Clerk to the Lord-Lieutenant of the West Midlands which involves working with the business and voluntary sectors across the region, participating in civic activities, acting as liaison with the armed forces and supporting Royal visits to the County.

A qualified solicitor with over 20 years in commercial property law, subsequently becoming a business and property consultant, Kate has a strong background in constitutional law and governance.

Kate has had various voluntary positions in the employment and skills sector in Birmingham and is currently a director of Millennium Point which promotes education in the field of innovation and technology.

Bren leads Link2ICT’s Professional Services providing support for more than 1400 schools nationally, mainly in Birmingham, Staffordshire and West Sussex.

Bren is currently the chair of West Midlands Regional Broadband Consortium (WMnet),  a board member of the National Education Network (NEN) and a director of the Birmingham eLearning Foundation (BeLF). He is also a program committee member for the annual International mLearn conference.

A teacher by trade, Bren taught in Sandwell and Birmingham.  During his time at Birmingham LA and with Link2ICT, he also led the Birmingham CLC Service and was a senior advisor to the Birmingham BSF programme. For the last six years he has  been a facilitator for the National College for Teaching and Learning’s (NCTL) leadership programmes, working for two different licensees, and during which time he was certificated in the first ever  cohort of NCTL’s Advanced Facilitator programme.

As a volunteer, Bren has worked in soup kitchens, been a school governor and has contributed as one of a couple of UK representatives to the UNESCO OER programme.  His spare time now is often taken up with keeping his classic sports car on the road and taking part in events and rallies across the UK and Europe. Bren is married with two grown up children and his wife is also a teacher in a special education setting.

Jared is experienced in strategic development and change management and has overseen critical areas of businesses including, but not limited to, M&A, real estate, commercials, vendor management, sales and merger.

Jared had led large project teams, exceeding 100 project resources, within high-budget projects. Jared is experienced in identifying strategic roadmaps and guiding board-level decision making.

Jared runs a successful consultancy business that supports businesses through complex mergers and acquisitions within high-pressure environments.

Patrick is accomplished at delivering strategy for sustainable business growth and people/team development. Has a demonstrable proven track record of customer service performance improvement in executive roles, including FTSE quoted PLC’s.

Patrick has extensive commercial experience leading account strategy for multi-million-pound contracts and delivering customer service excellence.

Patrick has strong strategic planning, operations, and commercial skills within UK markets in B2C & B2B markets including the public sector and has significant experience in transformation and change management.

Helen has worked both within schools and as a school improvement advisor for many year supporting schools that need rapid improvement.  She has considerable expertise in the evaluation of educational standards across a range of settings, leadership and governance of schools of all phases and types, early years provision and partnership working with local authorities and officers of the DFE.

Maria has worked within HR within the rail industry consultancy since 2006 currently holding the role of HR and Business Improvement Director for Arriva Traincare. Prior to the rail industry Maria held senior posts in B2B consultancy and the food industry . Marie currently represent Arriva UKT on industry forums at division and group level and is a member of the pensions reform working party.

Simon started his working life with HSBC Bank (formerly Midland Bank) and held numerous senior and branch management posts in Staffordshire, the West Midlands and the Potteries, as well as a spell in Head Office Marketing, London and HSBC Private Clients.

Simon ran his own coffee shop chain and catering business for 11 years, in Birmingham and Solihull, but after selling the business, with experience in finance & management, as well as having been a Chair of Governors at a primary school, he looked for his next important career move.

Simon’s first venture into education was as School Business Manager at a Solihull primary school, which he moved from local authority status to becoming an academy.  Spells as a School Business Manager in secondary schools in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, was followed by a Senior Finance Operations role with one of the largest multi-academy Trusts in England.  Prior to joining FET, Simon was Chief Operations Officer at a small multi-academy trust in Birmingham.

Simon joined FET as Director of Operations in September 2021 and following some leadership changes, took up the role of Acting Chief Executive from January 2022.

Please see below our Register of Pecuniary and Business Interests for all our members of the Forward Education Trust (FET).

Please see below our attendance record for the period between 2020-2021