Governance

Nayeem Syed is a senior lawyer at London Stock Exchange Group, and his work focuses on financial technology, complex outsourcing and global transformation. He is married with two children, 15 and 10, and lives in Wimbledon.

Rhiannon is a strategy consultant for McKinsey, working across a range of business areas. Prior to consulting, she was a teacher and head of department in London secondary schools and is still very passionate about education. She has an undergraduate geography degree and an MPhil in Polar Studies from Cambridge, as well as a PGCE with QTS in secondary geography. Rhiannon is keen to use her education and corporate experience to benefit schools, including students, teachers and parents.

Genevieve Field has been in the education sector for over 15 years and is currently Director of Programmes at Ambition Institute.  She currently leads the national initial teacher training programme for Ambition which will train over 500 teachers each year.  Previously she has led the early roll-out of Ambition’s ECF provision, and a number of teacher development programmes including the TLIF funded Transforming Teaching, Master's in Expert Teaching, Fellowship in Teacher Education and a series of instructional coaching and curriculum programmes. Genevieve has previously lead Ark Teacher Training's SCITT, playing a key role in partnerships and continuous improvement, as well as running early career provision and piloting Schools Direct for Harris Federation. She has been a school governor with Ark Putney since 2015 and is a trustee for two MATs and a deputy-chair of trustees for an additional MAT.

Amy's professional background is in hospitality and event management. Amy has extensive local community knowledge and as a parent of a child with Autism and ADHD understands first hand the challenges faced by many parents in a similar position, she hopes to share her experiences with the school as Parent governor.

Fiona Forbes is a marketing consultant at Off The Fence Marketing. After graduating from Durham University, Fiona spent a decade working at Unilever before setting up Off the Fence Marketing in 2012. She shares Ark’s aim of giving every Ark pupil an outstanding education and the best possible opportunities.

Chris enjoyed a 30 year professional career as a business lawyer, including as a partner at international firm, Freshfields (2000-2015), where served 4 years as co head of the firm's graduate recruitment function. In 2017, Chris joined the pathfinder cohort of the retraining initiative, NowTeach, successfully completing his QTS and PGCE with Ark/Goldsmiths, working as a trainee history teacher at Ark Putney Academy. As an Ark Putney Academy Governor, he will leverage his legal, coaching and teaching experiences to support the school during its current growth phase.

Matthew Jukes works for RTI International and has 20 years of experience as a researcher in international education and child development. His work in low- and middle-income countries looks at social and emotional learning in the classroom, adapting pedagogy to cultural context, evidence-based decision-making in education, and the elements of effectiveness in national literacy programmes. Matthew has taught secondary school students in the Gambia and teachers and graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Institute of Education in London.  With the focus of Matthew's work so far from home, he is looking to contribute to his own community through an Ark governor role. He has been a fan of Ark's for some time and is looking forward to learning from the work of one of its schools and contributing time and enthusiasm to the mission.

Laura Watts is Vice Principal at Ark Putney Academy with responsibility for curriculum, teaching and learning. Since training on a Graduate Teaching Programme in the subject of English, she has been committed to a long-standing and meaningful career in education. She has gained a range of experiences, having fulfilled both pastoral and academic middle leadership roles as a Head of Year and Head of English, but found her passion for teaching and learning on a Lead Practitioner course with The Harris Federation. In pursuit of CPD within leadership, Laura has gained an MA in Education as well as the NPQSL certification; it is the CPD offer within the Ark Network that she is most proud of. She is passionate about her work, and the work of her colleagues, and is keen to ensure her role as governor supports the school further on their journey.

Ben is very proud to be a governor of Ark Academy Putney. He is a former secondary school Maths teacher who believes passionately in giving students access to the best opportunities regardless of background. Ben is a qualified chartered accountant with experience in auditing academies, charities and not for profit entities and currently works in finance. Ben is also a founding trustee of a widening participation in higher education social enterprise and a former governor at an inner city London Further Education college.