I have experience of educational leadership at school and national level and specialise in supporting school and children’s services leadership learning, policy development and improvement. My work with national organisations, with local authorities and with schools, focuses on the development and delivery of leadership programmes, facilitating and designing conferences, think tanks and seminars, and on leadership coaching.I am a regular facilitator for large conferences; a senior associate of the Innovation Unit; a consultant adviser to the Creative Partnerships ‘Schools of Creativity’ programme; and formerly an independent adviser to DCSF on Creativity. I am co-designer and facilitator for the National College Fellowship Programme for National Leaders of Education.I am a trustee of Centrepoint, a magistrate, a vice-chair of governors of the University of Bedfordshire and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.My experience of designing and leading has been built on my previous roles in educational leadership. For nearly ten years, I was head of a mixed 11-18 comprehensive and media specialist school, which achieved national recognition for its successes and a reputation for inclusive and collaborative approaches. I left my headship in April 2002 to become a director at The National College for School Leadership (NCSL, now The National College)At NCSL I co-designed and led the influential New Visions programme for new headteachers and then went on to lead practitioner research and work with the Leadership Network. I authored and co-authored a number of College publications. My later work at NCSL was in the field of policy development and I led the first phase of the College’s strategy on leadership succession for England’s schools. I was also a co-founder of Future Leaders, the innovative programme to develop the next generation of leaders for challenging schools