Group Chief People Officer

Since joining the organisation in 2015, Louise has worked on mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, sponsorship, and a capital investment programme. Her portfolio has spanned the Group and encompassed Strategy, Growth, Transformation Projects, Policy and Research, External Affairs, Communications, PR and Marketing, Human Resources, Student Services, Safeguarding, and Governance. 

Before this, having worked in both Secondary Education and in a Local Authority Advisory and Inspection Service where she completed her Masters in School Improvement, Louise worked in the charity sector for 12 years. This experience has given her direct experience and insight to education provision as well as a holistic perspective on wider social issues. From 2001, in the charity sector, she covered a range of policy agendas working with government departments and non-departmental bodies to implement national strategies and programmes at regional and local levels. Through this journey Louise has developed an agile, adaptive mentality needed to thrive with organisational change in the current environment. 

In her current role, Louise provides the strategic joined up thinking and action required to promote and protect the position of the Group externally. She balances this whilst designing and implementing change and transformation programmes internally to improve effectiveness, creating an environment which enables organizational development and promotes growth. 

Louise is the Executive lead for Group Marketing and Communications, Recruitment, Policy and Research, Strategic Development and Growth, National Campaigns and External Affairs. Over the past five years, Louise has brought together expert teams across the business to secure over £40M of inward investment. This includes leading collaboration networks of FE, HE and AEB providers across the Local London region on the development of Green and Digital Skills.

Externally Louise is a member of the London Local Skills Improvement Advisory Panel with Business LDN, a Director of the South East London Chamber of Commerce and a member of the GLA’s Green New Deal Anchor Working Group. Within education, Louise Chair of the Woodland Academy Trust, a Trustee of the national school improvement charity Challenge Partners and a Member of the Strategic Education Partnership for Bexley.

A key element of this work is stakeholder engagement and partnerships, aligned to the current and future strategies of the wider Group. In this external space, she leads on public relations, external communications, reputation, and branding, ensuring reputational risk is mitigated and managed. During Louise’s leadership of this area national recognition has been achieved, resulting in the College and Group winning five national awards: The Queen’s Anniversary Prize, a national Public Sector Leadership Award for Social Value and three TES Awards including FE College of the year. 

Louise has led the design and implementation of the current Group Strategy, embedding the principles of social value within this to be able to articulate and maximize social impact. Drawing on her experience of working in the charity sector, including her instrumental role in the establishment of the Dame Kelly Holmes’ Trust in 2008, Louise leads on the social and charitable enterprise work, monitoring and reporting on the Group’s social value and volunteering initiatives. From this work Louise and her team have developed award winning national campaigns.