Dame Julia Cleverdon DCVO, CBE (Chair)
Vice President, Business in the Community

Dame Julia Cleverdon became a Vice President of Business in the Community in March 2008 after serving 16 years as Chief Executive. Business in the Community is a unique movement of 800 companies across the UK committed to continually improving their positive impact on society. Her energy in promoting responsible business practice and the significant impact of the campaigns of Business in the Community led to her being listed by The Times as one of the 50 most influential women in Britain. She was appointed CBE in 1996 and CVO in the New Year’s Honours’ list 2002 and a DCVO in the Queen’s Honours list in 2008. Amongst many other commitments, Julia has recently been appointed by HRH, The Prince of Wales, as a Special Adviser to The Prince’s Charities. She has also been invited to join the National Council for Educational Excellence, is a Governor of Henley Management College and is a patron of both the Helena Kennedy Bursary Scheme and Volunteer Reading Help. Julia was married to the late John Garnett, director of the Industrial Society, and has two daughters aged 22 and 26. Dame Julia is currently the Chair of Teach First.

Julia says: “Having worked for more than 20 years to mobilise business and education to raise achievement , the brilliantly simple idea of taking exceptional graduates to lead in schools which need inspirational leaders seems to me to be the best initiative we have ever had…” 

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Dr. John Dunford OBE
Association of School and College Leaders

John was a member of the leadership team of three comprehensive schools in the north-east of England from 1974 to 1998, including 16 years as head of Durham Johnston Comprehensive School. He has been general secretary of ASCL (formerly the Secondary Heads Association) since 1998. He is a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, Teach First, Future Leaders and Worldwide Volunteering. He is a governor of his local primary school in Leicestershire. John is a great supporter of Teach First and has been on its Board since it started.

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Dr Steve Garnett
Chairman, EMEA, Salesforce.com

Dr. Steve Garnett is Chairman of Salesforce.com in Europe. He has over 25 years experience in the computing software industry after holding Executive management positions at Siebel Systems and Oracle Corporation. Steve has a degree in mathematics and a doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Manchester, and holds a number of professional affiliations. Steve was educated in an inner city school in Liverpool and was inspired by an outstanding mathematics teacher, which changed his life. Since that time he has been passionate about helping to address educational disadvantage.

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Hilary Hodgson
Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation

Following four years teaching Drama in inner London comprehensives, Hilary joined Greenwich Young People's Theatre. Here, she ran youth theatre, devised participatory theatre pieces for young people, wrote teachers' resource packs and ran in-service training for Drama teachers. In the 1990s Hilary worked as Principal Education Officer at London Arts Board, establishing training for artists in schools and youth settings and local networks for arts education. More recently, Hilary has worked as Head of Programmes at the New Opportunities Fund and is now Programme Director for Education at the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, where she has helped to set up a number of arts education initiatives. Hilary has worked freelance for organisations including the English National Ballet and the Woolwich Young Playwrights' competitions. Hilary’s work at the EF has encompassed more than education; she has supported innovative schemes which aim to improve the breadth and quality of education for children in state schools.

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George Iacobescu CBE
Chief Executive, Canary Wharf Group

George Iacobescu joined the Canary Wharf Group in 1988 as Senior Vice President, Construction, to oversee the procurement and construction of the first phase of Canary Wharf. He was promoted to the board of Canary Wharf Holdings Limited as an Executive Director in 1994, appointed Deputy Chief Executive in 1996 and Chief Executive in March 1997. He has day to day authority over the operations of the group and has a central role in the development and implementation of strategy. He is an engineer by training and is closely involved in the construction operations of the group. George is a Trustee of the British Museum, Director of Gateway to London and on the Advisory Board of the UK Academy of Finance. He is on the Board of IFSL.  He is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. He was awarded a CBE in June 2003. 

George says: "I have been a supporter of Teach First since the start because it is based on a simple, brilliant idea: recruiting the brightest and the best graduates to teach in the places where they can do the most good. I was proud to serve as the founding joint Chairman of the organisation. Teach First is full of the most inspirational young people and is making a dramatic difference to the lives of school students in some of the most challenging districts of the UK."

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Peter Lambert OBE
Business in the Community

Peter Lambert is London and South East Director for Business in the Community (BITC).  He joined BITC in 1995 as West Midlands Director moving to London in 2000 as National Director for Regeneration and Community Impact.  He led BITC’s work on the Deputy Prime Minister’s Panel on Neighbourhood Renewal which reported in 2004. Previously, having started out as a teacher in 1973, he has been a schools inspector, led the Insight Programme for the Careers Research Advisory Centre and developed an Education Business Compact with the Birmingham Heartlands Development Agency.  In 1991 he set up the Birmingham Education Business Partnership and was awarded the OBE in 1996 for services to education business links.

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Ric Lewis
Chief Executive, Tristan Capital Partners

Ric Lewis is Senior Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of AEW Europe, and serves on the firm’s Board of Directors. He joined AEW in 1987 and has served the company in a variety of senior positions that include President and Chief Operating Officer of a partially owned subsidiary of AEW, and Director of Asset Management. Ric is also Chief Executive of Curzon Global Partners, a position held since the formation of Curzon in 1999. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (B.A.) and the PMD Program at Harvard Business School.

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Jo Owen
Mac Partnership

Jo Owen is a social entrepreneur and author. He is one of the founders of Future Leaders and of Teaching Leaders which develop leaders for challenging schools. He is a founder of Start Up which helps offenders start their own businesses on release from prison. He was formerly a strategy partner at Accenture and at Gemini, building their Japan business. He is a top level coach and the author of management books including How to Lead, How to Manage and Tribal Business School. Jo earned his MA at Queens' College, Cambridge, and his MBA at London Business School. He currently lives in London. Jo co-founded Teach First to improve children's life chances and to create the next generation of leaders who will change the country for the better. 

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John Rink
Allen & Overy (retired)

John Rink spent 35 years with international law firm Allen & Overy. In 1993, he was elected Managing Partner, a position he held till his retirement. In addition to his career at Allen & Overy John spent two years seconded to British Aerospace Plc (as it then was) as their Legal Director. Since retirement in 2003, John spent 3 years as the senior non-executive director at Brixton Plc, a public company in the property sector. He also spent three years as a non-executive director with a major firm of accountants and was a non-executive director with the largest ‘domestic’ law firm in the UK until April 2009. In his spare time he is an active golfer, fell walker and opera goer. John has been a trustee of Teach First since June 2007.

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Sarah Shillingford
Partner, Deloitte

Sarah has been a partner at Deloitte since 2002. Deloitte is a professional services firm with over 10,000 partners and staff in the UK and recruits approximately 1,000  graduates a year. Sarah provides audit and transaction support services to clients in the media and services sectors. She is also Deloitte's graduate recruitment partner and in this role has worked with Teach First for over four  years. Sarah studied Economics and Maths at Bristol University and went travelling during a GAP year after graduating, after which she trained as a Chartered Accountant.

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Vidhu Sood-Nichols
Barclays (2004 participant teacher)

Vidhu is Head of Sales Support for the Business Team Services at Barclays. Before this, Vidhu was a Teach First Citizenship teacher in London. Before Teach First she spent her university summers running her own business, selling educational books door to door, took a year out and worked for the United Nations in Geneva. She completed my masters in International Development and even got married. Vidhu is still heavily involved in Teach First and education in general: she has recently been asked to chair a working group responsible for writing the Conservative Party’s policy on youth. Vidhu says: “Despite not being a teacher anymore I am still close to something I feel strongly about – disadvantage and young people in our society.”

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James Townsend
Institute of Philanthropy (2003 participant teacher)

James Townsend, a member of the 2003 Teach First cohort and inaugural Participant President, was appointed Trustee in July 2007. Whilst on the Teach First programme he taught history at Morpeth School in Tower Hamlets. James is now based at the Institute for Philanthropy, where he runs the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI), an innovative programme that teaches secondary school pupils the skills and awareness to make a difference to their communities.  James supports Teach First because it brings a sense of urgency to the need to address educational disadvantage.

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