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Hosted by our leading education lawyer and accredited executive coach Nick MacKenzie, #EdInfluence features interviews with influential leaders from across the sector and beyond to explore the human side of leadership.
In his inimitable style, Nick unearths the secrets of good leadership from his guests.
Trusted by thousands of education providers across the country, Browne Jacobson is an award winning national law firm helping clients and partner organisations shape and influence education policy.
27 Episodes
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Trust isn’t a soft skill; it’s the system that makes ambitious work possible. Nick sits down with Northumbria University’s Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Andy Long, to unpack how an engineer’s mindset, a people-first approach, and a calm decision style can scale both research excellence and social mobility without losing humanity. We start with the formative years: an academic career in composite materials, the coalitions built through conferences, and the moment the UK’s composites co...
Paul Estes joins us to trace a line from a high school election loss to leading teams at Dell, Amazon and Microsoft. His lesson: “innovation isn't about the idea - it's about the how”. We explore what makes organisations perform: a clear mission, an operating rhythm that works, and success signals sharp enough to guide decisions. Paul argues for practical AI experiments - prompt labs, cross-functional hackathons and shared libraries - that build literacy and judgement. We discuss why most AI ...
What makes truly exceptional educational leaders? In this final episode of Series 4 of #EdInfluence, host Nick MacKenzie is joined by colleagues and fellow executive coaches Emma Hughes and Ian Blatherwick. Together they reflect on the leadership insights, learnings and their favourite highlights from the conversations with inspiring leaders published this year. The trio explore the transformative power of being influenced rather than always influencing others, captured beautifully in t...
Olympic and world champion rower Jonny Searle opens our conversation with a powerful story from his coaching experience that fundamentally shifted his understanding of leadership responsibility. Throughout the discussion, Jonny shares a philosophy centred around seeing people as genuinely unique rather than variations of ourselves. "We see the world not as it is, but as we are," he explains, highlighting how this perspective has transformed his leadership effectiveness. Drawing ...
David Beaty never planned on becoming a banker. What began as "practice" for a job interview - while still planning to attend university and become an accountant - transformed into a remarkable 39-year career at Midland Bank and HSBC. David has since established Bali Consulting, using his experience to provide leadership coaching and consultancy. He was a school governor and trustee of a fast-growing Staffordshire multi-academy trust for over ten years. What makes a leader effective ov...
In this episode, we hear from Sara Burks, the Founder and Managing Director of Adaptis Limited. Sara excels in getting the best from people during transformational change through great leadership. Leadership often begins long before we have any formal understanding of what it means. Sara, discovered this when her school report stated: "Sara is a born leader. The problem is she leads people in the wrong direction." This early assessment followed her organising a sit-down strike during a ...
In this episode, Caroline Whalley and Hugh Greenway, founder and CEO of the Elliot Foundation Academy Trust respectively, share their most transformative experiences and leadership insights. Caroline recalls a lesson learned from a shopkeeper that forever changed her perspective on self-awareness and consequences, while Hugh recounts a poignant moment in Washington D.C., teaching him the deeper meaning of empathy. Their stories set the stage for a fascinating exploration of how such per...
This episode is comprised of two parts. In the first, we hear from Leora Cruddas CBE, CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), who seeks to unravel the complexities of educational leadership and community engagement. In the second part, we hear from a range of trust leaders from the floor of the Annual CST Conference. Part 1: Leora Cruddas, CEO of CST (00:00 - 33:17) Leora Cruddas shares her eye-opening journey from South Africa to the UK, highlighting disparities in educational acc...
Uncover the fascinating intersection of leadership and storytelling as we welcome Sir Chris Husbands, an esteemed former Vice-Chancellor and a key player with Higher Futures. In conversation with Nick, Chris shares how his journey from a curious history teacher to a university leader was shaped by a student's question about medieval monasteries. Get ready to explore how storytelling can transform leadership, offering insights and context through narratives like those from "The West Win...
Lauren is the Chief Transformation Officer at United Learning, the largest trust in England. She leads the trust’s work on digital strategy, data and insights, curriculum and assessment, as well as the programme of transformation projects across the organisation. Prior to this, Lauren was the Director of Standards & Performance and Director of Strategy at Ark Schools and was a research director for a thinktank in Westminster. She sat on the DfE Ed Tech Advisory Board and Workload Re...
Cathie Paine is the Chief Executive Officer of REAch2 Academy Trust. As CEO of REAch2, Cathie’s vision is the belief that school leadership at its heart is about transforming lives. Cathie joined REAch2 at the end of 2012 when there were only four schools in the Trust, but her headship career spanned 15 years across schools in a variety of challenging circumstances. Ever since Catherine's first headship taking a socially deprived school from 'special measures' to 'Good' in just f...
In this special retrospective episode, Nick is joined by fellow executive coaches Emma Hughes and Iain Blatherwick to reflect on the highlights, themes and ideas shared by guests throughout Series 3 of #EdInfluence. Emma is a partner at Browne Jacobson and Head of HR Services, as well as being a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and an executive coach. She has over 15 years’ experience in generalist HR in both the private sector and the public sector. Emma has worked as HR director and regional ...
Hear from John Camp OBE, President of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and CEO of the Compass Partnership of Schools, a charitable trust of twelve schools in Greenwich and Essex. In this episode, we also hear from other sector leaders from the floor of this year’s ASCL Conference: Dr. Peter Kent, Trustee and Past President of ASCL and the International Confederation of Principals (ICP).Julie McCulloch, Director of Policy at ASCL.Anna Crawte - School Improvement Direc...
In this episode we hear from Janice Kay CBE, Director of Higher Futures, former Provost and now Special Advisor to the Vice Chancellor at the University of Exeter. Janice is also Special Advisor to Kortext and Chairs the Board of Trustees for University Maths Schools (U-Maths), the University Maths Schools Network formed of 11 schools across the country. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn.
Dan Kayne is the founder of O Shaped, committed to making the legal profession better by putting people first. His approach to leadership development creates a much more human and personable way of engaging with business colleagues. Dan trained at Dechert LLP before moving in-house to Network Rail in 2007. From 2016 to 2022 Dan was General Counsel at Network Rail, leading a team of 20 lawyers. In that time, Dan embedded his ‘people first’ approach to leadership, contributing to his team...
Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn.
In this episode of EdInfluence we hear from Rebecca Boomer-Clark is the Chief Executive Officer of Academies Enterprise Trust, one of the country’s largest multi-academy trusts. An experienced school leader, she was Director of Secondary at Ark Schools from 2017 to 2021. Prior to that, she worked for the Department for Education (DfE) as Regional Schools Commissioner for South-West England and was National Education Director for Oasis Community Learning. Let us know what you think of t...
John Murphy has recently resigned from his position as Chief Executive of Oasis Community Learning, one of the UK’s largest multi-academy trusts with 52 primary and secondary Academies clustered in five regions across the country. With over three decades of experience in school leadership, he has dedicated his career to raising aspirations for all young people and closing the attainment gap for the most disadvantaged. John is a committed Trustee of the Place2Be national men...
Catherine Baker is the Chair of O Shaped and an ex-Linklaters lawyer who has for the second half of her career focused on leadership and mindset. Catherine specialises in blending business and sports insight to drive performance, coaching CEOs and other senior leaders to improve and develop their leadership skillset. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn.
Sir Julian Hartley joined NHS Providers as chief executive in February 2023, having been chief executive of Leeds Teaching Hospitals since 2013. He previously worked as managing director of NHS Improving Quality - a national organisation set up to drive change and improvement across the NHS. Drawing from this wealth of experience, Julian delivers some straight-talking insight into leading cultural change in the face of adversity, believing that: “You've got to tell the truth as a ...
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