Our Trustees

The Trust Board is responsible for the three core governance functions set out in the DfE’s Governance Handbook:

Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction.
Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the effective and efficient performance management of staff.
Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

The Chair of Trustees for Aspire Schools is Mark Shaw.
To contact him please email m.shaw@aspireap.org.uk or write to him at: The Wycombe Grange, 56 Amersham Hill, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP13 6PQ.

Trustees
Mark Shaw (Chair of Trustees)
Geralyn Wilson (Vice Chair of Trustees)
Luke Baker (Chair of Finance Committee)
Matthew Abbott
Garret Fay
Sharon Jarrett
Alison Lochhead
Asif Hussain
Vicky Cook

Members
Elizabeth Hutton
Geralyn Wilson
Fiona Bowers

Other Non-voting officials
Debra Rutley, CEO & Accounting Officer
Brian Lewis, Company Secretary and Chief Financial Officer
Cathy Cochran, Clerk to Board of Trustees

For Trustee Membership, please click here.
For Trustee Committees, please click here.
For Trustees' attendance, please click here.
The Register of Pecuniary Interests can be found on the Governance page.

Trust Board Diversity Data - Our Trust is committed to have an active board that is diverse and inclusive and reflective of the community we serve.

Trustees

Mark Shaw - Chair of Trustees

Mark Shaw is an experienced PR professional having worked professionally for the Conservative Party for 24 years before becoming a consultant to centre right political parties in emerging democracies across the world. He has worked throughout Africa, former the Russian states, the Caribbean and former the Balkan states.

From 2013-21 he was a senior Councillor in Buckinghamshire and was the former Cabinet member for Transportation in the Buckinghamshire County Council, where he dealt with reorganisation of the Portfolio, as well as crisis management on almost a daily basis. He was also Deputy Leader of the Council. He was, during that period, a regular contributor to both local, national and international media. He then became Portfolio holder for Children’s Services in the new Unitary Buckinghamshire Council.

Mark graduated from Kingston University in Business Studies and has developed a lifelong interest in education. He has been a School Governor at several local schools in Chesham over the last 24 years, and is currently our Chair of Trustees, as well as the Chair of Governors of Newtown School.

Geralyn Wilson - Vice Chair of Trustees

A trustee and board member for Aspire for over 12 years, Geralyn Wilson spent 14 years as Headteacher at Great Marlow School. Her whole career has been dedicated to the education and development of young people, having served as a teacher and senior leader at schools across the Midlands and London. She is a board member and trustee for the ASCL - the professional association for school leaders; is a course leader on the school improvement team for the Ambition Institute and is the Education Coach on the school improvement team for Teaching Times.

Luke Baker - Chair of Finance Committee

Luke Baker is a chartered accountant with over a decade of commercial experience. He has worked internationally across many sectors. Luke has served in a range of roles within his “big four” audit firm, and works on Public Interest Entity audits of some the UK’s largest corporations. In addition to being a trustee, he also chairs the finance committee.

Matthew Abbott

Matthew Abbott is Headteacher at Waddesdon CE School, an Outstanding secondary school in north Buckinghamshire. He has served in education for over 25 years in a variety of settings. He is currently a Delivery Lead on the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers and also holds a Trustee position with the Diocese of Oxford. His particular interests relate to School Culture and Ethos, Quality of Education, and education for the whole child – in the present and for the future.

Garret Fay

Garret is CEO of a Multi Academy Trust in Buckinghamshire and a former Headteacher. He originally trained as a Drama Teacher and went on to become Head of Media and Film Studies, Head of Faculty for Creative Arts, Deputy Director of a Training School and Deputy Headteacher in charge of Teaching and Learning. Throughout his career, Garret has also been a visiting Lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire. Alongside his roles as CEO and Trustee of Aspire Schools, Garret sits as Lead Headteacher Ambassador for the Youth Sports Trust.

Sharon Jarrett

As the Headteacher at Amersham School in Buckinghamshire, Sharon has immersed herself in the process of improving the life chances of children and young people, through providing a first class educational experience, for the past 40 years. She has been a teacher, subject leader, Head of sixth form, Assistant Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher, in addition to being the Headteacher of Amersham School for the past 17 years. Sharon has been described as both an inspirational and infectious leader and puts this down to the fact that she is employed in her ‘dream job.’ She passionately believes in equality and equity, and strongly believes that with determination, hard work and appropriate support, any young person can achieve anything that they aspire to.

Alison Lochhead

Alison worked within Finance in the Pharmaceutical industry for the first eight years of her career, based in the UK and in Singapore. On relocating to the Netherlands, she joined Shell, working as the finance specialist within cross-functional project teams. Later, she retrained as an English teacher, before re-entering the Finance profession after relocating to England. For the past five years, Alison has worked as the Trust Accountant for a multi-academy trust of Primary Schools, which has grown from three to ten schools.

Asif Hussain

Asif joined Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service in 2013 as an Accountant, having previously worked in a number of roles within Buckinghamshire County Council. He has a degree in BSc Accounting & Finance and became a qualified accountant in 2013; he is also a fellow of the Charted Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA). Asif was appointed as the Deputy Director of Finance and Assets for BFRS in May 2020 and is predominantly responsible for Finance and Payroll, and deputises for the responsibility of Fleet, Property, Procurement and all Asset Management.

Vicky Cook

Vicky has 15 years’ experience in Education, currently working as an HR Manager for a Multi Academy Trust. She is committed to working in an industry focused around young people, and recognises the vital role education and school settings play in empowering them through their lives. She is passionate about ensuring that strategies, plans and decisions are centred around having the student’s best interests at heart and ensuring they have access to the very best education and opportunities to help them reach their full potential, especially when encountering challenging situations.

Members

The Members of the Trust are the guardians of the governance of the Trust and, as such, have a different status to Trustees. Their primary role is to hold the Trust Board to account.

Elizabeth Hutton

Liz served as a trustee of Aspire from 1992 until retiring in December 2022, seeing it grow from one small centre to the current county wide provision. This included a period as Chair. She also served as a secondary school governor from 1979 to 2011. During that time, she also served as a Justice of the Peace for 25 years until 2012. Liz remains closely involved as a trustee with a charity providing sport and recreation for children and young people.

Geralyn Wilson

Fiona Bowers

Fiona grew up in Lancashire attending Morecambe High school before moving to Dundee to attend university where she achieved a Masters in Psychology in 1994. Following this she worked for three years with young offenders before taking time out to travel. In 1998 she began her career in accountancy and has remained in the profession ever since. Her background as a partner in a firm means that she has experienced many of the aspects of client service and running a business that enabled her to set up on her own in 2015. As a business owner she understands the issues that her clients face on a day to day basis and coupled with her accounting and taxation knowledge give her a sound basis to provide excellent service to her clients. Areas of expertise include company taxation, personal taxation, accounts preparation, payroll services, VAT and business development.