Fintan Donohue
Principal and Chief Executive, North Hertfordshire College

Fintan Donohue is Principal of North Hertfordshire College. The College was adjudged to be Outstanding for partnership and responsiveness in its last Ofsted inspection. Social entrepreneurship is seen as key to the College’s success in a challenging economic environment. Fintan is a member of the Association of Colleges in the Eastern Region Board and is proactive nationally with the AoC in securing further educations influence on Sector Skills Councils and the emerging National Skills Academies network.

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Dick Palmer
Principal and Chief Executive, City College Norwich

Dick Palmer is principal of City College Norwich. Dick has been working in education for over 20 years encompassing FE, Schools, Teacher Training and working directly to the Government. Dick is the Association of College's National Skills Champion for Business, Administration and Finance and has a longstanding interest and enthusiasm for the application of new technology and new media in education, having set up the DCSF's E-Learning Strategy Unit in 2001 and now as a Principal representative for NILTA.

During his time as Principal of City College Norwich he has strongly developed the College's reputation for Employer Engagement and listening and responding to the Student Voice. He is a member of the regional CBI council, a member of the Norwich Chamber of Commerce and a Director of a number of private/public sector organisations including Foundation Degree Forward (fdf), the Forum Trust Ltd and Visit Norwich Ltd. He is a Board member of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services and is a member of the University of East Anglia (UEA) Senate. City College's framework for the Student voice is now seen as a model of good practice for the sector. Dick also sits on a number of national bodies including AimHigher and the AoC Higher Education group.

City College Norwich is an organisation with over 1,000 staff and around 16,000 students. It has a turnover in excess of £45 million per annum and stands as one of the largest FE/HE colleges in the East of England. The college has close to 6,000 14 to 19 year olds and over 1,600 students on Higher education programmes.

The College is part of three National Skills Academies: one in Financial Services, another in Manufacturing and the third in Creative and Cultural Industries and has three Centres of Vocational Excellence. The College recently (2008) won two AoC (Association of Colleges) awards; the first for Widening Participation and the second being the President's Award - both for its innovative implimentation of the Rug Room (working with students with Aspergers).

The College has full TQS (Part A) for the whole college and Part B for ICT. In Decemeber 2008, the College won the prestigious National Training Award (NTA) for its work with Lotus cars plc.

City College Norwich remains as the only college in the UK to hold QCA/Ofqual Awarding Organisation status having achieved that position in March 2008.

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Dame Dr. Pat Collarbone, DBE, Ed.D, MBA, FRSA
Education Advisor

Professor Dame Patricia "Pat" Collarbone, DBE, Ed.D, MBA, Hons BA, FRSA, is an education advisor. She has and continues to advise a number of public bodies in England including the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

Pat taught for 28 years in Inner London and established a reputation for innovation and achievement during her headship at Haggerston School in Hackney. In 1996 she established the London Leadership Centre at the Institute of Education, University of London. She is noted as an outstanding speaker and frequently delivers presentations on leadership development, workforce modernisation and change management at national and international conferences.

Between 2002 and 2006 she was the executive director of the National Remodelling Team which developed a series of successful processes for supporting the leadership of change and workforce modernisation in England’s schools. These processes have been developed subsequently to support change in the further education sector.

In October 2006 she set up Education Change Associates Ltd, a private consultancy firm, but remained as a principal advisor to the TDA until March 2007. She continues to be involved with work for NCSL on the Every Child Matters(ECM) agenda and NPQH. Following her work in FE she helped set up Creating Tomorrow Ltd, an organisation focused on workforce modernisation.

Pat completed her MBA in September 1995 and her doctorate on educational leadership in November 1999. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She continues to run Education Change Associates Ltd and is a Director of Creating Tomorrow Ltd. She is a visiting professor at Canterbury Christ Church University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education. She was knighted on 31 December 1997 in the New Years Honours for her services to education.
 

Documents
Download PROCESS CONSULTANCY
Download the presentation from the day

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Steve Potts
Director, SHM

Steve brings a strong creative and strategy background to his work as a Director at SHM. He has over 20 years of professional experience in both the design and consulting industries including: designing and leading organisational change and transformation programmes, developing new capabilities inside organisations, creating and rolling out brand strategies, generating insights into consumer and segmenting user communities, and leading complex product interface design projects. He has strong leadership skills and has a proven track record in building and running highly effective inter-disciplinary teams.

Since joining SHM in 2003, Steve has been responsible for leading a diverse series of high profile innovation and change projects for major global brands (Diageo, Unilever, Apple) and public sector organisations (LSC, NHS, DoH). Because of his strong facilitation skills, many of his projects involve wide-ranging stakeholder engagement and liaising at a senior level within each organisation to enlist buy-in for the planned change.

Armed with a degree in fine art, Steve approaches client engagements from a perspective that blends visionary “why not?” thinking with practical “feet-on-the-ground” execution. This combination of top-down and bottom-up thinking, along with his energetic approach to problem solving, has helped many of his clients and project teams deliver great results more quickly than they expected.

Documents
Download Steve's presentation from the day "Developing the organisational structure of North Hertfordshire College to better meet the needs of customers"

Download Workshop Handout "How can colleges establish the culture and practice needed to deliver employer responsiveness? – A strategic approach"

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Paul Gilooly
Senior Consultant, SHM

Paul Gillooly is an experienced consultant and senior manager with expertise in all elements of marketing and strategic management. Paul has particular experience in the media and creative industries sectors. He started his career at BT running a number of marketing and advertising campaigns before joining BT’s fledgling internet and multimedia services division where he eventually occupied the position of Head of Consumer Content. Within this role Paul acted as BT’s expert on the film, sports and entertainment industries.

Following BT Paul joined BBC Worldwide as Head of Entertainment and Film. After developing BBCW’s film strategy he was promoted to Director of Marketing and Business Development, Music and Entertainment. In this role he worked with a number of BBC brands developing them into international and multi-platform brands. Paul eventually left BBCW to work as a consultant. He has undertaken a number of media and or marketing focused projects working with a broad range of clients including Ladbrokes, Universal Pictures and CSS Stellar.

In addition to his media orientated work Paul has developed a strong reputation with the education and skills fields and has worked for a number of LSC regions to develop their providers as effective vendors and suppliers of skills training.

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David Cheetham
David Cheetham left Gateshead College in July 2008. The College achieved the highest grade possible (Outstanding) for every single area of the college’s delivery and operation. David Cheetham put employers at the heart of his strategy for success. David will give an insight to the value of this approach.

Documents
Download David's (inspirational) presentation

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LSIS
The Learning and Skills Improvement Service is the new sector‑owned body, formed from CEL and QIA to develop excellent and sustainable FE provision across the sector. LSIS will work in partnership with all parts of the sector to provide vision, leadership, clarity and high quality support; practising and enabling continuous self‑improvement and capacity building.

Documents
Download the LSIS Placemat
Download LSIS presentation