Board of Directors (ID 1220)

• Robin Douglas, OBE
  Chair of the Board of Directors
  Robin Douglas, OBE

  Specialist area: management & HR consultancy

  Robin facilitates system change with senior leaders across organisational and professional boundaries. With over 30 years' experience of successful service improvement and leadership development throughout the public services, he retains a commitment to improving human outcomes. He works creatively with senior managers, clinicians and politicians as coach, team and board facilitator and with wider partnership groups on local change. Robin is also a Member of Spiral Partnership Trust.

• Kathryn Burton
  Specialist area: finance
  Kathryn Burton

  Kathryn is a Chartered Accountant working as a partner at Hays MacIntyre, an audit and accountancy firm based in London with a specialism in charities and not for profit organisations. With over 12 years experience, she currently oversees a client portfolio of charitable organisations including many educational organisations and schools. She is also a holder of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Diploma in Charity Accounting. 

  Outside of work and her duties as a Trustee, time is taken up with family life and she enjoys going to the theatre and socialising with friends.

• Julian Earl
  Specialist Area: PR & communications
  Julian Earl

  Julian is a Brand and Communications Strategy Director with 20+ years of experience in marketing and business strategy across many industries and disciplines. He works with brands and public sector organisations to help them better understand customer behaviours and motivations; consequently devising meaningful brand and creative communication strategies. 

  He first became a school governor in 2009 and was Chair of Governors at Fleetville Infant & Nursery School for eight years. Julian is currently Vice Chair of the Board and Chair of the Education Committee. Julian is also a Member of Spiral Partnership Trust.

• Felicity Evans, MBE
  Specialist area: improving outcomes for all children
  Felicity Evans, MBE

  Felicity has worked to establish equality of educational opportunity for over 40 years, in both the voluntary sector in London and Essex and as a senior leader in Hertfordshire County Council. Leading the ‘outstanding’ Virtual School for Hertfordshire for over two decades she has worked regionally and nationally, with all educational sectors alongside Head Teachers, teachers, the education departments that support them, social care professionals as well as National decision makers, researchers, and campaigners. Felicity has also worked extensively with children and young people! 

  Felicity was a National Adviser for the Education Protects project with the then DfES and worked closely with the Department for Education advising on policy. She is now a consultant developing collaborative authority-wide system change. Felicity was awarded an MBE for services to children in Hertfordshire in the King’s first New Year’s Honours 2023.

• Deborah Godbold
  Specialist area: education
  Deborah Godbold

  Deborah has worked in education for almost 40 years in schools in London and Hertfordshire. Most of this time has been in senior leadership roles and for the last 7 years Deborah has worked with school leaders and governors providing challenge and support in school improvement. She is passionate about education as a whole and Early Years and Special Educational Needs in particular.

• Iain Nettleton
  Specialist area: finance and project management
  Iain Nettleton

  Iain is a management consulting Partner at one of the large accounting firms and leads the internationally focused project management team. The majority of his work relates to delivering economic reform projects in developing countries. He is also a people partner for 200 staff around the world and sits on the firm's governing board.

   Iain's academic background covers social policy, government, international development and business administration; he is also a chartered accountant.

   Iain is dyslexic and understands what it is to struggle to meet expectations when you don't fit the normal distribution. He has also achieved exceptional academic success at some of the world's greatest universities and so is acutely aware than SEN does not have to mean lowered expectations or achievement.

  Prior to becoming a Director of Spiral, Iain was a co-chair the Local School Committee at Fleetville Infant & Nursery School.

• Robert Staples
  Specialist area: education
  Robert Staples

  Robert has worked within Hertfordshire’s education community since 1996 and is deeply committed to ensuring that every child - regardless of their starting point or any social or economic barriers - has the opportunity to achieve the best possible outcomes. As a long-standing member of the Executive of the Primary Heads Forum, he plays a key role in strengthening collaboration across the wider family of Hertfordshire schools.

   In his role as CEO and Accounting Officer of The Claxton Trust, Robert brings extensive expertise in school leadership, finance, and strategic planning, with a strong understanding of the particular challenges facing academy trusts. He has served on the Hertfordshire Schools Forum since 2009, initially representing maintained schools and, since 2017, representing the academy sector. With school budgets becoming increasingly constrained, his passion for securing the very best value and educational experience for all children remains central to his work.