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Central Teams

Executive Team

Catherine Anwar
Chief Executive Officer
Catherine Anwar, our Chief Executive Officer, joined us in May 2017. Prior to joining us, Catherine was a Senior Her Majesty’s Inspector for Ofsted and served 8 years as a secondary school headteacher in Hampshire. In her role at Ofsted, Catherine led focused reviews of Multi-Academy Trusts, and inspections of complex academies, and free schools.
Usha Devi
Education Director

Usha Devi is Education Director at Summit Learning Trust. She joined us in April 2018 as School Improvement Director; Primary and now provides support and challenge to all phases across our Trust. Prior to joining Summit, Usha had a number of local and national roles. Usha was one of Her Majesty’s inspectors for Ofsted and during this time led inspections and monitoring visits in both primary and secondary schools. Prior to joining Ofsted, Usha gained extensive leadership experience in schools and was a successful headteacher in the West Midlands. Usha has also held a number of additional roles, including working as an educational consultant, an advisor to the Department of Education, a member of the General Teaching Council, a community governor, and a visiting lecturer at a university.

Helen Glass
Education Director

Helen Glass joined Summit Learning Trust as Consultant Executive Lead in August 2018 and took up the position of Education Director in September 2019. Prior to joining the Trust, Helen worked as a teacher and leader in the Secondary sector for over 28 years and gained a wide range of leadership experience with two Headships over a period of eleven years and also held the positions of Secondary and Regional Director.

Helen served as the ASCL branch Secretary for Haringey for three years and has provided coaching for colleagues across Primary and Secondary phases.

Steve Ralph
Finance Director

Steve Ralph is the Director of Finance. He is a Fellow of the ICAEW and has responsibility over the finance function at Summit Learning Trust. He spent 18 years working in audit services before joining the Trust in 2014.

Steve Smith
Estates & Facilities Director
Steve is the Estates & Facilities Director for the Trust and joined us in September 2016. He is a member of the British Institute of Facilities Management and has over 15 years’ experience in Facilities management, bringing extensive experience of service focused multi-site management to his role.
Costas Tzartzalis
IT Director
Costas Tzartzalis is our IT Director. He is an IT professional with over 25 years’ experience in Education, managing high quality and extremely successful projects. He has a proven track record of delivering IT services and ensuring strong alignment with organisational goals and increasing value, while maintaining high standards within budget and tight timescales.
Donna Farrugia
HR Director
Donna joined the Trust in February 2018 as the newly appointed HR Director. Having worked in the education sector for over 25 years she brings a wealth of experience in providing strategic and operational support on a range of HR areas. Prior to joining the Trust, Donna has had extensive HR leadership experience working within the Further Education sector, and more recently she has worked in a number of educational settings as an HR Consultant undertaking specific project based work.
Clare Sutton
Strategic Business Director

Clare Sutton leads the Procurement Team for the Trust. Clare joined the Trust to implement and extend best practice in procurement across our academies. Her aim is to secure the maximum quality and quantity of resources for our pupils whilst eliminating any waste and inefficiency in buying the Trust’s goods and services. Clare was previously  Finance Director at Solihull Sixth Form College 

Kate Purchase
Executive Assistant to CEO
Kate Purchase is the Executive Assistant to the CEO. She started with us in August 2015 having previously worked as a Conference & Event Organiser. Kate offers broad and effective support to the CEO, SIDs and Executive Team and leads on Trust-wide events such as conferences and awards evenings.

Academy Improvement Team

Jayne Smith
Director of Maths

Jayne is the Trust Director of Mathematics with responsibility to develop the high quality provision across all phases. She has over 20 years of teaching experience, undertaking various roles within the two secondary schools in which she has taught. Jayne is a Specialist Leader in Education, an AST and has led mathematics as a Subject Leader and as an Assistant Principal for over 10 years. Along with her strategic leadership, Jayne's adaptability sees her working with Primary and Secondary colleagues, trainees and experienced teachers, to develop their subject knowledge and pedagogy. Her experience in subject leadership has seen her support mathematics departments in other local and national secondary schools; school to school support has been a major focus of her work

Christa Vines
Trust SENDCo

Christa is the Trust SENDCo at Summit. She is a Specialist Leader in Education and has extensive SEND experience having been a SENDCo for over 10 years. Christa has worked collaboratively with various local authority services and has been involved in delivering whole school training, NQT sessions, induction training for ITT and is actively involved in supporting all of our leadership teams across the Trust in evaluating provisions and improving outcomes for pupils with SEND.

Dr Elizabeth Ford
Director of Professional Learning Institute & South Birmingham SCITT

Elizabeth is the Director of Professional Learning Institute and South Birmingham SCITT. Elizabeth has worked in different schools across three different local authorities, gaining over 10 years of experience in whole school leadership; focusing upon school-led teacher training, coaching & mentoring whilst leading on programmes to structure succession planning through a school led improvement system.

Core Team

Komrun Bibi
HR Business Partner

Komrun is a HR Business Partner and has been employed at the Trust since September 2015. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and provides professional HR advice, support and guidance to staff and leaders of our trust schools. Komrun has previously worked for a local authority and in the FE sector, bringing the Trust valuable experiences from the field of HR. She is also particularly experienced with Single Central Records and provides our academies with effective support in this area.

Jenny White
HR Business Partner
Jenny is an experienced HR Business Partner, providing professional HR advice and guidance across a variety of employee relations matters. Jenny is CIPD qualified to Level 7 and has worked in the education sector for over 15 years, gaining comprehensive experience across all aspects of the HR function during this time.
Karen Edgar
HR Business Partner

Biography coming soon

Paul Elmore
Management Accountant
Paul Elmore is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and joined the Trust in June 2018 as the Management Accountant. His role is to support the schools and college across the Trust with financial budgeting, reporting and procedures. He is primarily responsible for the compilation and distribution of Managements reports.
Daniel Knight
Trust Data & Insight Analyst
Daniel joined the Trust in August 2018, with responsibility for developing the systems and processes we use to identify areas for improvement, raise standards and improve outcomes for pupils across the Trust. He has 9 years’ experience in data analysis, research design and policy development at a range of public and third-sector organisations, and 4 years’ experience in school governance.
Sharon Pearson
Trust Payroll Manager

Biography coming soon 

Louisa Wilcock
Trust Administrative Assistant

Louisa joined the Trust in January 2018 as a Trust Administrative Assistant, having formerly worked at The 6th Form College Solihull for 18 years as the Administrator for IT Services. Louisa was previously a Learning Assistant at the college which involved training and supporting students and staff with the use of IT. Louisa provides effective support to the HR Business Partners and HR Director. 

Jacqui Collins
Trust Administrative Assistant

Jacqui Collins joined the trust in November 2017 as Trust Administrative Assistant. Jacqui uses her administration expertise and experience in both education and industry to offer valuable support to our Executive and Core team.