Board

Dr. Vanessa Ogden CBE, Chair

Vanessa Ogden is the CEO of Mulberry Schools Trust, a Multi Academy Trust in London. This family of secondary schools is committed to raising standards in challenging contexts. Mulberry School for Girls is the founding school and Vanessa continues to be its headteacher. Under her leadership, Mulberry has been twice judged ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Vanessa’s primary work is in raising attainment for young people in schools with high levels of disadvantage and in developing outstanding education for women. In this role, as a designated National Leader of Education, Vanessa has successfully supported many other schools. Mulberry is a Teaching School offering leadership development for women, as well as more general leadership and school improvement programmes. 

Vanessa features in Random House’s book the ‘Female Lead’, and she continues to promote high quality girls’ education widely. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the UCL Institute of Education and she has a doctorate specialising in education policy and school improvement. Vanessa also chaired the Somerset Challenge for three years from 2014 - 2017.

Mrs Obama’s visit to the school in 2015 to launch her campaign for girls’ education, Mulberry’s return visit to the White House and Mrs Obama’s subsequent Skype global conversation of girls (hosted in the UK at Mulberry in 2016) have been the catalyst for a raft of work by the school and its former students on education for girls and women – a recent example being Mulberry’s UK ‘Girl Leading’ project, supported by Children In Need.  Vanessa is now establishing the Mulberry Schools Foundation to forward leadership opportunities for disadvantaged young people – in particular young women.

Dame Julia Cleverdon, Vice-Chair

Dame Julia Cleverdon spent 16 years as Chief Executive of Business in the Community, and is Chair of the National Literacy Trust, and a board member of the National Citizen Service, the Careers and Enterprise Company and the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. She was formerly Chair of Teach First.

Following her 2012 government review on increasing young people's engagement in social action Julia co-founded the Campaign for Youth Social Action, now known as Step Up To Serve, which was convened by HRH The Prince of Wales and launched with the support of three party leaders in November 2013.

Russell Hobby

Russell Hobby is CEO of Teach First, and was previously general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT). Prior to this, he worked as a management consultant and in the software industry.

Russell is also a trustee of The Brilliant Club, Teaching Leaders and the Teacher Development Trust.  He is a member of the advisory board of Future Leaders, the management board for NAHT Edge and the Independent State School Partnership forum.

Natalie Perera

Natalie is the Chief Executive Officer at the Education Policy Institute, an independent research institute which she co-founded in 2016. Prior to that Natalie worked in the Department for Education where led on research and policy interventions including on narrowing the gap between disadvantaged children and the rest and reform of the school funding system. Between 2014 and 2015, Natalie was seconded to the Cabinet Office where she worked in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office.

Natalie is also a Director of a Multi-Academy Trust in South London and a Trustee of the charities, The Fair Education Alliance and Causeway Education.

Brett Wigdortz OBE

Brett wrote the original business plan for Teach First in the UK and led the organisation for fifteen years, from its launch until October 2017, helping to build it into one of the country’s leading movements to tackle education inequality. 

Brett is co-founder of Teach For All, a network of more than 45  organisations in countries all over the world. He is a trustee of Teach First Israel and was a founder of the Fair Education Alliance in the UK.
Since stepping down as CEO of Teach First, Brett founded and is CEO of Tiney.co, a new digital platform aiming to grow, support and improve the quality of childminders and small nurseries in the UK. He is also the chairman of the National Citizen Service, a voluntary personal and social development programme for over 100,000 15–17 year olds every year in England as well as working with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to help him develop a national alliance to halve youth obesity by 2030.  

He is the author of Success Against the Odds, a candid account of the first ten years of Teach First and received an OBE for services to Education in 2012. He has Honorary Doctorates from the University of Warwick, Open University and Birmingham City University.

Zulum Elumogo

Zulum is a Special Advisor at Freuds Communications working with clients such as Vogue, Dior, Premier League, Comic Relief, Bolt and the Lewis Hamilton Commission on their communications strategies and public presentation. Goals House at UNGA New York and COP26 in Glasgow galvanising progress towards the UN sustainable development goals. 

Zulum is a passionate advocate for the Arts and access to excellent education for all. As well as the Fair Education Alliance, he is currently on the Board of Directors at Dance Umbrella and the Barbican Centre, Europe’s largest multi-arts venue. 

He was General Secretary (President) and Chairman of the LSE Students’ Union from 2018 to 2020, making him the first black man to hold the position in the LSE’s 125-year history. During his time as General Secretary, he was also a member of the governing Council for the London School of Economics. In October 2022, Zulum was selected as one of the 40x40 future leaders by the Black Cultural Archives in celebration of their 40th anniversary.  

Lamide Odanye

Lamide Odanye is the co-founder of LIVE (Learn, Inspire, Visualise, Elevate), a mentoring programme for students in Years 8-13 from low socioeconomic backgrounds. LIVE focuses on teaching young people soft transferable skills required for the professional environment and has the long term aim of reducing the rate of youth unemployment and increasing social mobility. LIVE has worked with over 250 young people and has received partnership contracts from about six companies, including KPMG, Penguin Random House and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Lamide has nearly ten years of volunteering experience and over five years advocating for youth employment and a ‘soft skills’ focused education system. She is a First Class Politics and Philosophy Graduate from the University of Essex and was named a Top 10 UK Rare Rising Star in 2019. She currently works at the Greater London Authority and aspires to change the world by influencing policies and rules on Education and Young people.

Nick Wright