Politics

Alice Barnard, Martin Sutcliffe and Eleni Kettles

Alice Barnard starts as the new chief executive of the Edge Foundation on Monday.

She takes over from David Harbourne, Edge’s director of policy and research, who has been acting chief executive since Jan Hodges’ retirement last April.

Ms Barnard moves from her position as leader of the Peter Jones Foundation, which she has held for the last four years.

She said her transition to Edge would be a natural progression as the two organisations focused on some areas of policy, such as careers guidance, that she is really interested in.

Ms Barnard said Edge’s new schools campaign, Career Footsteps, will be one of her main priorities: “For the past four years or so I’ve really seen how poor careers guidance can be but there are some great examples of where it is working really well.

“When schools have so many other priorities, careers advice happens to be dismissed because it is not statutory.

“The opportunity to help and support on that with teachers’ other duties rather than adding to the workload is exciting and that will hopefully do the trick around young people to make more positive and informed choices about their future.”

Before she was at the Peter Jones Foundation, Ms Barnard was the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance for five years. She read history at Cambridge University.

Education finance specialist HCSS Education has appointed Martin Sutcliffe and Eleni Kettles to its senior team.

Mr Sutcliffe joins as a support and training manager and will be responsible for providing support during the development of the firm’s new accounting software for schools.

His plans are to liaise with HCSS’s technical team to put together and implement a comprehensive training plan that covers all aspects of the software and provides schools with the support needed.

He said his aim is to “help to deliver a user-friendly, flexible but powerful tool that allows schools and academies to generate accurate financial information for senior leadership teams”.

Before working at HCSS Education, Mr Sutcliffe worked as a consultant, setting up and managing administration systems and networks for small businesses.

He also worked on a consultant basis as an installation engineer for RM Education, a software supplier for the education sector.

Mr Sutcliffe is a graduate of Leeds University, where he completed a degree in computer information systems.

Ms Kettles has been appointed as customer relationship marketing manager and will be responsible for developing strategies to “effectively manage customer relationships”.

She said her goal is to help to communicate the support HCSS is providing to school business managers with their everyday financial needs and to make sure that the education sector understands how the firm’s software will “transform the way education finance professionals work”.

She added: “I hope that by providing the education sector with better software solutions and support for their financial management, we are helping to improve education standards and outcomes for pupils.”

Previously, Ms Kettles spent eight years working in the marketing department for retailer JD Williams. She studied business studies with marketing at Sheffield Hallam University.

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