Mark is a coach, consultant and social entrepreneur with 30 years’ experience running companies and coaching leaders from business and third sector organisations. He was the co-founder of Studio Schools, and is currently a founder and director at Form, and a trustee of The Mercian Trust (a multi-academy trust in the West Midlands).

Emily is Deputy Director for Strategy at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with a particular focus on girls, education and youth. She has worked in the civil service for 20 years, and has extensive experience of working in many of the countries of origin, leading on DFID operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. She has also worked on structuring and establishing global aid financing for education in crisis contexts, and been a senior advisor on foreign policy.

David leads Jigsaw, an education research organisation and social enterprise based in London. He enjoys helping organisations build and use evidence to improve education provision and outcomes. He has worked in over 25 countries with a variety of donors, governments, UN agencies, INGOs and community-based organisations, overseeing a wide range of research studies and providing strategic advice across the sector. David has worked in education research for 15 years and has a PhD from the University of London (2010), and is Research Director for EdTech Hub.

Mark moved into the charity sector in 2014, following a 20 year career in IT products and solutions, including in sales roles and senior management and director positions. In the voluntary sector, his responsibilities have largely focussed on finance, governance and premises portfolio management and he has been involved in several projects supporting the homeless and recovering addicts.

Hiruy is an education in emergencies and anti-corruption specialist who helps organisations to define and operationalise their strategies - with a particular focus on good governance and complex humanitarian crises. He has worked for Transparency International, Plan International, VSO and has recently joined Jigsaw to lead on business development. Prior to moving to the UK, Hiruy worked for a number of humanitarian organisations, including UNICEF, in his home country of Ethiopia, coordinating country-wide emergency response plans and supporting the work of a number of government ministries. 

Shna is the Director of Our Homes Matter, a design and build home refurbishment company, and mum to two young children. Previously, Shna worked in management positions for Ikea, and as an educational mentoring coordinator at REUK. Shna is Kurdish and was herself a child refugee, who understands first-hand the vital importance of education for refugee children.

Our newest trustee, Oyinda has recently graduated from Oxford University and works as a Financial Analyst at Goldman Sachs. Oyinda won the Female Undergraduate of the Year award 2022, a global scholarship to study in Korea as a teenager, and has been named a ‘Top 150 Future Leader in the UK by Powerlist Magazine. Oyinda moved to the UK from Nigeria when she was 5 years old, and is passionate about the role of education in helping people build new lives in new places.