Sir Rod Aldridge OBE - Chairman

Rod Aldridge established the Aldridge Foundation in 2006 to further the work of his charitable trust. The Aldridge Foundation uses entrepreneurship as the catalyst for creating lasting social change for young people and their communities, by empowering young people to direct their own lives, raise their aspirations and change their future for the better, creating opportunities for young people that develop skills and assist them to achieve excellence, and building new partnerships and challenging current structures, thus enabling young people to realise their potential. He is the Sponsor of the Darwen Aldridge Community Academy in Darwen near Blackburn and The Brighton Aldridge Community Academy. Two other academies are planned.

Steve Page - CEO

Steve has a health and care background combined with considerable management experience in both public and private sectors. He has always worked with vulnerable children and adults and dealt with public authorities throughout his career. He was the Chief Executive of Oxleas NHS Trust (a mental health, learning disability and community NHS Trust in South London) between 1993 and 1998. When he left the NHS in 1998 he joined Priory Healthcare as Operations Director, becoming Managing Director in 2000.

Following a change of ownership of Priory, Steve left the company to join Nestor Healthcare Group plc as a main board Director responsible for Healthcare Services. Steve left Nestor in September 2004 to seek a new opportunity in the provision of public services and joined Acorn as Chief Executive in June 2005.
 

Mike Robinson - Managing Director, Schools Division

Following his earlier career in marketing and general management with Reckitt & Colman and Unipart Mike started working with schools, children and young people in 2000 when he was UK Managing Director of Scholastic, the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books. From there he joined Nord Anglia Education as Managing Director of their International Schools division, which educated over 4,500 children in 9 schools across Asia, The Middle East and Europe. Most recently he has been Managing Director of Cambian Education, a group of 7 residential special education needs schools providing education and care for children with autism.

David Johnson - Managing Director Fostering Solutions

David has extensive managerial and financial experience with a significant emphasis on childcare and education. David was a main board Director of Nord Anglia Education Plc, initially for 9 years as Finance Director and then as Group Managing Director for 8 years. During his time with Nord Anglia, David had significant strategic and commercial input in the operation of a wide range of educational and childcare businesses from schools and children’s day nurseries to outsourced education services. During this period he developed significant relationships with a range of local authorities, central government departments and partnering organisations. David left Nord Anglia in early 2004 to establish a new group of children’s day nurseries of which he is currently Chairman. He joined Acorn as Managing Director of Fostering Solutions in February 2006.

Mark Croghan - Finance Director

Mark has been Finance Director of a wide range of businesses. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte’s in London and then went on to join a major UK based company, Harrisons & Crosfield PLC, first as Chief Financial Officer of a division with operations throughout the world and then as Group Corporate Finance Manager with responsibilities for acquisitions, budgeting and planning.  On leaving Elementis, Mark has been Finance Director of a number of businesses–most recently since 2000 of Discovery Group/Durrants in the media and information sector. Durrants has seen rapid growth and become market leader. Mark brings to Acorn extensive commercial, financial and banking experience across many sectors.

Will Fenning - Group Finance Controller

Will Fenning is a Chartered Accountant with a strong Healthcare sector experience. Following qualification he joined Hazlewoods Corporate Finance LLP, providing transaction support to a large number of healthcare sector clients. In 2007 he joined CareTech, an AIM listed provider of care homes, schools and fostering, taking a number of roles culminating in that of Group Performance Director. In this role Will had responsibility for the reporting and management of commercial performance of the core business as well as being a key driver in the group’s ongoing process of systems and information consolidation.

Brian Dinsmore - Schools Finance Controller

Brian is a Chartered Accountant with over 18 years experience in service and manufacturing industries. In his early years at Raleigh he worked as a total quality facilitator with multi-functional teams, developed new reporting structures for the owners and finalised five years of outstanding tax computations. Later at Griffith Laboratories he was the UK lead member of an international multi-site computer system implementation team. In addition he continually introduced procedures and controls to keep working capital levels to a minimum and acted as a mediator/strategic challenger between the various sales, operations and quality control departments. He prided himself on the accuracy of the financial forecasts.He was then the financial link to create the reporting and procedures/controls in two new start businesses. His risk management and corporate governance principles were well honed in one of these positions.Throughout all these roles he has had a keen eye on the cash balances and a focus on maintaining and strengthening the operating margins without loss of quality.

Brian Richbell - HR Director

Responsible for Group wide HR strategy, Brian also provides advice and expertise to enable the individual schools and fostering services in the Group to develop, implement and manage comprehensive Human Resource strategies and policies. Brian is responsible for originating and leading Human Resources practices with the objective of ensuring a culture is in place that empowers the group to thrive on the individual character of each school and fostering service. Our people are passionate about supporting and nurturing young people and the group has a responsibility to provide stimulating environments where they can develop and practice their skills and expertise, continually improving performance and sharing best practice.

John Seaber - Property & Facilities Manager

John is a qualified architect with over fifteen years experience in property and facilities management. He has successfully delivered workplace solutions to a wide range of public and private clients. He has experience of managing change across multiple site property portfolios including the consolidation of diverse businesses. Prior to joining Acorn John was National Facilities Manager with the National Trust, where he was responsible for the operational delivery of the award winning new central office.

Mike Ore - School Group Manager (North)

Mike started his career within Law enforcement specialising in forensics and major scene of crime investigations.  Over recent years Mike has held senior management positions with a number of national and international blue chip healthcare organisations in Sales/Marketing/performance & Commercial Development.

Prior to joining the NHS Mike was approached to develop a start-up government sporting initiative providing fund raising opportunities for primary schools in the UK.   Providing sport awareness through education and supporting easier access to sports for children and encouraging healthier lifestyles.   This also included the development of education themes through sport with Youth Offending Teams and other local community related projects.

Most recently Mike has been responsible for the leadership and direction of community healthcare provision and worked in partnership with 2 unitary local authorities, which included the strategic development of children and Young people’s integration and implementation. Responsibilities also included accountability for the commercial development and compliance of all regulatory and performance framework for these services.

Mike has undertaken bespoke operational project management assignments with the implementation of service developments with Virgin Group, Capita Uk,  & Anderson Consulting.  In 2010  he completed the executive leadership program with the Kings Fund.

Mike Howell - Education & Care Quality Manager (South) 

Mike taught languages in secondary schools for 10 years before becoming a teacher adviser for a local authority in north Wales. From 1988 to 2008 he held a school improvement role in Solihull, initially with responsibilities for languages, personal and social development, and guidance and mentoring; then, as a senior adviser he led developments in secondary strategy and in workforce reform, CPD, leadership and management. He offered direct leadership and pastoral support to primary, secondary and special schools. He is a trained OFSTED inspector, School Improvement Partner and Investors in People adviser.

Hannah Fellows - Marketing and Admissions Manager

Hannah has worked within the education sector since graduating from Leicester University in 1995 with a degree in Sociology. Having trained as a careers adviser Hannah went on to join a large FE College where she worked for 9 years firstly with young people on work based learning programmes before moving on to become the college’s schools marketing officer with specific responsibility for marketing to 14-19 year olds.

Andy Cook - Care Admissions Manager

Before joining Acorn in May 2011, Andy worked in a number of educational settings including Head of Informal Curriculum at an upper school in Newcastle and also as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a pupil referral unit  where the team was responsible for the development and delivery of the new service.

Fabia Cipolat - Customer Partnership Manager

Upon graduating with a degree in Modern Foreign Languages, Fabia initially worked as an English teacher and director of studies in Italy and Hungary.  Following her return to the UK she then taught English in a large FE college before joining Hays Education, a division of one of the world’s largest specialist recruitment companies, in 2000.  She held various management positions within Hays including a role as local authority partnership manager and as national business manager for its SEN Division, which she set up in 2008. 

She joined the Acorn team in September 2011 as Customer Partnership Manager taking responsibility for the review and development of the services that Acorn provides to local authorities and working in partnership with them to develop new and innovative services for children and young people with special educational needs.

David Cooke - Systems Manager

David has worked in ICT for the last four decades and has a detailed knowledge of the use of Information Systems within the Education, Hospitality, Retail and Manufacturing sectors in which he has held a variety of management roles covering IT & Project Management and Business & Systems Analysis. Prior to joining Acorn he held the role of Head of Information Systems at Nord Anglia Education where he was responsible for the deployment of world-wide policies and systems and communications strategies.

David has responsibility for the information systems strategy for the schools division and will be implementing improvements and standardisation in the use of ICT and data within Acorn.

Lina Lindgren - Parent Liaison Officer

Having completed a second degree – BSc in Pedagogy/Education Lina has since worked in various roles, mainly with children aged 0-17 diagnosed with Autism, Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD in Sweden and the UK.

Faith Dobbin - Telephone Customer Development Officer

Faith has worked in various roles with young people with differing needs since graduating from university in 2001 with a degree in Psychology. Faith worked for a number of years as a tutor in the education department of a young offenders institution, then joined a large FE College where she worked as a training co-ordinator and mentor with young people not in education, employment or training.  She has also had experience in administrative roles in both an FE college and for a large group of youth charities, where she was the administrator and training co-ordinator  for a large national youth project.