|  | | | THE BOARD - NON-EXEC DIRECTOR |
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| | Felicity Gillespie |
| | | | | | Volunteer non-exec Director
Felicity Gillespie has worked as a freelance policy and strategy consultant in the public sector for nine years. As a project leader working at the leading edge of education in the DfES Innovation Unit and Associate of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit, she has extensive experience at identifying, developing and spreading best practice in a wide range of educational settings and acting as a bridge between the public and private sectors. She is used to operating at board and ministerial level. Felicity is a Trustee of the National Teaching Awards and is also a Trustee of Youth at Risk, a charity which works to turn around the lives of some of the most hard-to-reach and challenging young people in our communities. She was a founding Trustee of the DfES’ charitable Business Educators Trust and a Learning Committee member of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA). She has been a National Training Awards National and Sectoral Judge for several years, a member of the LEONARDO (EU training programme) Management Board, FORCE Management Board (allocating and directing EU spending on continuing training) and was nominated for a seat on the Social Dialogue and European Social Fund Management Board. Felicity continues to ghostwrite from time to time, building on a catalogue of over 40 articles and 150 speeches on subjects as diverse as the importance of teachers, the benefits of employee ownership, media literacy, trees, the role of technology in education and the meaning of Home in the 21st Century. She has worked with numerous private sector organisations as a strategic consultant and advisor on working with the public sector. Public sector clients include the Cabinet office, the DfES, the CEOs of the Teacher Training Agency and General Teaching Council as well as an assortment of very senior civil servants. Felicity is currently advising the John Lewis Partnership on their skills policy. Early Career Felicity began her career as a European Training Policy Advisor at the Confederation of British Industy (CBI), leading the first independent review of the NVQ system. In 2005 she was appointed the founding Executive Director of the Broadcast Training and Skills Regulator, the first co-regulator of an industry in the UK, implementing the first self-regulation framework of its kind and establishing the National Training Awards for the Broadcast Sector. Previous roles have included a two and a half year stint as a strategy consultant in the media sector during which time Felicity wrote the syllabus on film finance for the European Media Business School and undertook a substantial study into the feasibility of a Scottish-based Screen Industries business school. A specialist in the post-production sector she was a contributor to Broadcast, writing about the future of the industry in the 21st century. As a founder Director of the National Teaching Awards, Felicity designed the Award process that she implemented in partnership with the Chairman, Lord Puttnam CBE, negotiating with Ministers, the six teaching unions and private sector sponsors, and raising £2.5million. She acted as Lord Puttnam’s ‘gatekeeper’ for over three years, developing projects with senior politicians, leading business people from a diverse range of fields including conservationists, designers and media executives. Advising the then Secretary of State for Education, Felicity conceived, designed and built the necessary coalition to establish the DfEE’s Business Development Unit. She was appointed by Estelle Morris to be the DfES member of the Davies Review of Enterprise Education and was the lead author of the final report. She was a member of the Prime Minster’s Delivery Unit Priority Review teams on CPD in education, A&E 12 and 4 hour wait policy and Adult Basic Skills. Educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and a history graduate of St Peter’s College, Oxford, Felicity is married to the British Olympic Fencing coach and has a daughter, Ava. | | |
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