Gillian Haslam
Gill is currently retired but prior to that ran her own translation agency and taught for 38 years in local secondary schools, originally as a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages and for 22 years as the sole Deputy Head Teacher at Selston. She has experience as leader of both academic and pastoral systems and during her career has been Course Director of European Studies, Child Protection Coordinator, Senco and Advocate for Looked After Children. She has organised and delivered whole school in-service training to Selston and other schools. Gill has also worked as an associate member of the local authority evaluating the provision of summer schools for Gifted and Talented, with local universities to coordinate the provision for trainee teachers and has been responsible for school finance.
She has experience in working with employers as part of careers provision in school and compiled portfolios resulting in the award of Investor in People and Career Mark. She has represented the school on local community groups (Safer Neighbourhood and Selston Forum). Additionally, as part of senior leadership, she has a vast experience of use of data, strategic planning, quality assurance, and performance management. She has held responsibility for premises and facilities management as well as Health and Safety and organised extensive refurbishment of parts of the school. Gill moved from leadership to governance on retirement, and was a Trustee for 4 Year, prior to being a Member.
Chris Hallam
Chris is a behavioural psychologist by discipline. He has developed a wide and comprehensive leadership and management skill set through a number of senior roles in multinational organisations across several industries including Transformation and Change Director, L&D Lead, Interim HRD and a Programme and Risk Director. Chris has a passion for helping people unlock their potential. The companies he has worked with include Lloyds Bank, Halifax plc, C&G, TSB, Bank Of Scotland, Carillion & Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Outside of his commercial career, Chris has coached Team GB in several championships including the World Transplant Games in 2019 and he is currently a mentor to a number of our elite coaches through his coaching consultancy business.
Chris is a trustee of South Yorkshire Charity Mentors, a trustee and Non-Executive Director at Elvaston Castle & Gardens Trust, Chair of Ashgate Hospice, and the Chief Executive Officer High Green Development Trust.
Richard Crisp
Richard’s background in financial services stretches back over 30 years during which time he has held senior leadership roles in blue chip PLCs as well as mutual sector organisations. As part of the senior leadership team, Richard is currently Commercial Development Executive at Mansfield Building Society where he is responsible for delivering the sales and marketing strategy, and driving growth.
As Deputy Chair of the Mansfield Place Board Richard has also played his part in helping shape the district’s bid to secure £25m of Government funding to rejuvenate the town centre. Richard is a Parent Governor at St Johns C of E in Stapleford and currently resides in Sandiacre, Derbyshire, with his wife and family.
Paulo Karat
Paulo Karat is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Law School. Paulo qualified as a solicitor in 1999, specialising in intellectual property and commercial contracts, working at Freeths LLP and Addleshaw Goddard LLP.
He left private practice to teach professional graduate courses at Nottingham Law School, whilst working part-time as a legal sector coach and in-house lawyer. He taught at NLS until leaving in 2011 to develop a start-up legal sector training software business. Having built his company to a point where it supplied over 40 of the Top 100 law firms in the UK, he had a stress-induced nervous breakdown. He returned to NLS in 2017, working part-time whilst retraining as a psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher and completing his MSc in Mindfulness Based Approaches to mental health and wellbeing at the Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice, Bangor University.
Paulo teaches mindfulness to students at Nottingham Trent University and, working closely with colleagues in the school of Psychology, researches the impact of wellbeing interventions on the student population.
Dolapo Fakuade
Dr Dolapo Fakuade (Dolas) is a risk and security expert with proficient knowledge in hazard and emergency management and has received several awards for her contribution to public security and emergency response agencies throughout the UK, USA, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia. She is currently a UNESCO ‘Looking Beyond Disaster’ ambassador and has been active in the disaster management sector since 2010. She is also a UNITAR and UNFPA consultant helping the United Nations evaluate community projects and learning programme quality in different countries.
Dolas has a world class knowledge of disasters, with postgraduate degrees from the UK and New Zealand and is passionate about providing the next generation of security and safety experts with first-class opportunities, experience, and career prospects. She is presently the Programme Director of Intelligence, Security and Disaster Management at the University of Derby where she leads a series of modules and has been nominated for ‘personal academic tutor of the year’ and ‘lecturer of the year’ respectively. Dr Dolapo has leadership and strategic responsibilities in UK and US universities as well as in EU business school.
Dolas has a passion for quality education and lifelong learning (SDG4), youth empowerment and career development. She values any networking opportunity and civic engagement, her collegiality, crisis management, team management, strategic thinking and influence are some of the assets she brings to her role as a member.
Board of Trustees
Karen Potts, Chair of Trustees
Karen is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Procurement and Supply (MCIPS) and a Director of a small business providing procurement and project management services. Karen has 25 years of procurement experience in the public and private sectors and an excellent understanding of EU Procurement Law. She worked for Royal Mail as Head of IT Procurement, Computer Sciences Corporation as Senior EMEA Supplier Manager and for six years as Senior Commercial Manager for the National College for Teaching and Leadership (previously NCSL), an Executive Agency of the DfE.
Karen has managed all elements of procurement including strategy formation, OJEU tender management, negotiation, development and management of contracts and supplier management. Category expertise include professional services, commissioned training services, IT products and services and outsourcing. Karen has expertise and experience of licensing products and commercialisation of intellectual property, due diligence to facilitate transition and transformation projects, development and audit of procurement policies and procedures and is a non-executive director for Gedling Homes. A committed school governor and chair of the business committee at Pilsley Primary School in Derbyshire for two years.
Alison Chmiel
Alison is an experienced business leader and non-executive director in both commercial and charity organisations. She is currently Chair of the Mansfield Building Society where she has also chaired the Risk Committee. Alison is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and was previously Deputy Managing Director of Ikano Bank with responsibilities including finance, IT, change management, governance, compliance and HR. Alison is a committed supporter of education in the local area and alongside her role at the Two Counties Trust is currently the Vice Chair at an alternative provision school in Nottingham City. She has a long association with The Woodland Trust where she was a Trustee for many years.
Chris Pickering
Chris spent forty-two years working in education before retiring in 2020. He served as Head in three different schools over a period of fifteen years before becoming Executive Headteacher across three secondary schools in 2007. Chris was the founding CEO of the Diverse Academies Trust based in Nottinghamshire which grew from two secondaries in 2011 to a Trust of six secondaries, 5 primaries and two special schools at the point of his retirement.
Chris spends much of his time with his family and enjoys gardening and growing cacti. He is a keen golfer and passionate supporter of his hometown football and rugby league teams. He is very keen to use his experience to support TTCT on its development journey throughout his tenure as Trustee.
Ian Greenaway
Ian is a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Manager and Managing Director of MTM Products (I.S.P.P.) Ltd, an SME manufacturing business.
Ian is also Vice Chair of East Midlands Chamber of Commerce and has previously been involved with a number of voluntary and non-executive roles in the past twenty years which included; Chair of Business Link Derbyshire,
President & Chair of East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, a non-executive Director at EMB Limited, D2N2 Employability Champion, Founder Member of Agile Future Forum, Chair EX2 Limited, Member of Supervisory Board for promotion of Core Maths in schools and colleges, Member of East Midlands East Maths Hub Strategic Board and a Business advisor for Young Enterprise.
William O’Connell
William has over 36 years experience working in senior roles within the private sector. Qualified to Masters level in Business Studies, William initially started his career in the UK in human resources prior to moving to the recruitment sector with a global organisation within the engineering and construction sector. In 1991 with his business partner, he set up his own recruitment business focusing on the chemical, life sciences and pharmaceutical sectors. Upon selling the business in 2022 it had grown to the largest privately owned business in the science field with the offices throughout the UK, Europe and the US.
He has experience as a governor of both secondary and primary schools and is also a Trustee of a homeless charity in Derbyshire. Previously he had been Chair of the Life Sciences Committee of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, and was a member of the global scientific organisation INRALS.
William’s outside interests include a wide variety of sport, history and science alongside travelling and spending time with family.
Richard Jones
Richard started his career as a secondary school teacher, before working for a local authority. He then joined the National College for School Leadership where he worked on their leadership development programmes. He transferred into the Department for Education in 2015 and currently works in the Department’s Schools Commercial Team, supporting schools and trusts to get the best value from their non-staff spend.
He was a staff governor at the start of his career and was a parent governor at his children’s primary school in Nottinghamshire, where he also served as Chair of Governors, and Chair of a collaboration group of the schools linked to his local secondary school trust. He has three children, two at university and one at 6th form college in Nottingham.
He was appointed to the Trust Board in March 2023 and is link trustee for Friesland School and a member of the Trust Finance Committee.
