Team

Terri Ashton – PA/Administrator
Terri is the Personal Assistant to Jenifer Burden and the administrator for the Gatsby Education team in Manchester. She is responsible for providing efficient administrative support, including diary management and meeting organisation. Prior to joining Gatsby, Terri worked in project support for NHS England, where she contributed to workforce, training and education projects.

Kelly Beaumont – Project Officer
Kelly’s focus is on Gatsby’s work supporting further education teachers through the Technical Education Networks programme. She also contributes to wider projects in technical education. Prior to joining Gatsby, Kelly worked for League Football Education on projects to support apprentices and coaches.

Kate Bines – Corporate Communications Manager
Kate manages Gatsby's corporate communications, providing strategic communications insight, guidance and recommendations to policy teams to support them in achieving their policy objectives. She manages Gatsby's owned channels, developing engaging content to reach and influence key stakeholders and wider audiences in the education and skills sectors.

Sara Bram - Project Officer 
Sara focuses on Gatsby’s work strengthening higher technical education and works across projects supporting the National Network of Institutes of Technology. Before joining Gatsby, Sara worked at a number of youth and education charities, most recently at the Sutton Trust managing widening participation programmes and residential activities. 

Jenifer Burden, MBE – Director of Programmes
Jenifer leads on a number of Gatsby’s programmes to support delivery of technical education. She has an interest in how local areas build coherent pathways for technical education informed by labour market intelligence. Jenifer taught for thirteen years and worked for the University of York and Association for Science Education. Prior to joining Gatsby she was inaugural Director of the National STEM Centre.

Philippa Carty-Hornsby – Project Manager
Philippa works on Gatsby’s projects supporting the implementation of Engineering and Manufacturing T-levels, working with key stakeholders to embed employer engagement in technical education with a focus on the Engineering and Manufacturing sector. Philippa is a mechanical engineer and prior to joining Gatsby she worked at the Science and Industry Museum managing the education team and the working historic machinery collection as a heritage technical specialist.

Sue Clarke – Project Manager
Sue is working with providers to support the implementation of qualifications reform. Following a career as a teacher and senior manager in FE, Sue moved to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and then spent ten years at the Department for Education working as an adviser in qualifications policy before joining Gatsby.

Rob Cremona – Project Officer 
Rob's focus is on projects within Gatsby's Good Career Guidance programme including on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and parent/carer engagement in careers. Rob has also worked on aspects of Gatsby's work on science and maths in schools and has a background in policy work and project delivery from across the charitable sector, most recently for the Prisoners' Education Trust.

Helen Esposito – Agency Projects Manager
Helen manages the delivery of Gatsby's national Technicians: We Make the Difference campaign, raising awareness of and promoting technician careers and opportunities to young people aged 11-16, and ongoing activity at Technicians: The David Sainsbury Gallery, at the Science Museum, a permanent, interactive gallery aimed at 11-16 year olds, which opened in November 2022.

Harriet Evans – Agency Projects Manager
Harriet manages the delivery of two of Gatsby’s national communication campaigns: the T Levels Parents campaign – generating awareness amongst parents of T Levels as an option for their children post-16 - and Education Landscape communications, a set of resources designed to encourage small and medium sized businesses to engage with the education system. 

Jenni French – Head of STEM in Schools
Jenni leads Gatsby’s work on teacher recruitment and retention. Her work particularly focusses on policy and research on the supply of physics teachers. She also leads the on-gallery work with the Science Museum, developing a new ‘Technicians’ gallery. Jenni has worked for more than 20 years in science education and prior to joining Gatsby worked for Nesta and other on other science education projects.

Sarah Herdan – Project Officer 
Sarah works on a range of programmes to support the implementation of technical education reforms, with a particular focus on creating and embedding resources to help employers engage with further education. Before joining Gatsby, Sarah worked in Local Government supporting the creation and implementation of inclusive education, employment, advocacy and training opportunities within the public sector. 

Beth Jones – Head of Career Programmes
Beth leads Gatsby’s team delivering the foundation's activity supporting Good Career Guidance. Her current priorities include policy, research and implementation work focussed on the Gatsby Benchmarks, use of data, parental engagement, and adult career guidance. Prior to joining Gatsby, Beth worked for several years running science education projects, including for community focussed organisations and environmental charities.

Laura Kane – Agency Projects Manager
Laura manages the delivery of some of Gatsby’s national communication campaigns. Her current priorities include the planning, development and evaluation of the Talking Futures campaign – a parent facing resource designed to encourage more regular and meaningful career conversations between parents and their children – and the Institutes of Technology (IOT) campaign designed to support the growth of IoTs among leaners and employers. 

Lee Kitchen – Project Officer
Lee is working across the sourcing and the creation of technical education case studies. Lee’s background is in media production, in particular television broadcast. Prior to joining Gatsby he was a producer with the BBC for 11 years. Most recently Lee worked in the education department with BBC Bitesize.

Dominic Martinez – Project Manager
Dominic works on a number of projects to support the implementation of technical education reforms, with a focus on implementation of Construction, Health and Engineering & Manufacturing T-levels. Prior to working in Technical Education  Dominic has been involved in a large number of projects which built links between Higher Education, Further Education and industry, with particular emphasis on entrepreneurship and careers.

Charlie Moss – Programme Manager
Charlie leads Gatsby’s programme of Technical Education Networks to support teaching of T-levels, and works on our wider programmes supporting technical education reforms. Prior to joining Gatsby Charlie worked in FE colleges in the North West for 15 years, where he was actively involved in supporting the implementation of T-levels. This included developing a series of external projects to support technical education pedagogy and innovation.

Ida Nejad - Team Project Administrator 
Ida works with the administration team to provide support to the Gatsby Education team. She also supports projects across the team, ranging from planning and delivering external events to coordinating visits to the David Sainsbury Gallery.

Sophie Noble – Project Manager
Sophie is responsible for Gatsby’s full suite of projects supporting the National Network of Institutes of Technology and works on our programme to strengthen higher technical education in further education colleges and universities. Before joining Gatsby, Sophie worked for the Salters’ Institute coordinating its science education programmes.

Ginny Page – Director of Programmes
Ginny leads Gatsby’s work strengthening higher technical education in Further Education colleges and universities, and support for Institutes of Technology. She is also responsible for Gatsby’s support for national STEM education initiatives. Ginny is interested in how FE colleges in particular can play a powerful and distinctive role in higher technical education, and how this provision can improve social mobility and career development for adults. Prior to joining Gatsby, Ginny led science education programmes at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society.

Michelle Rea – Director of Communications
Michelle heads up our communications and PR team, overseeing all of Gatsby's national campaign activities and leading on Gatsby's support of the Technician Commitment. Prior to joining Gatsby, Michelle worked at the Local Government Association and the London Development Agency and began her career working on EU-funded peace and ronciliation projects in Northern Ireland.

Claire Reynolds – Project Manager
Claire is a therapeutic radiographer with experience in workforce development. She works on Gatsby’s projects to support the introduction of Health and Healthcare Science T-levels, including providing support for employers in ICS (Integrated Care System) organisations to develop and implement industry placement models across the health and care system. Prior to joining Gatsby, she worked across the NHS and private sector as a clinical therapeutic radiographer specialising in the pre-treatment patient pathway.

Faye Riley – Personal Assistant
Faye is the Personal Assistant to Nigel Thomas and the administrator for the Gatsby Education team. She is responsible for coordinating meetings, seminars and conferences, diary planning and grant management as well as supporting our campaign event activities.

Daniel Sandford Smith - Director of Programmes 
Daniel has led on several projects designed to support the development of intermediate STEM skills including projects on technician registration, apprenticeships and technical qualifications. He has an interest in making better use of labour market information to shape technical education. Daniel taught for 10 years and worked for the Institute of Physics and the Association for Science Education before joining Gatsby. 

Emma Sayers – Research Officer
Emma supports Gatsby's focus on technical education, particularly the Further Education (FE) workforce and the introduction of T-levels. She also supports evaluations across the technical education programme. Emma has a social research and project evaluation background across education, health and social care. 

Tom Shirt – Project Manager
Tom leads on a number of projects within the careers team. He is a strong advocate of technical education and has a background in the careers sector with a specific focus on digital events and employer engagement.

Nigel Thomas – Executive Director
Nigel leads Gatsby’s education and skills team, with overall responsibility for strategic direction and operational delivery. He is also a non-executive director and trustee of the Engineers in Business Fellowship. Prior to joining Gatsby, Nigel worked for 10 years at the Royal Society, latterly as its Head of Science Communication & Education. 

Natasha Watkinson – Project Manager
Natasha works on Gatsby’s programmes supporting delivery of technical education reform, with a focus on provider readiness for delivery of T-levels, and employer engagement with technical education. Prior to joining Gatsby she worked in grants management at the Wellcome Trust.