Members
Alex King
Chair of the Members Board
Alex became a Member in 2019 and is involved in the trust as he truly believes in the value of good education and the ‘out of school’ learning opportunities connected through sport and the natural environment in particular.
Alex has a good understanding of good governance both from running businesses and having created a charitable trust back in 2015 and presently works to support two charitable trusts operating in the leisure sector in the South West.
Alex has links into education via family members both professionals and students, through his work activity and professional relationships and indeed is a former Governor of another Plymouth school recruited specifically to assist on transitional matters and change management.
Alex is heavily involved in matters relating to Plymouth and its waterfront and sits in an advisory capacity on a number of groups.
Debbie Taylor
Member (Ex-Officio)
Debbie is the Chair of Trustees and as such holds the position of Member (ex-Officio). Please see Debbie's bio below.
David Feindouno
Member
David feels privileged to be considered as a Member of Horizon Trust overseeing schools responsible for providing statutory education to children. As a father, he can attest to the importance of schools in shaping the future of our children. In his mother tongue, they say that there is no word to say thank you to a teacher. This summarizes the role individuals and institutions play in society to educate our children.
He has had 15 years’ experience working in the voluntary sector and the last 10 years managing the local Red Cross refugees’ services where he has led on projects supporting hundreds of individuals and families. One of the projects he initiated, was the Welcome Project designed to welcome and orient newly arrived asylum seekers in the city. They submit school applications on their behalf, and support them through the educational system. This has given him a lot of insight from children and parents perspectives. He will bring on board his modest experience of managing multiple projects working with statutory bodies, the voluntary sector providers as well as people at the grassroot level. This includes project management, co-producing and implementing projects including the full management circle, immigration advice, integration support to refugees, solving problems faced by ethnic minorities and providing recommendations to leadership at various levels where change is required to better their lives.
David is also the founder and co-founder of Plymouth Hope and Diversity Business Incubator. Both organisations are now the largest BAME led organizations outside Bristol within their core fields. Plymouth Hope has run the largest multicultural event in Plymouth for the past 11 years and has become a well-known organisation building bridges between migrants’ populations and the host/white British community. In 2020, he wrote an educational programme looking at the Equality Act and different characteristics. The programme called Mid-Ground has now been delivered in 12 schools across Plymouth offering sessions in classroom settings and assemblies. Its purpose is to promote cultural awareness and racial inclusion in schools. He is looking forward to sharing this experience and contributing positively towards the trust.
Lesa Annear
Member
I am a European Business graduate and a Chartered management accountant. I have been fortunate to have had a successful career that has spanned a number of sectors and disciplines. ‘Achieving better outcomes’ has been at the heart of what I have done during the last fifteen years or so, working in the private and public sectors.
Most recently, I held the board position of Finance Director for Smile Together, a chain of dentists based in Cornwall.
Trustees
Debbie Taylor
Chair of Trustees
Debbie joined Horizon as a Trustee in October 2021. As former Senior Leader working within the National Health Service, Debbie has extensive experience in the areas of Education, Learning & Organisational Development and Service Transformation. She has led a number of multidisciplinary teams both strategically and operationally to deliver complex change, whilst building capacity and capabilities across organisational boundaries. Debbie has vast experience in Governance not only as an NHS leader but also as a School and College Governor. Debbie is passionate about ensuring an outstanding learning experience for all pupils, retaining, developing and valuing our people and working in collaboration with our partners.
Caroline Adams
Vice Chair of Trustees
I have recently joined the Horizon Trust Board (spring 2021), having been a school governor for many years. My background is in lecturing in psychology, with personal interests in child development and learning. I am passionate about providing a creative, broad and balanced education for all children across the Horizon Trust. From personal observations, creativity (both in utilising individual teaching strengths and content) was largely sidelined due to a narrow National Curriculum for many years. This, thankfully, is changing and our schools have a fantastic opportunity to take advantage. Our staff are our greatest asset and I hope to champion their desire to provide the education they are passionate about delivering.
Emma Roberts
Trustee
Emma is a HR professional with over 15 years experience. She has worked in HR Director level roles for the last 5 years, having had the opportunity to work with some of the largest employers in Plymouth.
Emma became involved in governance in 2006 when she became a parent governor at Pomphlett Primary School where her son attended and subsequently went on to sit on the Board of Trustees for Horizon Multi Academy Trust when it was formed in 2016.
Chrissie Clark
Trustee
Chrissie joined horizon as trustee in 2020, she is passionate about providing all pupils with an excellent all round educational experience. She has been a teacher in Devon for many years working in large secondary schools as a PE teacher and as a school sports coordinator for over 16 primaries. She has spent the last 10 years teaching across the curriculum in a Plymouth special school. She also has two sons that attend a Horizon MAT school.
Nick Abbott
Trustee
Having owned and run a local SME business for over 25 years and an investment property company for around 15, Nick has a plethora of experience at strategic level and brings the following qualities to the Trust Board: financial accounting, interpretation, budgeting and cash flows, strategic planning, HR, project management, lease negotiations as both landlord and tenant and health and safety compliance. Nick also has the ability to delegate to appropriate trusted experts in any given field and feels that no-one can be master of everything, so to know when to get the appropriate help is key.
Andrew Burt
Trustee
Andrew has been a Trustee for Horizon MAT since 2019. Previously, he was a local authority governor for Victoria Road Primary School since 2009.
Andrew started work for DML (now Babcock) at Devonport Royal Dockyard in 2000 as a Health Physicist, supporting the Royal Navy’s Nuclear Powered Submarines, and has since moved into project management, managing a number of projects over the course of his career. Currently he is a Programme Manager responsible for the decommissioned submarine projects at Devonport.
Andrew is a chartered radiation protection professional, and is also a member of the Society for Radiological Protection and the Association for Project Management.
Andrew was born and raised in Plymouth and currently lives in the North of the City with his wife, two children, two dogs and a cat.
Jenna Fulton
Trustee
Following completion of a degree in Accountancy with Law, I joined DML in August 2004 and qualified with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in 2008. I have had a varied career within DML/Babcock working within the central finance function areas and within Project and Management Accountant roles. I have been involved with major bid activity, due diligence for take overs, system upgrades and internal and external audit processes. I currently hold the Position of Head of Finance.
Outside of work, I am married with 2 children who both attend a school within the Horizon Multi Academy Trust.
Ken Corish
Trustee
Ken is Online Safety Director and SMT member with South West Grid for Learning Trust drawing on twenty years as a teacher and school leader and ten years as a BECTA award-winning Education School Improvement Adviser with Plymouth’s ICT Team.
Ken’s broad canvas of experience and engaging presentation style has seen him work with a wide range of educators and agencies including Ofsted; DfE; DCMS and the Home Office and regularly speaks at conferences around the world.
He developed and co-wrote the multi award-winning 360 degree safe online safety self-review tool, including 360Groups and 360EarlyYears. He is co-creator of the BETT award-winning BOOST toolset for children’s settings and a lead member of the UKCIS team that produced the UKCCIS framework “Education for a Connected World”. In his European work, he has been one of the driving forces behind the development of the SEL tools SELMA and ENABLE. His latest work is ProjectEVOLVE, an innovative set of free resources and knowledge mapping to support young people’s online lives. He has just completed a Wellbeing Toolkit to support organisations and small businesses, EdtesaWellbeing.
He has recently written Online Safety standards with AQDAR for schools in UAE which won the prestigious United Nation WSIS Award 2017.
Governance Structure
Members: determine the ethos and purpose of the Trust (i.e. the provision of education) and the way it will be governed (which will be set out in the Articles of Association) and will have a right (not an obligation) to participate in governance by appointing and removing Trustees. They also have a right to receive the Trustees’ annual report and accounts and to attend general meetings of the Trust.
Board of Trustees: the accountable body for the performance of all Academies within the Trust and, as such, must ensure clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction; hold the CEO to account for the educational performance of the Academies and their pupils, and the performance management of staff; and oversee the financial performance of the Trust, ensuring financial probity and value for money.
The Local Governing Bodies (LGBs): Committees of the Board of Trustees and have delegated decision-making powers in accordance with this SoD and their Ofsted grading (see Table of Responsibilities). The LGBs shall each hold at least three meetings in every school year.
There are eight elements to effective governance:
- The right people around the table;
- Understanding the role and responsibilities;
- Good chairing;
- Professional clerking;
- Good relationships based on trust;
- Knowing the school – its data, staff, parents, children and community;
- Commitment to asking challenging questions; and
- Confidence to have courageous conversations in the interests of the pupils
Trustee and Member Business Interest 2022/2023
| Name | Role | Business Interest | Date of Appointment | Member Appointed | Date of Expiry | Nature of Business | Date Interest Began |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maria Anderson | CEO | Director of PLP | 01/09/2017 | Member appointed | N/A | Education | 1993 |
| Member of National Association of Head Teachers | 01/06/2013 | ||||||
| David Feindouno | Member | Employed by British Red Cross & IFRC | 22/03/22 | Member appointed | N/A | Charity | 2010 |
| Director of Diversity Business Incubator | Charity | 2018 | |||||
| Director Plymouth Hope CIC | Charity | 2009 | |||||
| Alexander King | Member | Director of the Mount Batten Group of Companies | 01/09/2019 | Member appointed | N/A | Outdoor Education | January 2011 |
| Lesa Annear | Member | Retired Business Director/accountant | 12/07/22 | Member appointed | N/A | None | N/A |
| Andrew Burt | Trustee | Employed by Babcock International | 01/09/2019 | Member appointed | 01/09/22 | Engineering | September 2000 |
| Emma Roberts | Trustee | HR | 01/09/2016 | Member appointed | 01/09/2024 | HR | July 1997 |
| Jenna Fulton | Trustee | Child attending a Horizon MAT School. Employed by Babcock Internation | 01/09/2019 | Member appointed | 01/09/2023 | Engineering | December 2004 |
| Chrissie Clark | Trustee | Employed by Longcause Community Special School and Child attending Horizon MAT school | 01/07/2020 | Member appointed | 01/07/2024 | Education | September 2007 |
| Caroline Adams | Trustee | Retired Lecturer | 16/03/2021 | Member appointed | 16/03/2025 | None | N/A |
| Nick Abbott | Trustee | Company Director Ivor Dewdney | 16/03/2021 | Member appointed | 16/03/2025 | Food manufacturing, retailing & wholesaling | October 1994 |
| Debbie Taylor | Trustee and Member | Retired NHS Learning & Organisational Development & Service Transformation Director | 19/10/2021 | Member appointed | 19/10/2025 | Retired | N/A |
| Ken Corish | Trustee | On-line Safety Director with South West Grid for Learning Trust | 1st February 2022 | Member appointed | 1st February 2026 | IT and Education | 2011 |