Members of the Trust
Rama Venchard MBE - Chair
Following 20 years undertaking IT Service Management and Business Change Management roles in the retail, hospitality and banking sectors, Rama has been a management consultant in the education sector since 2005.
He currently supports various multi academy trusts in their growth strategies, but also offers his time in governance roles across the mainstream, special and independent school sectors, i.e. as a Chair of Trustees of a special and mainstream primary school trust of 9 schools; a Trustee of a primary school trust of 20 primary schools; a Trustee on the family board of a special school trust of 15 schools and 7 college centres; a Member of a secondary school trust of 6 schools; a Member of a single academy trust; and a Chair of Governors of an independent special school.
He sits on various DfE and NGA Advisory Boards. Rama was awarded an MBE for services to education in the 2023 New Years Honours list.
Jacky Tiotto - Member
Jacky is Chief Executive of Cafcass (Children and Families Court Advisory and Support Service). Cafcass represents children’s voices in the family courts in England and is also the largest employer of social workers in this country. Prior to holding this position, she was employed by the London Borough of Bexley as statutory Director of Children’s Services from 2015- 2019.
Jacky has worked for Ofsted and the Department of Education where she was deputy director for social care inspection and Senior Deputy Director for safeguarding respectively. She led the advisory team for Professor Eileen Munro’s Review of Child Protection and was the professional adviser to Lord Laming’s 2009 review of ‘The Protection of Children in England’. Starting her career as a social worker, Jacky worked in a number of senior positions for local authority children’s services before becoming national adviser for children and adult services for the local government group, and senior specialist for social care, education and health at the Audit Commission. Jacky was the Director for Children and Learners at Government Office, London, before its abolition.
Angela Hands - Member
Angela was a director at the National Audit Office where she had responsibility for preparing reports to parliament on a range of issues including local government and education. During her career she has also worked as a director and chief executive in the NHS. Angela joined the governing body of Orpington College in 2005 and was the chair for three years until 2011 when the College merged with Bromley College. Angela was the first chair of the merged Bromley College of Further and Higher Education from 1 August 2011 to July 2013.
London South East Colleges
Stephen Howlett CBE, DL, Hon FRIBA - Member
Stephen was Chief Executive of Peabody from 2004 to 2017. Founded in 1862, Peabody is one of London’s oldest and largest social housing charities. The Peabody Group now owns and manages 55,000 homes across the capital, and runs a range of employment and community projects. It has a development pipeline of over 8,000 homes, and has ambitious plans to regenerate Thamesmead in south-east London. Stephen has a particular interest in education and skills and completed his term of office as Chair of the Court and Pro-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich in 2017 from which he graduated. He is a Trustee of Open-City, London's leading architecture education organisation and organiser of Open House London.
He is a member of the Commercial Development Advisory Group of Transport for London which advises on property and development matters and chairs their Sustainable Development Advisory Panel.
He is a board member of Orbit Housing Group and chairs the board responsible for their housing service.
Stephen was commissioned as a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London in 2017 and awarded a CBE in the Queen's 2018 New Year's honours for services to housing.
Stephen lives in South East London.