Laurie Taylor is an author, journalist, radio and television writer and broadcaster, and a public speaker. Visiting Professor in Politics and Sociology at the University of London, he was recently made a fellow of Birkbeck College and holds visiting professorships at the London Institute and Thames Valley University.
Laurie is the author and co-author of fourteen books on communication, social psychology, motivation, attitudes to change and the nature of identity in the modern world; the most recent being, An Introduction to Sociology (1998). He is also a regular and popular contributor to The Times, The Independent and the New Statesman.
For the past fifteen years, Laurie Taylor has been heard on BBC Radio 4 programmes, such as Stop the Week, The Radio Programme, News Quiz, Speaking as an Expert, The Afternoon Shift and Room for Improvement. He also writes and presents the weekly BBC R4 programme, Thinking Allowed, which analyses society and social change and which considers the many ways in which we can improve our intellect, knowledge, personality and motivation.
As NCSL 's Chief Executive, Steve's role is to set the College's strategic direction. He was formerly Director of Education and Lifelong Learning at Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, where his work was widely commended. Steve began his career as a secondary school teacher in Birmingham, later moving to the north east of England, where he worked as a teacher and then as a lecturer. In 1987, he became a consultant on assessment and records of achievement working for the nine north east local authorities, before taking up a post at Oldham Borough Council in 1989 as an inspector within the education department. In Oldham, he went on to manage theAdvisory Service before moving to Blackburn with Darwen as Assistant Director in 1997. From 2000 to March 2005, he was Director of Education and Lifelong Learning in Knowsley.
It is increasingly common to hear people say that we are facing a crisis of leadership. The ways in which organisations are moving forward can no longer be comprehended through the same models, language and logical analysis that have served leaders in the past. The rational leader has got the organisation to where it is – but will not be able to take it where it needs to go. The leaders of tomorrow will need to be ordinary human beings with extraordinary talents.
Andrew Adonis was first appointed as parliamentary under secretary of state to the then Department for Education and Skills in May 2005. Prior to this he was the previous Prime Minister Tony Blair's adviser on education and public services, and head of the No. 10 policy unit, joining in 1998 after a career as an academic and journalist.
Between 1988 and 1998 he was successively fellow (in history and politics) of Nuffield College, Oxford; education correspondent and then public policy editor at the Financial Times; and political columnist and leader writer at The Observer.
He is author or co-author of six books, including studies of the English class system (A Class Act, 1997), the rise and fall of the poll tax (Failure in British Government, 1994), the Victorian House of Lords (Making Aristocracy Work, 1993) and a collection of essays on Roy Jenkins published last year. Andrew was educated at Kingham Hill School and at Keble and Nuffield Colleges, Oxford. He is married with a son and daughter who attend local primary schools.
Jo Salter was Britain's first female fighter pilot flying the Tornado GR1, then one of five women fighter pilots in the world. Her military experience is multifaceted: technical; professional; managerial and political.
Jo has five years of e-commerce and management consultancy experience in the public and private sector as well as a Master's in Business Administration and an Associate Lectureship with the Open University Business School. As a combat ready pilot with 617 Squadron, the Dambusters, Jo experienced operational tours of duty and took part in large international NATO exercises around the world. She also worked in intelligence and became a fast jet instructor.
She also has extensive experience of working with the media, from featuring on the front page of The Times to international radio and television coverage. Her television appearances include Record Breakers as well as various documentaries – most recently the BBC's Inside Out programme and she can currently be heard as a regular guest on London's leading talk radio station, LBC.
Greg Dyke was Director General of the BBC from January 2000 until January 2004. At the beginning of his tenure he famously promised to "cut the crap" at the corporation. The "crap" he referred to was the complex internal market at the BBC which, it is claimed, took employees away from making programmes and made them into managers. He reversed this trend and in doing so he reduced administration costs dramatically from 24 per cent of total income to 15 per cent.
In 2004 he was formally appointed by the University of York as its new Chancellor. In this role, he is the honourific and ceremonial head of the university, as well as heading the University Development Board. In July 2004 Dyke was awarded honourary doctorates from the University of Sunderland and Middlesex University.
He speaks in detail about his leadership methods and how at the BBC he successfully improved programming, reduced costs and increased the cultural diversity of the BBC's work force.
Tony Mackay is Executive Director of the Melbourne based Centre for Strategic Education, Australia, a centre focused on leading educational thinking and practice at state, national and international levels. Tony specialises in school and system leadership, improvement and innovation. His work focuses on strategic thinking and facilitation for government bodies, education agencies, think tanks, school boards and leadership teams. It encompasses school and system leadership, improvement and innovation, teacher professionalism and curriculum and assessment policy and includes the design and implementation of research and development programmes.
Tony is a founding member of the governing council of NCSL . He is also a visiting fellow at the London Leadership Centre, chair of the board of directors of the Innovation Unit, an OECD senior consultant for the Schooling For Tomorrow Project and a DEMOS international associate.
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