Our Members

Fiona has been Headmistress at Guildford High since September 2002.  Prior to that she was Deputy Head at Guildford High for 5 years.

Fiona grew up in Guildford where she was a pupil at Boxgrove Primary School.  At age 11 she was offered a place at Guildford County School, which was then a Grammar School.  Before she could take up the place her family moved to Kent, where she attended the local Comprehensive school.   She is keen to finally be involved with Guildford County School.

Guildford High is a member of United Learning, it is a Teaching School and Fiona is a National Leader of Education.  She firmly believes that schools working in collaboration are stronger than schools working in isolation and is very supportive of the idea of the trust.  She hopes to bring some of her experience of cross-school work to the table. 

Stephen is a Partner at law firm Stone King, who have offices around the UK.  He leads the Education Team and has specialised in charity and not-for-profit law since qualifying as a solicitor in 1997.

Stephen has been involved in the academies programme since its inception back in the early 2000s, initially advising on the “type 1” failing school projects. He has acted on the conversion to academy status of over 170 maintained schools of all types, including community, faith and alternative provision schools.

Stephen has been instrumental in developing some of the larger multi academy trusts. This experience of building trusts from small entities to quite complex and sizeable organisations has given him insight into the legal issues and the organisational and strategic challenges which may lie ahead.

Stephen’s particular expertise surrounds governance structures of multi academy trusts, drawing on his charity law background. This experience includes a detailed understanding of the relationships between academy trusts and their trading subsidiaries. He has particular experience in dealing with the establishment of academies within the faith sector and has acted on a significant number of academy conversions within Surrey.

Stephen is recognised as a leader in both education and charity law by Chambers and Legal 500. He has recently stepped down as a member of the Executive Committee of the Charity Law Association having served on the committee for 9 years. He is a governor of two schools and sits on an Academy Strategic Board for a Catholic Diocese.

Alex is the Diocesan Director of Education for the Diocese of Guildford and leads the Education team based at Church House, Guildford. Alex is an experienced system leader and former Local Leader of Education (LLE) in Surrey. He has 25 years’ experience in education as a teacher, governor, local authority adviser, primary headteacher and Chief Executive officer for a multi-academy trust. Alex is a Trustee of Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE), a local education partnership in Surrey and a trustee of the Archbishop Abbott’s Exhibition Foundation, a local charity based in Guildford that awards grants to young people to assist with training and education.

Linda Wilding (ACA PhD, with a background in private equity), is one of the most experienced non-executive directors on the London market.  She has held board roles in the life sciences, pharmaceutical and consumer products sectors.  Linda is Chairperson of Governors for Schools, a charity to recruit, train and promote excellence in school governorship in the UK.  Educated at an inner city school in Liverpool, Linda is passionate in her belief that great education offers essential  opportunities to all students.  Previously a trustee of Guildford Education Partnership, Linda now joins as a member of Learning Partners.

Dr Geoff Wyss has been a school governor for 20 years, starting when his children were at Holy Trinity Junior school and then for 14 years with George Abbot School. He has been heavily involved with taking George Abbot through the process of becoming an academy and subsequently with the formation of GEP Academies. 

He has recently completed the National College of Teaching and Learning Leadership Development programme for Chairs of Governor’s and is a Surrey Additional Skills Governor. In this role he provides support for other schools in the Guildford area. By training and profession Geoff is an engineer in high technology systems and was for many years a Director of a local systems engineering company before becoming an independent consultant. He has recently retired. 

• Gareth Hicks, former Member