Our Trustees
The Trustees are ultimately accountable for the standards of education in each of the academies in the Trust and also hold responsibility as Directors of the company.
Julie Fletcher (Chair of Trustees)
Julie has been a parent governor for Bunwell Primary School since June 2018 and was previously a governor for four years at a primary school in Northamptonshire. She was appointed Trustee of Cooperative Education East in June 2019 and became Chair in February 2020. She has worked most of her career in the financial services industry across business research and HR roles. She is currently working for Norfolk Police in a specialist HR Reward role. Her skills and experience include research and analysis, project management, communications, recruitment, employee pay and benefits and HR policies.
Ruth Grose
Hannah Meek
Ben Evers
Central Business Team
The purpose of our Trust is to run a lean and efficient back office staff. We charge a central contribution from each school but they are in charge and responsible for their own budgets, which is central to our principle of autonomy which is key to what we do. Our central team are there to facilitate discussion and provide day to day support with back office functions including: finance, budgeting planning and processing, HR and payroll administration, supplier services and procurement. Our central back office functions run smoothly and efficiently allowing our headteacher and senior leaders to focus on driving education forward through solid teaching and learning. These central processes are regularly audited and have recently been confirmed to be examples of ‘industry leading best practice’.
Jonathan Taylor OBE - Chief Executive Officer
Jonathan joined Co-Operative Education east in June 2026. Previously Jonathan served as Principal and Executive Principal of Wymondham College, delivering record breaking ‘A’ level and GCSE outcome. In both 2015 and 2016 Wymondham College under his leadership was the highest performing non selective state school in the eastern region. In 2017 he led the College to an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted Social care inspection, with every area evaluated as ‘outstanding.’ He was appointed as a National Leader of Education in 2017 and was one of the first cohort to be appointed as a DfE adviser for the RISE programme (Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence). Jonathan speaks regularly at local and national events and The Good Schools Guide described his career as ‘a swift progress, leaving outstanding Ofsted reports in his wake’ and his approach as ‘thoughtful and immensely hard working - yet he hasn’t disappeared in a cloud of management initiatives, preferring lots of contact with pupils and staff.’
Jonathan was awarded an OBE for services to education and school improvement in the King’s Birthday Honours 2026.
Steven Dewing - Chief Financial Officer
Steven joined Sapientia Education Trust in September 2021 and Co-Operative Education East in June 2026. Having trained at Larking Gowen as an AAT and ACA audit and accounts junior, he subsequently moved into private healthcare and then the NHS. Steven has over 20 years’ experience in Finance including financial planning, business partnering, statutory reporting, service transformation and process improvement.
He leads the Finance Team and is supporting the development of the team and the Trust’s financial processes to ensure a high quality of support to schools.
Michelle Davis (Finance and Admin)
Michelle works on a day-to-day basis to support the finance and admin function for all of the schools in the Trust. She has a background working for over 15 years in schools’ finance, and before that in the banking sector. Michelle provides a valuable additional operational layer between the schools, suppliers and customers. In her spare time she loves to read, going for long walks and enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles.
WORKING WITH US
The freedom of being in a MAT means we can work with many local suppliers who share our vision and values