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Emma Beal brings extensive experience and a strong commitment to social purpose to her role as Chief Executive Officer of Skills and Education Group. With over 25 years of senior leadership across further and adult education, including her recent role as Principal and CEO of Northern College, Emma has built a reputation for championing inclusion, social mobility, and high-quality learning opportunities. Her deep understanding of the sector aligns closely with the Group’s mission and values.

Emma’s responsibilities include:

• Working closely with the Board of Trustees, senior leadership team, and colleagues across the organisation to shape and deliver the Group’s strategic priorities.

• Leading the organisation through its next phase of growth and development, strengthening quality, impact, and reach across the sector.

• Ensuring the Group continues to provide trusted support, assurance, and innovation for centres, colleges, partners, and members.

Driven by a belief in education as a catalyst for social change, Emma places people, collaboration, and learner success at the heart of her leadership. Her experience in strategic transformation and quality assurance equips her to guide Skills and Education Group confidently through a period of opportunity and change.

Emma believes that by working together with partners across the sector, Skills and Education Group can continue to improve lives through education and skills.

Kaye is committed to growing customer relationships and supporting our customers as they work to improve the life chances in the communities they serve.

If a jigsaw puzzle is missing a piece, you want Kaye on the case. She loves the trust that comes from growing customer relationships, and listening and really getting to the bottom of what people are trying to achieve. For her, no two days are ever the same, and there is certainly no time to get bored as she works to solve the puzzle that is the further education and skills sector.

Kaye is responsible for:

• Leading the work of our knowledgeable and solution-focused Relationship Management team, ensuring clear points of contact for all customers across Skills and Education Group
• Establishing relationships with key stakeholders and maintaining up-to-date knowledge of the skills landscape on a regional and national level
• Identifying new business opportunities across Skills and Education Group and effectively managing pipelines
• Providing excellent customer service, and serving as a source of information and a critical friend when needed
• Working with the Brand Manager and wider communications team to ensure products and services are effectively marketed and communicated

Knowing that Skills and Education Group has a true desire to improve the life chances of communities, Kaye and her team work hard to make sure they support our customers in making this a reality. She finds no better feeling than when customers share the same passion as her, and their faces light up when they realise she has just found the solution they hadn’t thought of.

Solman is a senior leader with over 15 years of extensive experience in the third sector, including the past 8 years specialising in the cultural and education sectors. He holds a first-class honours degree in BA (Hons) Accounting and Finance from Nottingham Trent University and initially trained as a management accountant in the manufacturing industry. Fun fact: ask him about traffic signs and 3-part number plates!

Solman is known for his fast-paced, yet detail-oriented and collaborative approach to leadership. He embraces the Kaizen philosophy, consistently driving ‘good change’ through incremental improvements and empowering those around him to achieve their full potential.

Outside of work, Solman enjoys spending time with his son, exploring railway heritage museums. They share a love for miniature steam trains, ice cream, and chips.

As Director of Finance and Operations, Solman is responsible for:

• Leading the finance and operations strategy
• Overseeing financial planning, budgeting, and reporting processes
• Managing financial resources effectively
• Ensuring compliance with all relevant financial regulations and internal controls
• Collaborating with senior leadership to support the overall vision and mission of the organisation
• Developing and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders, including board members, partners, and funders
• Mentoring and developing staff

Verity Swan is Director of Qualifications, Assessment and Regulation. She leads the Group’s qualifications, assessment, product development, and regulatory functions, ensuring that provision is high-quality, compliant, innovative, and aligned with the needs of learners, providers, employers, and regulators.

Verity is an experienced senior leader in education and skills, with a background in quality improvement, curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment. Before joining Skills and Education Group, she held senior leadership roles within Colleges and Apprenticeship Providers, where she led improvement, curriculum and quality functions across complex education and training environments to achieve Good and Outstanding outcomes.

Verity is responsible for:
Developing and maintaining the product strategy to ensuring our qualifications are created at the highest level and responsive to the evolving needs of our centres and students across our brands
• Developing and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders
• Leading on rigorous quality assurances processes and systems to ensure our centres and in turn we comply with all regulatory authorities requirements
• Guiding, monitoring and achieving progress on the implementation of the strategic plan

She is passionate about raising standards and ensuring qualifications and assessments deliver meaningful outcomes for learners and the sectors they serve.

When you work with Elaine, you’re barking up the right tree. Putting the customer at the centre of everything that she does, Elaine is committed to delivering excellent service by ensuring that our Centre Support team always knows exactly what they’re doing and why, the team’s goals and service standards, and how the team is progressing with each.

Elaine’s role includes:

• Ensuring smooth and effective day-to-day Centre Support team operations
• Keeping processes current, effective and understood by all that use them
• Aligning tasks and activities with the overall vision of the Group
• Maintaining awareness amongst colleagues about the need to comply with regulatory responsibilities
• Developing and continually improving the Centre Support team’s excellent customer service
• Planning, supporting and encouraging the personal development and growth of the Centre Support team

Valuing transparency and forthright discussion, Elaine encourages everyone on her team to contribute to advancing its goals and to make suggestions to change or improve processes where needed. She knows that the world of education is ever-changing and strives to keep her team one step ahead, providing excellence in service to our customers and high-quality education opportunities to learners

Melody is passionate about building strong relationships and creating opportunities for our centres and members to thrive. She loves seeing people connect, grow and feel supported as part of a community striving to improve skills and education. Finding solutions that make a real difference to our centres, members and stakeholders is her favourite part of the job role.

Melody is responsible for:

• Leading the work of our Relationship Management, Membership and CPD teams ensuring customer needs are met
• Building and maintaining relationships with members, centres, stakeholders and partners across SEG
• Identifying opportunities for growth, partnerships and funding to strengthen SEG’s work and impact
• Overseeing our professional development programme ensuring it meets the highest standards and supports lifelong learning

Lindsey Male brings a wealth of experience to her role as Head of Product Development at Skills and Education Group. With over 25 years in the education sector, she is dedicated to shaping high-quality qualifications that meet industry needs and regulatory standards.

Lindsey’s responsibilities include:

• Leading the strategic development and implementation of regulated qualifications.
•  Ensuring compliance with awarding body and regulatory requirements.
•  Overseeing product development and quality assurance processes.
• Collaborating with stakeholders to create impactful learning experiences.

Lindsey is committed to advancing excellence in education, with a strong focus on innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement. Her leadership enables her to steer the organisation’s product development strategy while upholding the highest standards in qualification delivery.

Steph brings a wealth of experience in leading high performing teams, developing strategic marketing initiatives and driving sustainable growth in the education and skills sectors. Having worked across both Awarding Organisations and Providers, she possesses a comprehensive understanding of the industry

Steph’s responsibilities include:

• Leading the Business Growth and Marketing team
• Developing and implementing growth strategies
• Campaign co-ordination and brand alignment
• Nurturing stakeholder and partner relationships

Steph is committed to delivering impact through structured momentum whilst laying the foundations for scalable growth to support all those we work with.