Stephen is a detail-oriented and strategic individual with a strong track record in planning, research, and logistics. Known for his meticulous but also compassionate approach, as a team leader and team player providing and working together on actionable plans — whether coordinating new build or travel itineraries, comparing and assessing building materials  or accommodations, or evaluating safety and accessibility for projects or group activities. His ability to balance structure with spontaneity makes him a reliable and creative problem-solver in both professional and personal settings.
Stephen comes from a close-knit family and values community, connection, and thoughtful preparation. His interests span immersive travel, hiking, live music and keeping fit, He is particularly passionate about exploring and has a strong and close network of friends who consider him a faithful and loyal friend. He also takes a keen interest in community-driven environmental projects, such as the long ongoing River Severn project and the local Reabrook group.
With a warm, open personality and a touch of humour, Stephen brings energy and insight to every project he undertakes. He thrives in environments that value clarity, safety, and curiosity — and is always ready to dive into the next adventure.
Having moved o Shropshire in 1977 he became interested in engineering and craftsmanship from an early age, mainly due to working on building sites from an early age. With a family history involved in the building industry he started his career with the West Midlands Regional Health Service in 1979. This was following the Construction Industry Training Board programme with a 5-year apprenticeship (mechanical and electrical craftsman). Further to completing his apprenticeship he was successful in obtaining a full-time post at the then Shelton psychiatric hospital. During his 15 years within the health service, he was seconded to many departments within the NHS including the Biomedical Engineering Department and also the new NHS Trust estates department. After some successful promotions he became NHS Trust Works manager at the ripe old age of 28. After a varied and interesting early career in electrical installation, maintenance and design he decided to explore other opportunities. At this time, he was also running a small residential home for people with special psychiatric needs.  The early 90s he decided to apply for a new position as an electrical surveyor with the local authority Shropshire Council (SC). This was a great opportunity to spend more time with his young family. SC was so much more flexible with significantly more free time, no on call or weekend working! His new career as an electrical surveyor with (SC) gave him a level of freedom to deliver some very high-profile projects as well as the luxury of being able to assist and advise mainly schools with their repair and maintenance and planned projects. The portfolio was wide and varied and he had great satisfaction from making difference to not only teaching accommodation but also enhancing the facilities to enable a better learning environment. During his 30 plus years career with SC he was fortunate enough to continue with his desire and passion for continued learning and development whilst also being able to gain several successful career developments. Stephen was very grateful when Manager for the Property Maintenance team for the opportunity to create a whole new branded Property Services Group (PSG) team in 2017. This was at a time when Academies Trusts were starting to be created in Shropshire. The landscape was certainly changing within the education sector and the local authority. This did though give the team a new outlook as PSG became an income generating team and expanded to create a new architectural team delivering multi-million-pound schemes, facilities management and continued its minor works programme, including statutory repair and maintenance works. Budget planning, resource management, strategic planning and estate management plus day to day team management and it was a very important and interesting career and the varied nature of the demands and rewards was an important inspiration to Stephen.
Stephen retired in August 2024 and has enjoyed his favourite hobbies, plus being kept very busy and active by his three now very grown-up children.

Edward is the Chief Executive Officer of Invictus Education Trust. He is the former Deputy Chief Executive of Bright Futures Educational Trust, where he oversaw Governance and Corporate Services.  

Since qualifying as a Chartered Certified Accountant, He has held various lead finance and corporate service executive roles in the charity, public and private sectors, where he specialised in transformational change management in education, health and social care.  He has held non-executive positions in education, health and social care in excess of 20 years and is the former Vice Chair of both The Great Schools Trust and The Heath Family Trust.  He is currently the Chair of The Way Youth Zone Wolverhampton, a member of the OnSide Group of Charities.  

Edward is a former National Leader of Governance and has a history of carrying out corporate governance reviews for charities such as The Princess of Wales Diana Fund, Comic Relief and Y Care International in parts of West Africa, South Africa and Germany as well as the UK.  Edward has led on a number of external reviews of governance for MAT’s and supported them as a mentor for board self-evaluation.  

Edward served as a Non-Executive Director for Pennine Care NHS Mental Health Foundation Trust where he was also the Audit Committee Chair. He was the Chair of Greater Manchester’s CAMHS Lead Provider Collaborative Commissioning Committee January 2020 to December 2023.  He is a former Non-Executive Director of NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group where he was also the Audit Committee Chair, Commissioning Board Chair and Joint Chair of Salford City Council’s Public Health and Wellbeing Board.  

Edward has a strong commitment to improving life chances demonstrated throughout his career with a focus on education, supporting those facing disadvantage, health and social care. 

Neil Carr has been an NHS Chief Executive Officer since 2007 and has worked in Staffordshire and Shropshire since 1996.  Born in the North East of England, Neil originally trained as a nurse and principally worked as a practitioner in general hospitals working in liaison mental health, ultimately becoming Chief Nursing Officer. He has spent his career championing improvements in mental health and learning disability services and is committed to multi disciplinary/multi agency working. Neil has a strong commitment to developing research, development and innovation as well as ensuring the Trust is a strong provider of education at both an undergraduate and postgraduate level.  He is also currently chair of the Clinical Research Network West Midlands.

Neil lives with his partner Tina and Izzy the cockapoo and enjoys spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren.

In 2005, he was awarded the OBE for his services to healthcare and nursing. In 2010 he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing for an exceptional contribution to leadership.  He is also delighted to be the recipient of two Honorary Doctorates from both the University of Staffordshire and Keele University in recognition of his contribution to health and social care.

Steve has over 40 years of experience in the educational sector. He taught Mathematics at four secondary schools, two in Warwickshire and two in Wolverhampton, including as a Head of Department. As a Senior Deputy Headteacher, he led on curriculum review, analysis and design, timetable construction and assessment and reporting of progress systems.

Steve was seconded to Wolverhampton Building Schools for the Future Team in 2007 and was fortunate to visit schools of all kinds around the world. The role was to help to write the Educational Brief, re-imagine learning spaces, and model curricula and timetables for 21st century learning. Back in school he oversaw the architectural development and construction of a multi-million pound school with innovative design features and a one to one student laptop solution.

Steve took a lead role in the academisation process when Highfields School decided to become a Multi-Academy Trust, dealing with the legal ramifications and the funding complexities of a PFI school becoming a MAT.

On retiring from full-time employment in 2016, he became an educational consultant. Since then, he has been supporting MATs and secondary schools to develop curriculum models that realise the school’s vision and ambitions and create timetables that efficiently meet the needs of their students. He also analyses schools’ present curriculum and timetables to compare it with national statistics and reports where improvements can be made. He enjoys training staff and has successfully worked alongside a number of colleagues to help them develop the skills to complete their own timetable. He regularly completes quick projection timetables, for example when a school wishes to understand the curricula, staffing and facilities implications of taking an extra form of students for the next 5 years.

Visiting his grown-up children and their partners, being in the countryside with the dog and spoiling him with a good walk and playing golf are amongst his leisure activities.

He is keen to support and challenge the Empower Multi-Academy Trust leadership team to provide the best possible educational experiences for the children in their care.

Rehana has over 30 years of educational experience within the primary sector. She has worked predominantly within inner city Birmingham and has taught across both key stages 1 and 2. Over the years she has held a number of leadership roles and has served as both Head Teacher and Executive Head Teacher across a number of schools.

She has provided school to school support to a number of schools and as an Executive Head Teacher, she has worked closely with Ofsted/HMI in bringing schools out of special measures and moving them to Good in all areas within a short time frame.

In January 2014 she co-founded Leigh Multi Academy Trust and was appointed the Deputy CEO and continued to support schools in an Ofsted category. Over the last 10 years Leigh Trust has grown as a family of 5 large primary schools which are all offering an excellent educational experience for all the pupils.

Rehana is committed to nurturing and developing leaders at all levels across the Trust and has ensured that talent spotting is at the heart of the growth and succession plan.

She has been a school governor as well as having served on a number of Interim Executive Boards and fully appreciates the need for schools, governors, leaders and staff to be held accountable whilst having a firm commitment to every individual child.

Rehana is a driven individual that thrives on a challenge and she whole heartedly believes that school leadership, coaching and school to school support are the key to driving school improvement and ensuring better outcomes for all the children in our care.

Mark Davis is a seasoned Sales Director with a rich background in education. Born in Merseyside, he developed an early passion for music, mastering the classical guitar at age five. Music is still Mark’s ‘happy place’ and he relishes playing the bass guitar and singing in his own band. His academic journey led him through grammar school (Wirral Grammar School for Boys) and university (Lancaster University), where he gained his degree in Geography (with social psychology). 

Professionally, Mark has demonstrated a genuine commitment to leadership and education. His career includes experience in supporting children to develop business skills to run their own school-based companies. This unique blend of expertise underscores his dedication to fostering educational development. Currently, Mark serves as the Sales & Marketing Director at Blue Apple Education, a company specialising in school communication and design services. His role involves collaborating with Multi Academy Trusts and their schools to develop eRective marketing and communication strategies, reflecting his deep-seated commitment to the education sector. 

Mark lives with his partner Sara, his 18-year-old daughter Emilie and 12-year-old stepson Bobby, along with Bertie the Cocker Spaniel. Mark’s diverse experiences and dedication to education make him a compelling candidate for the Trustee position at Empower Multi Academy Trust. His unique blend of skills and passion positions him to contribute significantly to the Trust’s mission and objectives.

Paul joined the Trust in October 2020 with almost forty years senior leadership experience gained in an Executive career in the transport sector and six and a half years as a Non Executive Director and Vice Chair of the Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Paul’s other Non Executive experience has been on the board of a number of small digital start up businesses and as an external advisor to the University of Wolverhampton.

Paul’s Executive career has seen him undertake senior leadership roles in the transport sector in the UK and overseas, initially in commercial and business development roles which led to Chief Executive and Managing Director positions in major UK transport businesses. The financial and operational transformation of customer focused and highly regulated organisations have been common themes in his achievements in the sector.

As Chief Executive Paul led the iconic National Express coach business and drove the wider Groups sales and marketing strategy. In the rail industry as Managing Director he led the financial and operational turnaround of a failing high speed rail franchise. His commercial and business development experience was used at Stagecoach to design, develop and mobilise the megabus.com value travel brand and to rebalance and significantly improve the commercial profile of a major regional rail business, part of the First Group of companies.

During his time based in Paris, Paul was a co founder of the innovative mobility start up Ouibus, part of the SNCF State transport group, and now the biggest operation of its kind in France and one of the biggest in Europe.

Watching football, cricket and live music, playing golf and walking the dogs fill Paul’s leisure time.

Julian is a business graduate and qualified accountant with over 25 years finance experience. He joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 1992 and qualified as an accountant and worked for PwC until 1998 performing a wide range of external audit, internal audit and consulting assignments in both the commercial and public sector, including the establishment and audit of Grant Maintained Schools. He joined KPMG in 1998 as Head of Operations for the Infrastructure and Government Department managing a diverse portfolio of clients and delivering fee income of circa £100m on behalf of 5 Partners and managing 6 sub departments of 100 audit staff and 80 consultants based in Glasgow, Manchester, London and the Midlands. He was part of the team that raised the finance for the Cardiff Bay Regeneration and also consulted on Manchester’s delivery of the Commonwealth Games.

For the last 15 years Julian has worked for HomeServe Plc (formerly South Staffordshire Group Plc) in a number of senior finance and operational roles, including Group Assurance Risk and Best Practice Director, Property Repairs Finance Director, Buildings Division Finance Director, Group Financial Projects Director, HomeServe Membership Ltd Compliance Director and Global Quality and Best Practice Director. During his career Julian has developed a strong understanding of Governance and Oversight whilst delivering results in a dynamic and changing environment. He has significant experience of working with Boards, Audit Committees and Regulators