• Jo Alexander - Steering Committee

    ""Jo Alexander went to a girls’ grammar school where the only really inspirational teacher was looked down on by her colleagues for not having a degree. A reader and daydreamer, she fluked eight O Levels. In the sixth form she began to wake up; her A Level grades-and a somewhat tenuous Irish connection- got her into Trinity College Dublin; here she was taught by Irish poets and failed to finish Ulysses. She did her Certificate in Education at the Institute of Education in Oxford, qualifying as a teacher in 1970.

    Jo has been involved in education, as a teacher and a parent, ever since. She is passionately interested in children’s literature and ran a small-scale library from the attic of her last school. It would give her great satisfaction to make some such contribution to the WLFS.

  • Charlie Ben-Nathan - Steering Committee

    Charlie attended the University of Exeter where he read Economics. He then went to work in the East End of London in the packing case construction industry. After two years he decided to undertake an MBA which he completed at Middlesex University. Whilst on the course he was bitten by the teaching bug and so went on to earn a PGCE at the Institute of Education.

    Charlie spent two years teaching Economics at Clifton College in Bristol before coming back to West London to teach at a leading independent school. Now the Director of Academic Management, Charlie still teaches Economics as well as Business Studies. He has also contributed to the teaching of Mathematics, IT and thinking skills.

    Charlie has done a fair amount of cycling to raise money for charity. In the summer of 2007 he cycled with three friends, unsupported, from Seattle to New York, a trip of over 3,200 miles. This raised close to £13,000 for various charities. More recently, with two colleagues he cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats raising almost £6,000.
    A keen Ultimate Frisbee player, he has started several school teams and has organised endurance tournaments to raise money for charity. 

  • Mita Bhattacharyya - Steering Committee

    Mita is currently head of strategy at Orange (UK), and has held multiple strategic and operational positions across the media and communications sectors. She has led large cross-functional strategy and delivery projects at Orange, Bertelsmann and T-Mobile, and has gained experience in funding and launching early stage businesses through her experience at Bertelsmann Capital Ventures (BCV) and her time as a management consultant.

    She is passionate about leveraging her experience in strategic development and delivery into the area of education, and is particularly interested in supporting the drive to raise educational attainment levels for disadvantaged children.

    She holds a BA from McGill University, an M.Phil from Cambridge University and an MBA from INSEAD. She has previously worked with the UNHCR, Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity and has served as a logistical co-ordinator for refugee camps in Bethlehem. She is currently a mentor at Kids Company and is a governor at Paddington Green Primary School. She lives in Notting Hill.

  • Stefan Bojanowski - Steering Committee

    Stefan Bojanowski is an economist by trade, but tries to use his free time more productively. Stefan's roots are firmly in West London, his mother grew up in Acton and is now Assistant Head of School at a local primary school and his father grew up in Chiswick.

    Stefan is grateful for the secondary education he received at the London Oratory School in Fulham. The Oratory's ethos was designed to resemble a grammar school with a traditional approach to both discipline and education. He is grateful to have had the opportunity to study Latin and thankful to the teachers for maintaining a studious atmosphere that ensured those who wanted to learn could do so.

    His involvement in the West London Free School is driven by a desire to pass on the best parts of his education to those children who may otherwise not receive it, giving them the opportunity to forward their education, confidence and ambition in a similar environment. 

  • Caroline Bondy - Steering Committee

    Caroline Bondy lives in Acton with her husband, Toby Young and their four young children. Caroline was educated in both the independent and state sectors before going to the London School of Economics. She qualified as a solicitor in 2003 -- the same year her first child was born. Caroline now spends her time as a full-time mother. She is an active member of the PTA and volunteers as a classroom helper at her children's school. She previously volunteered at another state primary school in Hammersmith. 

  • Lucie Bright - Steering Committee

    Lucie Bright is a logistician who, after years working in the fashion industry, is now responsible for the distribution of Innocent Smoothies in the UK and Europe, based in their office known as "Fruit Towers" just off Goldhawk Road, where she concentrates on making their supply chain as sustainable as possible.

    After her daughter was born with a rare eye condition Lucie founded a charity, the Childhood Cataract Network, providing information and support to parents, of which she is currently Treasurer. She has spent time volunteering in three different primary schools in Hammersmith and Fulham and is also a volunteer with the Hammersmith Community Gardens Association.

    Lucie has lived in West London all her life, attending Godolphin & Latymer school and then studying Ancient History at Kings College London. She lives off Uxbridge Road with her partner, a graphic designer at the Guardian, and their two children. 

  • Suzanne Cagnoli - Steering Committee

    Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, Suzanne was educated at a state assisted Grammar School. She went on to work in local media before moving to London then spent over 15 years working in the music industry.

    Suzanne is a mother of two young children, a girl and a boy who are educated at Independent schools in Hammersmith. She moved to Acton with her husband Massimo in 2008 and they have lived in West London for over 20 years.

    Whilst their children were small Suzanne was involved with a local branch of the charity NCT, helping create and organise a support network for mothers with babies and young children. 

  • Mustafa Erdem - Steering Committee

    Mustafa is an architect and landscape architect educated in Germany, Turkey and got his MSc in urban design from UCL/ Bartlett in the UK. He has special expertise in advising local councils and head teachers on future-proofing their schools. He is well informed on many different educational visions and how these can best be implemented into the spatial context.

    Mustafa was born in Turkey and moved to London with his wife Julia in 2001 after having lived and studied in Germany for almost 10 years. They live in Chiswick with their two young children.

    His participation in the West London Free School is motivated by his belief that childhood is the most important time in a person’s life. The extent to which adults can shape the course of their lives through conscious effort is bound up with the faculties they have acquired in childhood, hence the significance of upbringing and education. 

  • Edward Hobart - Steering Committee

    Ed lives in Chiswick with his wife and three children. He works for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has nearly completed delivering their largest ever business change and IT programme.

    He's been posted as a diplomat in Cuba and Malaysia, but West London is home and where he would like his kids to be educated. Ed's parents lived abroad when he was a child and he consequently benefited from a privileged secondary education at a boarding school back in the UK before studying History at Oxford University (with a couple of terms as a volunteer primary school teacher in Mexico in between).

    His ambition for the WLFS is that it provide the same stimulation he got at school, but in a less exclusive environment that reflects the world we live in, and that it be a school which compromises neither excellence nor equality. 

  • Suzie Hobart - Steering Committee

    Suzie lives in Chiswick with her husband and three young children. She was educated at an Independent Grammar School and went on to study Engineering at Oxford.

    Suzie's is a project manager and business process consultant within the IT sector.

    Her passion is to create a school that bridges the educational apartheid that exists in this area and to create a school for her children and the local community that achieves academic excellence within a socially mixed environment.

    Suzie works actively within the local primary school her children attend, she set up and organises a parent volunteer program within the school and is an active fund raiser.

  • Simon Hugill - Steering Committee

    Simon lives in Ealing with his wife and two daughters who both attend Little Ealing Primary School.

    Simon hails from Ripon, North Yorkshire and wholly recognises the great benefits of his traditional education at the Local Grammar School. Simon is a Chartered Surveyor specialising in commercial property development and has held a number of senior project management and development roles for various development companies, including FTSE 100 real estate company, Hammerson Plc.

    Simon is now a Director of Stace LLP, a property and construction consultancy based in the City. 

  • Luke Lancaster - Steering Committee

    Luke is a Chartered Surveyor at Gerald Eve where his primary focus is Development Agency and Consultancy. Having lived in Acton for over 20 years, Luke is a passionate supporter of economic and community regeneration in the area and is an active contributor to the Acton Town Hall Team and Friends of Acton Baths.

    Recalling his disappointment when he failed to get a place at any of his chosen local schools as a boy, Luke recognises the need for improved secondary education in Acton.

  • Cosmo Lush - Steering Committee

     

    Cosmo is a strategy and business development executive in the digital media industry, where his expertise is in designing and launching innovative new consumer businesses. During the course of his career he has been involved in numerous high profile projects across a range of sectors including mobile phones (launching 3G services for Orange and 3 UK), television (running Channel 4's online TV service 4oD) and most recently music (looking after digital business development for EMI Music).

    Cosmo is a Governor of his son's Church of England primary school, where he chairs the Finance Committee, and is an active fundraiser. He lives in Shepherd's Bush with his wife and three young children.

     

  • Justin Tooth - Steering Committee

    Justin was born in West London and has spent most of his life in the neighbourhood. After graduating from the University of St. Andrews, Justin joined the Royal Navy as a pilot, serving all over the world before returning to London for a career in finance.

    Justin is a specialist in building businesses and has worked for fifteen years in that role for a number of European, American and Asian finance houses.

    Justin is married to Angela Grant, founder of the local ballet school of that name; they live in Acton with their two young daughters. Justin and his family are enthusiastic supporters of live music and local theatre. 

  • Tim Waters - Steering Committee


    Tim lives in Brook Green with his wife and two children. He is a Partner at Planning Perspectives, a planning and development consultancy
    in Mayfair, London, which has considerable expertise in the educational sector.

    With a young family, Tim has become astutely aware of the challenges and complexities facing parents when choosing an educational path for their children in London and at one point grew so disillusioned that he discussed with his Swedish wife the possibility of moving to Sweden to take advantage of the more accessible, non-selective schools operating within its less regulated educational system.

    His vision for the WLFS is that it will increase parental choice for schools in the area and deliver a consistently high standard of education for students in an attractive and inclusive environment."

  • Toby Young - Steering Committee

    Toby Young is a British journalist and the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2001) and The Sound of No Hands Clapping (2006).

    In 1991, Young founded and edited the Modern Review with Julie Burchill and Cosmo Landesman. Young moved to New York in 1995 to work for Vanity Fair, where he was a contributing editor from 1995-98. Young is now an associate editor of The Spectator and the restaurant critic of the Independent on Sunday. He has performed in the West End in a stage adaptation of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and, in 2005, co-wrote a sex farce about the David Blunkett/Kimberley Quinn scandal called Who's the Daddy?. It was named Best New Comedy at the 2006 Theatregoers' Choice Awards.

    He co-produced the film version of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and, more recently, co-produced and co-wrote a dramadoc for More4 called When Boris Met Dave. His teaching experience includes working as a teaching fellow at Harvard and a teaching assistant at Cambridge. He lives in Acton with his wife and four children.