Our governors

The Governing Body of St Mary’s School, Cambridge is responsible for determining the aims and overall conduct of the school. 

In conjunction with our Senior Leadership team, the Governing Body sets and reviews the policies, plans and procedures which are designed to ensure the best possible education for present and future pupils of the school.

The Governing Body is responsible for ensuring the proper control of the school’s finances. It is also responsible for ensuring compliance with regulation, with the guidance of the Charity Commission, and with the law, including the Companies Act 2006. As trustees, the Governing Body is also the guardian of the school’s assets.

Our Governing Body comprises volunteers from education, industry and faith organisations.

 

  • Jeremy Pyne

    Chair of Governors

    Jeremy is our Chair of Governers. Jeremy’s career in advertising has dealt with a variety of household brands from consumer goods to those in the automotive industry.

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    Chair of Governors

    Jeremy Pyne

    Jeremy is a modern languages graduate who has worked for nearly 40 years for global advertising agencies, including WPP and Saatchi & Saatchi for major brands like P&G, Volvo, Toyota and Nestlé as well as many UK public service campaigns.  He continues to work as a consultant for some of his previous clients and has been based in Cambridge since 2003.

    He is the annual guest lecturer on brand communications at The Judge Business School and a trustee of local charity, Love Mill Road.

    In 2024-5, he will be studying part time for his PGCE in French and German with Cambridge Training School Network, marking the beginning of a new chapter.

    He is married with two daughters, both of whom were educated at St Mary’s.

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  • Vincent Anandraj

    Governor

    Vincent is an internationally accomplished school leader with more than two decades of senior management experience in schools in the UK state and independent sectors, and in International Schools abroad.

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    Governor

    Vincent Anandraj

    With a life-long passion for ensuring that all children have equitable access to quality education, Vincent was intrinsically involved in the founding of two highly successful International Schools in the Far East, for whom he secured IB School authorisation and wrote the English Department's syllabus. Well-versed in teaching both the IB Diploma and A-Level curricula, Vincent was an IB and Edexcel examiner.

    He completed his MA at Queen Mary, University of London and runs his own advisory business which currently works with a College in Cambridge on their fundraising strategy. Serving as a NED for a couple of companies, Vincent advises on growth strategies and prepares companies for acquisition.

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  • Karen S Daber (neė Vanterpool)

    Governor

    Karen is a non-executive member of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. She is currently a member of the Cambridgeshire and Essex Advisory Committee and a member of the South-East Region Conduct Advisory Committee.

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    Governor

    Karen S Daber (neė Vanterpool)

    Karen is a non-executive member of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. She is currently a member of the Cambridgeshire and Essex Advisory Committee and a member of the South-East Region Conduct Advisory Committee.

    Karen is a consultant involved in coaching, mentoring and leadership development. Karen has a particular interest in ethics and providing diversity and inclusion programmes for both for public and private sector companies and individuals. She is a qualified executive coach and a qualified trainer, designing and delivering a range of courses in the health and social care setting.

    Karen has had a successful and rewarding policing career. She was selected by the College of Policing to lead the development of the Code of Ethics for Policing, which was published in 2014. Karen has worked with UK police forces, the Lebanese police, Hyderabad Police in India and Barnardo’s Charity among others.

    Karen retired from the police in 2014 as a Chief Officer after 30 years’ service in the County of Cambridgeshire. She holds the police long service and good conduct medal.
     
    Karen was born in Cambridge and with her family has spent the majority of her life in the county, with connections to St Mary’s over many years.

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  • Ronald Haynes

    Governor

    Ronald is a University Computer Officer, at the University of Cambridge, who has had experience within academic Information Communication and Technology in both the US and UK.

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    Governor

    Ronald Haynes

    Ronald is a University Computer Officer, at the University of Cambridge, who has had experience within academic Information Communication and Technology in both the US and UK.

    He currently acts as Relationship Manager for the university’s colleges, as well as having a wider responsibility for the University Information Technology Community as Development Manager. Fundamentally his role involves liaison, strategic and practical consultancy, course development and provision, as well as professional and community development.

    Formerly he had been Head of Theology at St Augustine High School (Texas, US), as well as a computer consultant and journalist with technical writing and editing experience in London and Pittsburgh (US), developing and publishing on the interworking of the main micro systems. He is a Trustee of and presenter for the Eckhart Society, and holds BCS, ACM, Computer Society and IEEE membership.

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  • Dr. Amineh Hoti

    Governor

    Dr. Amineh Hoti obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge where she was awarded the Wyse Fund, Trinity College. Dr. Hoti graduated from the London School of Economics where she received the Foreign and Commonwealth Award for developing global leaders. She is a Fellow Commoner, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, and has supervised undergraduates from half a dozen Cambridge colleges.

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    Governor

    Dr. Amineh Hoti

    Dr. Amineh Hoti obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge where she was awarded the Wyse Fund, Trinity College. Dr. Hoti graduated from the London School of Economics where she received the Foreign and Commonwealth Award for developing global leaders. She is a Fellow Commoner, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, and has supervised undergraduates from half a dozen Cambridge colleges. Dr. Hoti was the co-founding director of the Center for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, Cambridge. Dr. Hoti is a Senior Consultant for the United Nation’s Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, New York. She is a member of UNESCO/OSAPG Advisory Group on addressing hate speech. She was Program Director at the Seerat Centre to promote global peace, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. She is an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham, UK.

    Cambridge University Press published her anthropological study, Sorrow and Joy Among Muslim Women (2006). Her latest book Gems and Jewels: The Religions of Pakistan (2021) is based on ten religious  communities of Pakistan. She is co-author of The Mingling of the Oceans: How Civilizations can Live Together, Brookings Press, forthcoming. She is author of Seerat, Higher Education Commission, forthcoming. She contributed a chapter on “Pope Francis’s Compassion” to a major study-book on Pope Francis and Interreligious Dialogue: Religious Thinkers Engage with Recent Papal Initiatives, edited by Kasimow and Race (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). She also contributed another chapter, “Empathy as Policy in the Age of Hatred,” to Confronting Religious Violence: A Counternarrative, edited by Burridge and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Baylor University Press, 2018.

    Dr. Hoti has extensive teaching experience on several continents. She has designed, pioneered  and taught interfaith peace studies courses for United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Institute of Continued Education (ICE University of Cambridge), the Center for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, the Woolf Institute (Cambridge), Ridley Hall (University of Cambridge), and in South Asia at Forman Christian College University, Air University, Fatima Jinnah and NUST universities. For more than two decades, she has been a director, teacher, researcher, and public intellectual. Her work has focused on cutting edge interdisciplinary teaching methods of peace building studies, interreligious dialogue, women’s voices and the social anthropology of South Asia and its faith communities. She appears frequently in the media discussing her work.

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  • Colin Jones

    Governor

    Colin Jones is a Partner with the law firm, HCR Hewitsons. Colin was his firm’s previous Managing Partner and has also undertaken a previous term as Governor at St Mary’s, making a return in 2022.

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    Governor

    Colin Jones

    Colin Jones is a Partner with the law firm HCR Hewitsons. Colin was his firm’s previous Managing Partner and has also undertaken a previous term as Governor at St Mary’s, making a return in 2022.

    Living with his family in Cambridge, he has been a resident in the city for 30+ years. As well as St Mary’s, he is a Trustee of the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry and a Council member of the Interact Group of real estate and construction professionals.

    During his time in Cambridge, he has supported a number of good causes, including as Trustee of his firm’s charitable trust, which organises the annual Chariots of Fire race that goes through a number of the Cambridge Colleges.

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  • Sue Gibson

    Governor

    Sue has acted as coach and mentor to a number of now very successful HR leaders.

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    Governor

    Sue Gibson

    Mrs Sue Gibson has a background in HR having worked in many different organisations.  She has also had the opportunity to work within small startups to large corporations extending globally and working with many different colleagues from around the globe.  She has worked in Management Development and her HR also covered areas of Management and Leadership development at all levels in an organisation through to working with external investors, CEOs and members of boards.   She has acted as coach and mentor to a number of now very successful HR leaders. She is a firm believer in ensuring that you can create the right sort of environment and education for girls to give them all the opportunity, encouragement, support and ability to explore difference of opinions in a safe environment.  

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  • Sister Gemma Simmonds

    Governor

    Gemma Simmonds is a sister of the Congregation of Jesus. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge where she is director of the Religious Life Institute, teaching Christian spirituality and pastoral theology...

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    Governor

    Sister Gemma Simmonds

    Gemma Simmonds is a sister of the Congregation of Jesus. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge where she is director of the Religious Life Institute, teaching Christian spirituality and pastoral theology.

    An international speaker and lecturer, she is a simultaneous translator in four languages and an honorary fellow of Durham University, past president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain and chair of trustees of the ecumenical Community of St. Anselm based at Lambeth Palace, London. She lectured in theology at Heythrop College, University of London from 2005 until its closure in 2018.

    Gemma has been a missionary in Brazil, a chaplain in the Universities of Cambridge and London and a chaplaincy volunteer in Holloway Prison for 25 years. She is a regular broadcaster on religious matters on the BBC, Radio Maria England and other radio and television networks.

    Her book, Dancing at the Still Point: Retreat Practices for Busy Lives was published by SPCK in July 2021.

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  • Sophie Clayton

    Governor

    Mrs Sophie Clayton is an entrepreneur alumna, she runs a group of diverse businesses which have diversified into companies which specialise in storage facilities, logistics and operations, agriculture & farming, property management and development and in renewable energy.

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    Governor

    Sophie Clayton

    Mrs Sophie Clayton is an entrepreneur alumna, she runs a group of diverse businesses which have diversified into companies which specialise in storage facilities, logistics and operations, agriculture & farming, property management and development and in renewable energy, recently completing a big project setting up a solar farm for a local council. She has recently started a new venture which is a dog adventure park based on her farm near Lakenheath.

    She has experience in development projects and running a business, HR, employment law, accounting and Charity fundraising on a personal and business level and is used to being a woman in a man’s world. Sophie has also become the new President of our Pastonian Association.

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  • Braden Howarth

    Governor

    Braden is involved in several charitable initiatives, working with underprivileged school leavers. 

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    Governor

    Braden Howarth

    A graduate of the University of St Andrews, Braden has spent the last 27 years in global investment banking, working at both JP Morgan and Credit Suisse, based mainly in London but interspersed with stints in New York and Tokyo.  His specific area of focus was in foreign exchange, fixed income and derivative products across both developed and emerging markets.  Most recently, Braden was a member of the European Fixed Income Operating Committee and also managed the sales and distribution teams for Credit Suisse in Europe.

    Braden has been involved in several charitable initiatives, including the 'Steps to Success’ program, which gave underprivileged school leavers the opportunity to forge a career in investment banking.  Originally from the north-west, Braden now lives in Cambridge, and has three children, including one currently at St.Mary’s.  

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  • Kamal Ved

    Governor

    Kamal has held leadership roles at technology-led companies and experienced all the software technology-underpinned transformations. He is the Chief Product Officer at a Cambridge-based deep tech company.

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    Governor

    Kamal Ved

    Having worked and lived in the US, UK, Germany, and India and visited over 30 other countries, Kamal personifies the term global citizen. In his professional journey, Kamal has held leadership roles at technology-led companies and experienced all the software technology-underpinned transformations. He is the Chief Product Officer at Cambridge-based deep tech company Fetch.ai.

    Kamal is deeply passionate about harnessing the power of technology, considering its impact on the young generation, and preparing them for it.

    He resides in Cambridge with his wife and daughter, who attends St Mary's. Kamal enjoys swimming, traveling, and cycling.

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  • Helen Fernandes

    Governor

    As current Chair of Doctors Association UK, Helen leads an organisation advocating for the medical profession, patients and our NHS. Her two daughters Alex and Lauren enjoyed many happy years at St Mary's.

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    Governor

    Helen Fernandes

    Helen, Consultant Neurosurgeon was appointed to Addenbrooke's Hospital as their first female surgical Consultant in 2002. She is currently seconded to NHS England. Her other interests included Chairship of the Women in Surgery Group of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS), the Medical Women’s Federation Committee,  Council Member of the RCS, she has been afforded international recognition - Greg Wilkins Barratt Visiting Chair of Neurosurgery (American Association of Neurological Surgeons) award in 2013. As current Chair of Doctors Association UK, she leads an organisation advocating for the medical profession, patients and our NHS. Her two daughters Alex and Lauren enjoyed many happy years at St Mary's.

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  • Emma Jones

    Governor

    Emma is currently Vice-President of a research company, which originally span out of the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge and is now owned by a global chemical company headquartered in Japan.

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    Governor

    Emma Jones

    After graduating with a business degree, Emma started her career in the HR sector, passionately believing in the critical importance people contribute to organisational success.  In her early career, Emma worked in a number of HR related roles across a diverse range of industries including healthcare, educational publishing, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

    Emma is currently Vice-President of a research company, which originally span out of the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge and is now owned by a global chemical company headquartered in Japan.  As a member of the senior leadership team, Emma has held responsibility for a number of business functions, including Finance, Legal, HR, IT, Health and Safety, Compliance and Governance.

    Emma’s daughter attended St Mary’s and she credits the school with providing an outstanding educational experience which empowered her daughter to aim high and gave her the confidence and self-belief to follow her dream to qualify as an Architect.  Emma cites this as the driver for her decision to join the Board of Governors, to enable her to support the continued success of the school and ensure that many more girls will benefit from the outstanding quality of education that St Mary’s provides.

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