OUR TRUSTEES
Mulberry Schools Foundation has five Trustees, each appointed for a four-year term. To contact the Chair or other Trustees, please use info@mulberryschoolsfoundation.org.
Mary Groom
Mary Groom is Chair of the Board of Trustees. She has recently retired as solicitor, partner and Head of the Education Group at law firm Bates Wells Braithwaite London LLP. A specialist in both charity and education law, she developed BWB’s Education Group which was rated in the top tier of the legal directories. She also set up the BWB Education Forum which reviewed and influenced government policy at the interface of law and education.
Mary has been legal adviser to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nursery Schools, Nursery and Reception Classes. She continues to support its work and the development of a system leader role for maintained nursery schools. Mary is a Trustee of the Creative Education Trust, a national multi academy trust, and a governor of the Barnet Early Years Association, a federation of three maintained nursery schools. Mary has extensive experience as director, company secretary, Trustee and professional advisor of national and local social enterprises and charities.
Vanessa Ogden
Vanessa Ogden is Chief Executive Officer of Mulberry Schools Trust, a multi-academy Trust in Tower Hamlets, London. The family of schools within the Trust is committed to raising standards in challenging contexts and includes Mulberry School for Girls as the founding school, Mulberry Academy Shoreditch, Mulberry University Technical College, with Mulberry Academy Docklands and Mulberry Nursery and Primary School under development.
Under her leadership, Mulberry School for Girls has been judged ‘Outstanding’ in two successive Ofsted inspections. Vanessa is designated a ‘National Leader in Education’ and undertakes ‘School-to-School Support’. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education and has a doctorate specialising in education policy and school improvement.
Thasneem Zaman
Thasneem Zaman works in Real Estate Underwriting at Chubb. Alongside this role, she works with charities such as the Brokerage and Founders4School to increase interactions between business leaders and students via workshops and internships. Thasneem’s dissertation research was a qualitative study on identity, work and education focusing on female domestic workers in Sylhet, Bangladesh. She is a former student of Mulberry School for Girls.
