Academy leadership team
Meet our Leadership Team
Darren Coomer
Jemma Perks
Rachel Thomas
Rachel brings a diverse and robust background in corporate settings, learning and development (L&D), further education and organisational development. During her career she has held key roles in major corporations and the public sector, where she honed her expertise in leadership development and talent management.Â
Rachel’s experience in further education has given her a deep understanding of adult learning principles, which she seamlessly integrates into L&D strategies and work-based learning.
She has also been instrumental in designing and implementing apprenticeship programmes that bridge the skills gap between education and industry and has been part of apprenticeship trailblazer panels, ensuring that businesses have access to a skilled workforce with qualifications that are highly relevant and fit across many industries and sectors.
Her work in organisational development has focussed on driving cultural change and improving business performance through strategic talent initiatives. This rich and varied experience ensures she is consistently driving the Business & Leadership Academy as a hub of innovation and excellence for employers looking to enhance their employees develop their skills and careers.
David Igoe
With a highly successful career as a senior technology leader, engineering director, coach and advisor, David ensures all our technology training programmes, both apprenticeships and commercial, deliver outstanding levels of academic teaching whilst also providing role relevant skills training to suit todays modern business needs.
In his previous work, as Engineering Director for AO.com, he built and transformed one of the most innovative technology businesses in the UK. Taking a small engineering team to over 400 staff, instilling highly effective modern engineering practices and creating one of the worlds most robust, scalable technology platforms.
David has a dual role in the Group, as he also leads the Modern Engineering and Software Development Consulting Practice, delivering high end consulting and software development projects to private and public sector organisations.
Carla Stuthridge
Lucy Lynch
With a wealth of experience spanning over three decades in the corporate, startup, and charity sectors, Lucy has dedicated the past seven years to advancing education in the data consulting space. She is a former Head of Education, and Honorary Industry Lecturer at Salford University and has developed an award-winning Ed Tech program that aligned MSc students in Data Science, AI, and IoT with live industry projects.
Having witnessed firsthand the real-world business challenges that customers face, Lucy understands the critical importance of best practices in matching learners and employees.
She consistently inspires the next generation of technologists and is a changemaker in working towards diversity, parity, equality, and inclusion. She currently leads on driving innovation and excellence in the field of data, AI and emerging technology apprenticeships and corporate training and education.