Meet the Team
Melanie Tucker MA MBA – Principal and Head of Marketing Services
Melanie, who founded mtm and leads our education marketing services, has experience in the world of business and as a senior manager in independent boarding education. Her work includes marketing independent and state schools and colleges as well as defining strategies for effective competition in education and scenario planning.
Melanie has carried out a number of extensive projects for schools of all shapes and sizes. She is an innovative thinker and an expert in business strategy.
Melanie has many years’ experience as a Justice of the Peace, a Non-executive Director of an NHS Trust and as a Trustee of charitable foundations concerned with land management and property.
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Barbara Badrick – Business Manager
Barbara is an astute manager in business and education. She has worked as a finance and project manager and for twelve years for the School Travel Service organising tours world wide.
Barbara manages the day to day running of mtmconsulting and its staff.
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Dick Davison MA (Cantab) LRPS – Head of Strategic Services
Dick Davison joined mtmconsulting in 2005 with 16 years experience at the heart of the independent school sector, and now heads up our strategic services for schools. He was Director of Communications for the ISC and had similar responsibilities, though with different titles, for its predecessor bodies, National ISIS and ISCis. Educated at Dame Allan’s and Barnard Castle Schools and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he worked as a journalist in the North East and London before joining the press office of the Inner London Education Authority, becoming Chief Press Officer. He also worked for the Open University before joining ISIS in 1989.
Dick is still a freelance journalist, a governor of two independent schools and a trustee of the National Youth Strings Academy.
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Gavin Humphries MA MBA – Head of Research Services
Gavin Humphries is our head of education research services, helps schools and colleges to understand and profit from social trends in the UK. His areas of expertise comprise consumer research, market analysis and the inspiring of new products and services. Formerly the Research & Analysis Director at Datamonitor, Gavin has an MBA from the London Business School and an MA from Oxford University. He was a pupil at The Leys School, Cambridge and Culford School, Bury St Edmunds.
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Christopher Smith BA (Hons) – Head of Business Development
Chris is the most recent addition to the mtmconsulting team, working as the sales manager on all business development tasks. Since graduating, Chris has worked extensively in business development, his first role enabling him to work alongside large bluechip clients in London, including AOL and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
He then moved into a role with a Further Education and Vocational Qualification Provider, where he was initially taken on for business development, but very quickly the role expanded and using his experience, Chris began lecturing in Business Start-up including sales and marketing, which led to him being headhunted to turn around a failing health-club.
Chris is a graduate of Sheffield University having been a student at Dartford Grammar School for Boys.
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James Leggett BA (Hons) AMRS – Research Manager
James joined mtmconsulting in 2008, and now leads the day to day activities of the research department. A graduate in creative music technology, he was a cathedral chorister while a pupil at Norwich School. His previous experience at a well-known further education college, as part of its business and corporate services team, included surveys and other research projects as well as the introduction of a customer relationship system, and the training of colleagues in its use. James has the Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research, and is a member of the Market Research Society.
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Nicky Adams – Marketing Consultant
Nicky is a graduate of the London College of Communication’s Pre-entry Journalism course and spent 15 years working as a writer and editor for organisations including International Thomson (now Thomson Reuters), the British Film Institute, IPC, EMAP and Thames & Hudson before applying her skills to marketing, PR and communications.
As a regional editor for The Good Schools Guide and a writer for Tatler Schools Guide, Nicky has visited and evaluated many of the country’s top state and independent schools, identifying their unique characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. She has also written on education for a variety of publications and acted as Education Editor for a county magazine.
As Press and Print Marketing Officer for Felsted School, Nicky doubled press coverage in just one year, through effective communications strategies. The quality of internal and external publications at the school also improved, having a positive impact on pupil recruitment and retention. These talents now benefit mtmconsulting’s marketing support clients.
Jane Davies MA (Hons), PGCE- Research Analyst
Jane is a Geography graduate from the University of Edinburgh with a PGCE from Manchester Metropolitan University. She has extensive research experience gained whilst working in the research department of a large advertising and marketing agency.
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Dominic Knight MA (Cantab)- Research Analyst
After completing a history degree at the University of Cambridge, Dominic clocked up 16 years’ publishing experience before going freelance. He has mainly worked as an editor in the areas of law and education, as well as branching out into market research and analysis. He has been involved with mtmconsulting since 2010. He currently freelances from his home on the Suffolk coast when not cooking, looking at the stars or participating in pub quizzes.
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Dr Nigel Richardson – Associate
Dr Nigel Richardson was Head of the Perse School, Cambridge 1994-2008, having been second master at Uppingham, Head of the Dragon School, Oxford and deputy head of the King’s School, Macclesfield. Educated at Highgate School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he was Chairman of HMC (the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference) in 2007, and editor of its in-house magazine Conference & Common Room from 1999-2002.
He has written history books for children and training literature for the Industrial Society, and he is co-editor of and a contributor to the Leading Schools series of books. He speaks at conferences as well as being an appraiser of Heads and teachers; and is a governor of three independent schools and a member of the Education Committee at a fourth. Having written a Ph.D. thesis on Uppingham School’s typhoid crisis in 1875-7, he is currently working on a biography of the great Victorian headmaster Edward Thring. His other interests include being a Syndic (board member) of the Cambridge University Press.
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Nigel Noble OBE FCIS – Associate
Nigel was educated at Lindisfarne College and was a governor from 1990 – 1994. He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery but after being injured in Northern Ireland, thereafter worked in finance and personnel appointments. His last five years of service were spent in the Ministry of Defence in London where he took part in several studies on the future shape and size of support services for the armed forces.
On leaving the Army in 1994 he chose to be a bursar – first in the FE Sector – and then for ten years very happy years at The Lady Eleanor Holles School. In this appointment he was also Clerk to the Governors of the Cripplegate Schools Foundation. From 2002 – 2005 he served on the ISBA Executive Committee, during which time he chaired the Finance Sub-Committee.
On retiring in 2007, he was appointed as the first AGBIS Training & Membership Secretary. In this part-time role he organises seminars, provides an on-site training service and takes part in reviews of governance at member schools.
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Jill Berry was Headmistress of Dame Alice Harpur School, Bedford, from 2000-10 and was President of the Girls’ Schools Association in 2009. Educated at Wath-on-Dearne Grammar School and Manchester University, she taught English in boys’, girls’ and co-educational schools in both state and independent sectors, becoming successively head of sixth form at Queen Elizabeth’s High School, Lincs, and deputy head at Nottingham Girls’ High School GDST, before taking up the headship of Dame Alice Harpur. She has a Master’s degree in education from Liverpool University and a Doctorate awarded by Nottingham University.
Since leaving headship, she has been an educational consultant specialising in staff training, heads’ appointments, heads’ appraisal/review, heads’ coaching and independent school inspection.
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