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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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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Chris was Head of St Edmund’s College, Ware from 2004 to 2012 having previously been Deputy Head with responsibility for academic matters. Prior to this he was a Head of Department at both St Benedict’s in Ealing, and Alleyns School in Dulwich. As a Housemaster at Culford School in Bury St Edmunds he developed his interest in boarding education. He has particular experience in overseas marketing, the use of data to improve academic performance and the distinctive nature of Catholic schools in the market place today. Chris is a governor of two independent schools.
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Lisa Briggs MAAT- Business Manager
Lisa has recently joined the mtmconsulting team as its Business Manager.
She has an extensive understanding and knowledge of education after working at a state High School for almost 20 years. Lisa enjoys a reputation as an efficient accountant. Having achieved many goals in a career of 29 years in public accounting and finance, she is looking forward to expanding her professional horizons by seeking new challenges .
Lisa manages the day to day running of mtmconsulting and its staff.
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Irina Yaacoub MBA- Marketing Consultant
Irina has over ten years’ experience leading marketing and communications projects in the UK and overseas. Her work includes devising and implementing marketing and communication strategies for multinational companies in the private and state sector; customer satisfaction studies and marketing research; website design and website usability review and analysis; and digital marketing and advertising campaigns. Irina was a guest speaker at the first Social Media Conference in Bahrain, in 2012, in her position as Chief of Marketing Communications at the eGovernment Authority. She held the post for five years, helping the company to achieve more than 90% brand awareness nationwide and to become 13th worldwide in the United Nations e-Government Development Index.
Irina holds an MBA in Strategic Marketing from the University of Liverpool.
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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
Dominic is the full-time research analyst for the mtmconsulting team, responsible for undertaking research and writing up the findings for clients.
Educated at the King’s School, Macclesfield, he went on to study history at Trinity College, Cambridge. He has then worked in the publishing sector, before moving, through being editor for a number of companies in the areas of law and education, into the area of market and educational research. He has also worked as a freelance editor for a wide variety of clients in these sectors.
His work has included a wide range of different types of quantative and qualitative research, everything from in-depth market and competitor analysis, and exploring overseas students’ attitudes and concerns about boarding and higher education in the UK, through to larger sector-based surveys like the Boarding Schools Report.
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Dr Jill Berry – Associate
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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Gavin Humphries MA MBA – Associate
Gavin Humphries writes our Education Sector Report, helping 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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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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