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. She also manages one of best quiz teams in the east, runs miles on Southwold beach and, as former gallery owner, is “ a bit hung up on pictures”.
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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 with integrity and good humour.

She lives in a picturesque Suffolk village where she is a leading light on village hall committee. She is a keen gardener, wields a paintbrush with skill and has been known to teach ballroom dancing.
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Jane Davies MA 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.
Jane enjoys walking, especially on the beach with her dog, and her menagerie also includes four rescue cats.
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Dick Davison MA 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.

He is still an (occasional) freelance journalist, a governor of two independent schools and a trustee of the National Youth Strings Academy. He spends less time than he would like developing a modest photographic talent and more time than he should worrying about the fortunes of Sunderland football club.
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Joe Faulkner BA - Head of Marketing and Business Development

Joe joined mtmconsulting in summer 2008. A music graduate of Liverpool University, he worked in the National Health Service in Tayside, specialising in communications, before joining a leading London recruitment group where he has worked with many of the largest financial, legal and asset management groups in the City, as well as design and marketing agencies.

Joe is the first point of contact for new clients, taking time to understand their needs and suggest the best solutions. He also brings his former expertise to the company, heading up mtmconsulting’s staff recruitment function.

In his free time Joe remains a keen musician and music journalist – he has contributed to several magazines and was a key contributor to the Penguin Encyclopaedia of Blues Recordings. He also enjoys swimming, tennis and struggling his way through a bit of DIY now and again.
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James Leggett BA (Hons) – Research Analyst

James joined mtmconsulting in 2008. 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.

A keen musician (drums, guitar AND singing) James is one of the three musicians in Rave-On, a Buddy Holly tribute band. He also participates in motor sport, and is a prize-winning rally navigator.
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Gavin Humphries – Head of Research Services

Gavin Humphries 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.

Gavin is married to Alison and lives in south-east London, where he can be found at the weekend indulging their  children’s interests in riding on bikes as well as on trains and trams. He loves their corner of the capital so much that he recently wrote a history of their street.
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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 published by John Catt Educational Ltd. 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. He lives in Somerset with his wife Diana, a retired music teacher.
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