Governors

Lt General David Leakey CMG, CVO, CBE - Chairman of the Governors

A Cambridge law graduate, David spent 39 years in the Army. During a short gap after leaving the Army, David worked on international and security projects.  In 2010 he took up the appointment as Black Rod in the House of Lords, from which he retired in 2017.

David has strong links to Sherborne. From 1965 to 1970 he was a member of Abbey House, becoming Head of School and a member of the First XI. His two sons are also Old Shirburnians.

In 2017 David was elected to Sherborne School’s Board of Governors and is a member of the Estates and Infrastructure Committee.

Guy Hudson - Governor

Guy (The Digby 1976 – 1980) has had a career of more than 30 years with wealth and investment management firms, including Newton, Mellon and Heartwood. He has worked in London, Berne and Boston, holding senior roles in sales, marketing and strategic development. He has been a Partner at Stonehage Fleming since 2013. 

Guy read Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford.  Since 2001 he has been a trustee of the Sherborne Foundation, which he chaired from 2005 to 2010. He joined the Governing body in 2011 and has been Vice Chairman of Governors since 2016. He chairs the Finance & General Purposes and Investment Committees.  He is also a former Governor of Brambletye School. 

Isabel Burke - Governor

Isabel is a graduate of Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and has recently retired after 31 years as a General Practitioner in Sherborne. She became a member of the Sherborne Girls’ School Council in 2007 and is their Designated Governor for Safeguarding.

Isabel joined the Board of Governors at Sherborne School in 2012, where she sits on the Pastoral Committee and is responsible for boarding. She lives locally with her husband, a retired doctor, and is a former parent at both Sherborne School and Sherborne Girls.  In her retirement she enjoys travel, playing tennis, gardening and fell walking in Cumbria.

Aubrey Capel - Governor

Aubrey is a Chartered Surveyor practicing in London for Gardiner & Theobald LLP, an independent construction and property consultancy where he has spent his entire professional career. Aubrey became a Partner of the practice in 1997 and has worked as a quantity surveyor on the cost management side of the business over a wide spread of construction sectors but particularly in the London commercial office market.

Aubrey has been a Governor since December 2018 and sits on the Estates and Infrastructure Committee. 

Aubrey lives in Central London with his wife Sarah. Their three sons, William, Edward and James, attended Sherborne School between the years 2002 and 2011. As a keen oarsman, Aubrey rows and competes regularly for his club, Quintin Boat Club, based on the Tideway in London.

Angela Lane - Governor

Angela is non-executive Chairman and Director of a number of private and quoted companies as well as being an advisor to a private equity fund.  After graduating with a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Bristol University, she trained as a chartered accountant at PWC and then spent 18 years as a private equity investor working for 3i plc.  She is currently non-executive Chairman of Huntswood CTC Ltd as well as a non-executive director of Astbury Marsden Ltd, Dunedin Enterprise Investment Trust plc and Pacific Horizon Investment Trust plc and an advisor to a private equity fund Altitude Partners.

Angela lives in Dorset with her OS husband David Lane (m 1980) and they have three grown-up children: Toby who attended Sherborne School (m 2011), Hettie and Georgie. In her spare time, she enjoys playing golf, attending live sports matches, the theatre and horse racing as well as going on adventurous holidays. 

Angela became a Trustee of Sherborne School Foundation in 2007 and has been a Governor since November 2015.  She is a member of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, as well as non-executive director of Sherborne Schools Worldwide and of Sherborne Schools Trading and Leisure companies.

George Marsh - Governor

George Marsh started his career teaching in comprehensive schools before becoming Headmaster of Millfield Preparatory School and ending his career following 18 years as Headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School.  He is currently a governor of Eastbourne College, Honorary Secretary of River Taw Fisheries Association and Chair of Trustees of Wilton’s Music Hall. 

George has been a Governor of Sherborne School since 2009 and is Chairman of the Academic Committee and a member of the Pastoral Committee.  He is also one of the School’s Designated Safeguarding Governors.

George is married with numerous grandchildren and lives in Somerset. In his spare time he is a keen cricketer.

Dr Max Jonas - Governor

Max (Abbeylands 1972 – 1977) is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at Southampton Hospital, in addition to working for Southampton University as a Senior Tutor and a physiology lecturer. In his current role, Max is one of a team running a 40 bedded ICU and Trauma Unit at Southampton Hospital.

Having studied medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital in London Max qualified as a Doctor, Anaesthetist and in Intensive Care Medicine working at hospitals in London, Oxford and Cambridge.

He sits on the council for the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the European Board on Intensive Care Medicine, with a keen interest in education, research and healthcare technology.

Max lives in Hampshire, and is a former and current parent of the School.

John Pocock - Governor

John, (Abbeylands 1973-1978), is a non-executive Chairman and Director of a number of businesses in the both the technology and financial services industries. After graduating with a BEng (Cons) in Electronic Engineering from Bristol University he initially worked for IBM and Andersen Consulting (Accenture) before joining a 5 person business named Druid which he built into a FTSE250 company employing 700 staff across the globe. 

John is currently non-executive Chairman of CognitoIQ Ltd, non-executive Chairman of Maven Income and Growth VCT plc, director of Lightsong Media Group Ltd and non-executive director of Electric and General Fund.

John is a trustee of the Sherborne School Foundation and was chairman from 2009 to 2019.

Elaine Stallard - Governor

Elaine established her own business consultancy some thirty years ago, working at the highest levels in the public and private sectors as an advisor, negotiator and strategist. She is recognised within the International Education sector for her work in helping to establish Sherborne Qatar and the digital platform Winter's School Finder. 

Her former appointments include Governor of the Purcell School of Music, a lay Director of the Fundraising Standards Board, Vice Chair of Getting London Working and a member of the development committee of the Design Museum.  

Elaine has been a magistrate since 2007 and is a Governor of Sherborne Qatar.  She is a member of the Chelsea Arts Club. She is married to Kit and has a dog called Digby (complete coincidence).

Vicki Cotter - Governor

Vicki is a solicitor in Information Management law with a particular specialism in charities and educational establishments.  Vicki trained as a barrister and worked for HMRC in VAT litigation, before moving to the Charity Commission where she was a lawyer with the compliance team. 

After a move to the West Country, Vicki joined law firm Stone King and completed a masters in Information Law and Practice.  She is now a Senior Associate at VWV in Bristol.  Vicki has been a Governor since March 2014 and is Chair of the Estates and Infrastructure Committee. 

Vicki lives in Somerset with her daughter Kirsten. 

Michael Wilson - Governor

Michael Wilson joined the Sherborne Board in April 2017. He is an Old Shirburnian, whose family has had its roots in Sherborne since the 1940s. He has been the Principal of Cranleigh Abu Dhabi since July 2018 having previously run Cranleigh Prep School in the UK, where he was Headmaster for ten years. Michael was no stranger to the Abu Dhabi school, having played a pivotal role in its foundation and development.

Michael has over 30 years of top class British educational experience. Runner up in the Tatler ‘Best Prep School Head Award’ in 2016, the majority of his career as an educator has been in the UK but his CV also tells a story of passion for international education. Apart from his significant involvement with Cranleigh Abu Dhabi, Mike has spent four years teaching in his native Kenya (where he also coached the national tennis team) and he also played a key role in the establishment of Dulwich International College in Phuket, Thailand when it opened in 1997. His career has taken him into every area of school life, as a practitioner, manager and, for the best part of the past 20 years, as a leader.
Michael has held a number of senior roles in leading UK schools including being Headmaster at Edge Grove School and Head of Sixth Form and careers at Bradfield College. He has been on the Board of Trustees at Mill Hill, Cranleigh Abu Dhabi and Shrewsbury House Preparatory School.
Michael is married to Carolyn, who is a teacher and they have three boys in their 20s. His interests are sport, wildlife and chocolate.

Gilly Staley - Governor

Gilly is a health and safety advisor working for an independent school in Cambridgeshire.  Gilly started her working life as a workplace health promotion advisor in Kent, after completing a Psychology degree and Health Psychology Master’s degree but changed profession after taking the higher-level H&S qualification, the NEBOSH diploma.  She then worked for KPMG for several years, based in London, and helped to cover their UK Facilities health and safety operation. Following this and after several years of consultancy based in Surrey, Gilly moved to Dorset and started working as the Sherborne Schools’ H&S advisor, covering Sherborne School, Sherborne Girls and Sherborne International.

Gilly became a Governor in March 2015 and holds special responsibilities for health and safety. She now lives in Cambridgeshire with her husband Chris, who is an HMC Headmaster, and their three children, Charlie, Tilly and Octavia. 

Michael French - Governor

Michael (School House 1964 -1969) is a retired chartered accountant. After training as an engineer at London University and following a brief career working on suspension bridge design, he changed course, training as an accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers.  He was seconded first to Nigeria and then to Japan where he spent five years working with foreign companies and learning enough Japanese to persuade a Japanese girl to marry him.

After returning to London, Michael set up a network to help Japanese and Korean companies investing in Europe, while also working with UK multinationals.  He has travelled widely, working on five continents.

Michael has been a Governor at Sherborne since 2004 with several different roles including chairing the Finance & General Purposes Committee and representing the School on the board of Sherborne Qatar.  He has also been a governor at a state school in London, Chairman of the Family Housing Association and Treasurer of the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, The Lister Institute and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

Michael and Takako live in London and in his spare time he plays with old cars, sails and plays the occasional game of veterans’ rugby – a legacy from his happy days in Sherborne’s 3rd XV.

Robert-Jan Temmink QC - Governor

Robert studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge where he was also a choral scholar. After singing for a time with other college choirs in Oxford and Cambridge and co-founding the a cappella group, Henry’s Eight, he studied at the Inns of Court School of Law in London and was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1996. Robert is a Queen’s Counsel, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Master of the Bench of the Middle Temple. He practises from Quadrant Chambers in London and is called to the bar in various jurisdictions around the world. He publishes and lectures frequently on issues of commercial law, particularly in the fields of fraud, aviation, shipping, financial services and insolvency.

Robert maintains a keen interest in educational and musical charitable work, chairing the board of the King’s Singers Foundation and as a director of the musical funding charity, the Temple Music Trust. Robert is a governor of Merchant Taylors’ and St John’s Schools in Northwood and joined the Sherborne board shortly after the arrival of Dominic Luckett. He is a Member of the Court of Assistants of the Merchant Taylors’ livery company and sits on the company’s charities committee. 

Robin Leach - Governor

Robin (Abbey House 1968 - 1973) attended St Andrews University, where he obtained an MA.  He was then called to the Bar in 1979.  He is a member of chambers at 3 Paper Buildings and practises on the Western Circuit as a criminal barrister from their centres in Winchester and Bournemouth.

He became a Governor of Sherborne in 2008 and is now the Designated Safeguarding Governor.  He is Chairman of Sherborne Schools Worldwide Ltd: a company started jointly by Sherborne School and Sherborne Girls to set up Sherborne-branded schools overseas.

Robin and his wife Fiona live local to Sherborne and have three children all of whom attended schools in Sherborne.

Guy D.J Hayward-Cole - Governor

Guy has had a career in Investment Banking spanning more than 30 years at Morgan Grenfell, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and now at Nomura where he heads the Advisory business in EMEA and is a member of the Global Management Committee. 

Guy studied for an MA at Trinity College, Oxford and for an MBA at Insead, France. His son Oliver was in Harper House from 2012 to 2017 and Guy became a Governor at the start of 2020. Guy is a member of the Finance & General Purposes Committee.

Matthew Whittell - Governor

Matthew (Wallace House 1978 - 1982) is Head of Finance at John Ellerman Foundation.  Previously, he worked as C.F.O. at Aggregated Micro Power plc, a renewable energy company, and Climate Exchange plc, then a UK listed company providing the world’s leading trading platform for environmental assets.  This followed 18 years' investment banking experience at Schroders in both Europe and Asia. 

Matthew has served on the Board of the Carbon Markets and Investors Association as Vice President, Communications and on the board of Trustees of e4i, a non-profit organisation seeking to reduce poverty through access to modern energy services.  He continues his interest in renewable energy and other commercials, sustainable solutions as a consultant. 

Matthew is a member of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, a Director of Sherborne World Wide, a Trustee of the Sherborne Foundation and is the Staff Nominated Governor.   Matthew and Kate (a Yoga teacher at Sherborne Sports Centre) live close to Sherborne.