The Education Alliance for Life Chances (EALC) is guided by a dedicated Board of Trustees who oversee our charitable aims and strategic direction.
Our trustees bring expertise from across education, social mobility, leadership, health, and community development. Together, they ensure we deliver meaningful and sustainable impact for young people and their communities.
Meet Our Trustees
Anne-Marie Canning MBE – Chair
Anne-Marie Canning MBE is from Doncaster and was the first in her family to go to university. She has dedicated her career to opening up educational opportunities for the next generation.
She is the Chief Executive Officer of The Brilliant Club, a UK-wide university access charity focused on increasing the number of less advantaged students accessing the most competitive universities and supporting them to succeed when they get there.
In 2018, Anne-Marie was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to higher education.
In recent years, she was the independent chair of the Department for Education’s Bradford Opportunity Area. Opportunity Areas were designed to support social mobility in 12 areas of the country where it was most challenged. She now leads a broad-based coalition of organisations in Bradford working together to improve opportunities for young people in the city through the Education Alliance for Life Chances.
Between 2012 and 2019, Anne-Marie was the Director of Social Mobility and Student Success at King’s College London. In this role, she founded Parent Power, an award-winning parental engagement initiative.
Anne-Marie has previously worked at University College Oxford and holds a University of Oxford Teaching Award. She studied at the University of York, where she served a sabbatical term as President of the Students’ Union.
She is also a trustee of the Education Policy Institute and Child Poverty Action Group.
Katie Waring
Katie joined BDAT (Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust) in January 2020 as Director of Professional and Career Development. In this role, she strategically leads the Trust’s vision to support school improvement by recruiting, developing, and retaining highly competent and confident staff to deliver high-quality education so every child can fulfil their potential and goals.
Before joining BDAT, Katie worked as a teacher across both primary and secondary phases before moving into staff development, particularly in Initial Teacher Training.
Katie is a member of the National Network of Trust CPD Leads and is a Research Lead for the Bradford Research School. She worked as part of the team that developed the Kusuma Improving Secondary Science Implementation Support course for the EEF’s ‘Improving Secondary Science’ guidance report.
She is also a member of the Practice, Innovation and Professional Learning Group at Sheffield Hallam University.
In January 2021, Katie was awarded Fellowship of the Chartered College for Teaching in recognition of her professionalism, her commitment to career-long professional learning, and her engagement with research and evidence.
Katie has been a school governor for more than 12 years, supporting schools in Bradford and neighbouring Local Authorities through times of transition and challenge.
Will Richardson
Following graduation from Manchester Metropolitan University, Will joined PwC’s Audit practice in 1994. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1996 and went on to take a variety of roles within PwC, becoming a partner in 2012.
Will is the former Senior PwC Partner in Yorkshire and played a key role in opening PwC’s office in Bradford.
Passionate about social mobility, skills development, and creating opportunities for others to fulfil their potential, Will has taken on various voluntary roles across the Bradford District.
His roles include:
- Chair of the Bradford District Employment & Skills Board
- Member of Bradford’s Children, Young People and Families Executive
- Member of the Bradford Wellbeing Board
Will has extensive experience working with boards, committees, and senior executives. He is skilled at providing both necessary challenge and trusted support, depending on the circumstances.
He has also led large multinational teams and is adept at understanding cultural differences and building effective ways of working between diverse groups.
John Winkley
John is an experienced learning and assessment entrepreneur with a proven track record of growing successful businesses.
He has specialised in developing innovative systems for education and assessment, working with a wide range of public and private sector clients through the three companies he helped build: Surpass, Virtual College plc, and AlphaPlus.
AlphaPlus’s work includes developing and deploying solutions for curriculum, assessment, and e-assessment across schools, further education, professional training, and lifelong learning sectors. AlphaPlus is now part of AQA Education, the UK’s largest GCSE and A-Level exam board.
Prior to this, John spent 11 years with Surpass, the market-leading professional end-to-end on-screen assessment platform, and Virtual College, a leading online learning provider with more than four million registered learners.
John’s other achievements include:
- Founding Director of the eAssessment Association, a not-for-profit organisation for producers and users of technology-supported assessment
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Assessors since 2010
- National Leader of Governance in schools
He currently serves as Chair of The Beckfoot Trust, a multi-academy trust of 10 schools in Bradford, and is also a trustee of VTCT, a vocational awarding body.
Nadira Mirza
Nadira Mirza is the Acting Chair of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and a Professor of Lifelong Learning and Social Mobility.
She was the founding Director of the Race Institute and served as Strategic Advisor to the Deputy Vice Chancellor at Leeds Trinity University.
In addition to her current role, Nadira is a Non-Executive Member of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, with a particular focus on future generations.
Nadira has held senior academic leadership roles, including:
- Dean of the School of Lifelong Education and Development
- Director of Student Experience and Success at the University of Bradford
Her work has been pivotal in advancing widening participation and access to higher education, especially for first-generation students and mature learners.
She has contributed to numerous national and international boards aimed at improving health and education outcomes, including:
- Non-Executive Director roles across three NHS Trusts in Bradford and Craven
- Member of the Office for Students Widening Participation Strategy Committee
- Member of the Prime Minister’s Social Mobility Advisory Reference Group
- Member of the NHSI/E Seacole Group
A longstanding advocate for the Born in Bradford study, Nadira co-chairs its family advocacy group.
She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has published extensively in the fields of lifelong learning, race, equity, and inclusion.