A property developer or an educationist? Influential academy trust chief executive and chair answers questions over related companies

Helen Stevenson, who co-founded a company which recruits academy chief executives and other senior leaders, is now leading one trust herself as CEO and another as chair. Education Uncovered investigated the links between her companies, including one which has bought up properties in Liverpool to fund her and her husband’s pension.

 

The chief executive of a multi-academy trust, who took over as chair of another chain while it faced one of the biggest crises in the sector, has had to explain a complex set of company connections under close questioning from Education Uncovered.

Helen Stevenson, who took over as chief executive of the Transforming Lives Educational Trust last September and as chair of the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership in December, has now taken down branding on her LinkedIn profile promoting the recruitment company she co-founded.

That move came after questioning by this website, which asked whether it was appropriate for her to be promoting the academy executive recruitment firm Satis Education, while also running a chain of academies.

Ms Stevenson has told Education Uncovered that since March she has not worked for Satis Education, or been a director there, that the firm has not done business with Transforming Lives since she became the trust’s CEO, and also said she does not own shares in the company. However, she does co-own a property development company, Satis Developments, which is itself a majority owner of Satis Education.

Satis Developments has bought up a string of relatively low-cost properties in the Liverpool area.

This website’s investigation has also revealed that another academy chain, the Heath Family (North West) paid nearly £200,000 to Satis Education over five years while Ms Stevenson was its chair, although she has said that this was at no profit to the firm; and that Ms Stevenson’s business interests were not declared in the latest register of interests for the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership, which she said she has now rectified.

The case seems to raise fresh questions about the academies policy’s relationship with business, and perhaps also about the degree and nature of regulation in the sector.