S05 - E06 Lucy Easthope

S05 - E07 Steve West

What does leadership look like when pressure is high and certainty is low?  Professor Sir Steve West opens with a disarmingly personal story - a vice-chancellor in tears while mowing the lawn, unable to fix what's happening. It's the starting point for an honest conversation about the real demands of leading in higher education. We cover authentic communication, why a leadership team that challenges you matters, and how to make hard decisions without losing people.  Steve also shares practical thinking on crisis preparedness - and why recovery, not just the initial incident, is where most organisations fall short. We finish on student mental health and what young people are saying about sustainability, AI and the future. If you find this useful, please subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more people in education leadership can find the conversation. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/brownejeducationandhr/ ].

S05 - E06 Lucy Easthope

What happens when the crisis passes but the impact doesn't? And why does telling people to "move on" often cause more harm than the original event? This episode covers these themes and more in conversation with Professor Lucy Easthope, a leading authority on disaster recovery.  Lucy breaks down the disaster recovery curve, explaining the honeymoon phase, the inevitable slump and why recognising that pattern can be a genuine relief for school leaders who think they're failing. She introduces survivance, a concept rooted in courage and defiance and makes a direct case for why "moving on" is the wrong goal. The conversation covers burnout, vocational awe, the danger of bad help and how to build preparedness in peacetime. As Lucy puts it: "One of the things that too much hope does is it actually strips us of our own agency." Relevant to anyone leading a school, a trust or any team that’s carrying more than it signed up for. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/brownejeducationandhr/ ].

S05 - E05 Andy Long

Trust isn’t a soft skill; it’s the system that makes ambitious work possible. Nick sits down with Northumbria University’s Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Andy Long, to unpack how an engineer’s mindset, a people-first approach, and a calm decision style can scale both research excellence and social mobility without losing humanity. We start with the formative years: an academic career in composite materials, the coalitions built through conferences, and the moment the UK’s composites community asked Andy to lead a national programme—not because he was the loudest voice, but because he was the most trusted. That experience forged a leadership philosophy centred on appointing great people, co-creating a clear vision, and stepping back so experts can deliver.  From there, we explore the personal stakes of being first in the family to attend university and why widening participation isn’t a slogan at Northumbria; it’s a regional mission.  Andy opens up about imposter syndrome and the practical habits that keep leaders grounded: prepare well, admit what you don’t know, and don’t try to be the expert on everything.  He maps the transfer of engineering habits into executive decisions—test, measure, change one variable at a time, act with incomplete data—and shows how those principles guided Northumbria through pandemic pivots and complex operational choices. When an inherited overseas campus no longer fit, the team closed it with compassion and clarity, treating the decision as proof the institution can take risk, learn fast, and exit responsibly. Looking ahead, we confront funding headwinds, fee freezes, volatile international flows, and the need to prove value to a sceptical political climate. The response is concrete: experiential learning for every undergraduate, from the student law office to the business clinic, building confidence, networks, and outcomes.  The 2030 ambition is clear and measurable—equal graduate success across backgrounds, higher for all—backed by an on-campus presence, hybrid communication that reaches thousands, and a culture with real “change muscle.” If you care about leadership that feels human, access that changes lives, and strategy that delivers results you can measure, this conversation offers a playbook you can use tomorrow. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep the conversation moving. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/brownejeducationandhr/ ].

S05 - E04 Edward Vitalis

Edward Vitalis, CEO of Invictus Education Trust, shares how auditing governance in war-torn Liberia taught him resilience and shaped his leadership approach.  He explains why his finance background is a superpower for education CEOs, breaking down the modern leadership "pie chart" where governance, estates, risk and growth outweigh pedagogy. Edward argues schools should lead innovation like industry, describing AI hackathons where staff and pupils solve real problems, yielding funded app ideas.  He discusses creating sustainable environments where staff can "kick for the top right-hand corner of the net 20 times, fail 19 times, but get that big win on the 20th occasion". His mission: widening life chances. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/brownejeducationandhr/ ].

S05 - E03 Charlotte Blant

Charlotte Blant, founder and CEO of Tiro, shares how childhood adversity shaped her leadership approach. "The obstacle is the way," she explains, describing how early experiences taught her "respect over rescue" and gave her "empathy for people whose lives don't fit in neat boxes". Charlotte discusses how Tiro evolved from Youth Force to a science-focused apprenticeship provider, guided by three core values: think win-win, have a growth mindset, be a pace setter. "We are fusing technical excellence and education with human growth," she says, describing their mission to create shared value. She explores practical strategies for maintaining culture in hybrid work, including daily huddles and six-week goal cycles, whilst warning that "fear is creeping in" to British education and leadership. "You can't innovate with one foot on the brake," Charlotte argues, advocating for "courageous, values-led leadership that plans for success, not just avoiding failure". Drawing on psychoanalytic leadership training, Charlotte explains her shift "from reaction to reflection", and why "trusting people to be brilliant" is the antidote to fear-based control. Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/brownejeducationandhr/ ].