Russell Hobby
NAHT is an independent trade union and professional association
representing 28,000 members in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland. Members hold leadership positions in early years;
primary; special and secondary schools; independent schools; sixth
form and FE colleges; outdoor education centres; pupil referral
units, social services establishments and other educational
settings.
General Secretary
Russell Hobby was born and raised in Abingdon, Oxfordshire,
attending St Nicholas CE Primary (where his mother taught for
twenty-three years) and John Mason Secondary School in the town. He
gained a place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to study
philosophy, politics and economics, graduating with a first class
degree in 1993. He also played a lot of rugby at school and
college.
After college, Russell worked with two IT start ups - one
specialising in the translation of old programming languages into
modern code and the other, anti-virus software.
In 1998, he joined the management consultancy Hay Group,
remaining with the firm for over eleven years. Progressing to
associate director in the London office, he consulted on
leadership, culture change and organisation design for clients in
sectors such as power generation, retail, telecoms and government;
winning three national awards within the industry. He has also held
management responsibility in Hay Group for marketing, research and
knowledge management, and acted as the company's spokesman.
Within a year of joining the firm, Russell was working on
education projects, including research into teacher effectiveness
for the then DfES. This was the start of his strong association
with issues of leadership and management in schools. In 2000, he
helped to set up Transforming Learning - a 'dot com' business unit
dedicated to collecting pupil feedback on classroom climate via the
internet. Transforming Learning was used in over 2000 schools. In
2003 he founded Hay Group's education practice, leading a team of
consultants working directly with leadership teams in hundreds of
schools of every phase, size and location, as well as government
agencies.
Russell has been a prolific researcher, writer and speaker on
education leadership, with several influential papers, including
Lessons of Leadership (comparing headteachers and business
leaders), Culture for Learning (examining the values and
beliefs of effective schools) and Rush to the Top
(dissecting the pros and cons of fast track schemes). He has also
written a book on hiring for passion and talent rather than
technical skills alone - the School Recruitment Handbook.
Russell's experience spanning education, private industry and
government has made him a passionate advocate of the quality of
leadership in our schools, and he has had frequent opportunity to
spread the word on the lessons that business could learn from
education. Taking up post as General Secretary of the NAHT in
September 2010 is an opportunity to campaign directly for the
conditions that enable people to be great leaders in our
schools.
Russell lives in Brighton and has two children at primary school
in the town. Between work and family there is little time for
hobbies, but a good book is always welcome!