TWO senior leaders of a prestigious academy trust are set to retire at the end of the year.

Former chairman of Ormiston Academies Trust, Dr Paul Hann and chief executive officer, Nick Hudson will stand down after a combined 17 years of service to the leading educational trust.

A total of 43 academies belong to the trust including Ormiston Bolingbroke Academy based in the heart of Runcorn and more than 30,000 children are educated by the schools across the country.

Paul has been a trustee for the organisation for 11 years and left his position as chairman back in December. His replacement in the role will be Julius Weinberg, formerly chair of Ofsted and Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University.

“Serving Ormiston Academies Trust for the past 11 years has been a pleasure and a privilege,” Paul said. “When Peter Murray established the trust, he promised it would always stay true to a clear principle – that we would be rooted in the communities in which we work. I am proud that we have honoured that.

“There was an extremely strong field of candidates to take over as chair, but Julius was trustees’ unanimous choice.

“He has a distinguished background; he knows education and he knows Whitehall. He will do an outstanding job.

“I would also like to put on record my thanks to Nick Hudson for the exceptional job he has done as chief executive of the trust.

“Nick has been committed to the ideals of OAT throughout, and his work has led to real improvements for our students.”

Nick joined OAT back in 2016 as National Director of Education before moving into the role of chief officer six years ago.

The wheels are now in motion to start searching for a candidate to fill Nick’s role when he retires in the summer.

Nick commented on his departure from the Trust, saying: “While I look forward to what retirement will bring, there is no doubt that I am also very sad to be leaving such a wonderful organisation.

“It has been an honour both to lead an academy trust which so values its pupils and students, their families and communities, and to work with such an outstanding group of colleagues.

“I believe we have together achieved a great deal during my time here, and throughout Paul’s time as Chair and as a trustee, and I am clear that Ormiston Academies Trust will continue to thrive because of the firm foundations in place.”

Julius Weinberg said: “It is a mark of good leaders that the improvements they make are sustainable and that is the case for us.

“OAT is very strongly positioned to move forward thanks to the hugely positive contributions that Nick and Paul have made.

“I would like to put on record my sincere thanks to them both for all they have done for OAT, a trust whose vision and values are so aligned with theirs, and with mine. I feel very fortunate to have been selected as Chair of Ormiston Academies Trust and hope I can do as good a job as Paul has.”