Governors & Trustees

Chair of the Trust

Rhian is an alumna of Bedford High School and graduated from the University of Nottingham to become a researcher at Chatham House. She joined McCann Erickson Advertising where she spent the remainder of her career working in London, New York and Amsterdam. In London Rhian became a Managing Partner, Client Services Director (with direct responsibility for Microsoft EMEA, L’Oreal and Nestle) and Director of McCann’s EMEA Global Learning Platform. Rhian was also responsible for McCann’s Graduate Recruitment and Training, before leaving in 2007 to spend more time with her family.

More recently she has been involved in a number of business projects and helped to launch the Gu Desserts brand.

Rhain has served as a Trustee at the Harpur Trust since 2014. She is also governor at Pilgrims Prep School.

Rhian has three children, her two daughters attended Bedford Girls’ School.

Harpur Trust Trustee

Initially a professional musician, David then taught and researched in higher education, moving to the National Foundation of Educational Research and becoming Research Director. He is now Research Lead at the Local Government Association and chairs a number of advisory boards of central government funded initiatives in Public Health.

Outside of work he was Chair of a local council for ten years and is currently Vice-Chair of council at a maintained primary school and Chair of governors at Milton Keynes Preparatory Schools group. He became a trustee of the Harpur Trust in July 2024 and has one son who recently left Bedford School.

Ms Tina Beddoes will act as Interim Chair for the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year.

Tina is well known to our school community. She was a governor at Dame Alice Harpur School from 2008, before becoming a member of the BGS governing body when the school was founded in 2012.  Tina held the role of Chair for nine years, stepping down in 2022. Tina expertly guided the school through the merger years and oversaw the development of our outstanding school.

Tina has served as Trustee at the Harpur Trust and as a governor of Pilgrims Prep School. 

Tina is a chartered accountant and chartered tax advisor.

As an alumna of Dame Alice Harpur School, Tina is a passionate advocate for single-sex education. Her daughters attended BGS.

Chair of the Resources Committee Member

Katharine graduated from Aston University with BSc (Hons) in International Business Studies and French, and started her career in the Metropolitan Police where she spent 15 years as a Detective working in major crime investigations.

In 2016, Katharine transferred her skills to the BBC and now holds the position of Head of Safety, Security and Resilience Governance with global responsibility for Safeguarding, Corporate Investigations & Whistleblowing and Business Resilience.

Katharine is a member of the International Security Management Institute and is both a Certified Security Management Professional and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. She is the author of several industry handbooks, and speaks regularly at Broadcasting Industry events.

Prior to her appointment as a governor Katharine was Chair of Bedford Girls’ School Association.

Katharine is a strong advocate of the ethos of Bedford Girls’ School, championing all students to feel empowered and confident without limits, act with integrity and kindness and see each other as allies within our community and beyond.

Chair of Resources Committee; Chair of Bursary Committee 

Sarah is currently the Director of Investigations at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). After university, she began her career with a training contract at a top ten firm, where she remained for many years, ultimately leaving as a Senior Manager in the Audit department.

As a member of the ICAEW, Sarah transitioned to the organisation, initially taking on the role of Case Manager before advancing to Senior Manager in the Audit Investigations team. After a brief return to practice as a firm's Director of Independence and Ethics, she rejoined the ICAEW to establish and lead the Special Investigations Team.

Sarah’s daughter attended BGS and completed her Sixth Form studies during the 2023-24 academic year.

Lead member of Strategy Advisory Group;  Nominations lead; member of the Resources Committee

Having grown up in Leicester and attending a local comprehensive school, Judith studied Maths and Physics at Durham University before joining what is now Lloyds Banking Group. In over 20 years, she’s held various leadership roles across the main Divisions of the Bank and currently heads the ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) agenda for their Commercial customers ranging from small start up’s to global corporates and has responsibility for driving an inclusive culture amongst her colleagues. She also leads on designing, and delivering, a programme of initiatives to support disability and mental health for more than 60,000 colleagues across the Group.

Judith is passionate about creating an inclusive environment where everyone can be their best and helping girls, particularly, believe that they can be whatever they want to be. She, and husband Rob, have a daughter at BGS and a son at Bedford School. Judith spends much of her free time supporting from the side-lines of sporting fixtures or in the audience at school performances enjoying seeing her children develop and have fun.

Health and Safety Lead; member of Resources Committee; member of Bursary  Committee     

Mrs Rachel Gentry runs an independent business specialising in cyber security advice and consultancy services. Her clients include central government, financial services and other public and private sector organisations.

Previous roles include Commercial Director, Deputy Director in the Cabinet Office and Office of Government Commerce as well as early roles at WH Smith and Argos.

Rachel is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) and the Institute of Directors (IoD). She is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional.

Rachel strongly believes in the importance of an outward looking, global education and of the role that technology plays in facilitating this forward thinking approach.
 

Safeguarding Lead; member of Education and Co-curricular Committee

Elizabeth is the Area Coroner for Cambridge and Peterborough. Elizabeth believes she is in a position to add value to the School Committee bringing her management experience within her current role and her background as a commercial and corporate lawyer for BT where she worked for over 20 years. She also sat as a Magistrate in Milton Keynes for a number of years before increasing her Coronial duties.

Elizabeth was previously the Parent Elected Governor at Bedford School, where as well as sitting on the main School Committees, she was a member of the Marketing and External Affairs committee.

Elizabeth has two daughters: one is currently in Year 10, and the other completed her Sixth Form studies during the 2023-24 academic year.

Elizabeth has been really impressed with the progressive and ambitious culture of Bedford Girls’ School, alongside a dedicated and talented teaching and support team. She is keen to help the School grow and achieve their ambitious goals.

Pastoral and Well-being Lead; member of Education and Co-curricular Committee

Nicola runs an edtech company, Maths Circle Ltd, that creates award-winning maths programmes, dedicated to helping children acquire fundamental numeracy skills. Their two learning platforms – Times Tables Rock Stars and NumBots – are used by millions of children worldwide and are successfully boosting maths outcomes for young people. Prior to that, she practised corporate real estate law at Pinsent Masons in London for 13 years, after graduating with a first-class honours LLB degree from Manchester University.

She is an alumna of Bedford High School and is also Chair of the Bedford Educational Association, a charity that provides grants for educational purposes to young people in Bedfordshire. She is passionate about improving life chances of children through education, and empowering girls to recognise that they can achieve anything in life.

Vice-Chair of the Resources Committee

Oliver is a founding Partner of The Dispute Avoidance and Resolution Partnership and a former Commercial Litigation Solicitor. He applies his expertise to assist businesses to avoid disputes where possible, or to resolve them in the most cost effective and time efficient way.  Oliver has clients in the Construction, Sports, Recruitment, E.S.G., IT, Property and Logistics sectors.

Oliver is also Chair of Wooden Spoon Bedfordshire and is responsible for the regional safeguarding and DBS compliance. Wooden Spoon supports the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people.  Oliver was heavily involved in the PTA at Polam Pre-Prep School.

Oliver passionately believes in the importance of a strong community of current students, parents and alumnae and he wants everyone to feel proud to be a member of BGS. 

Oliver is father to a Year 6 student in the Junior School.

Chair of Education and Co-curricular Committee

Nicola grew up in Lancashire before moving to Liverpool to read Hispanic Studies and French. After spending an academic year at Seville University and time in France, Nicola returned to Liverpool to complete her degree and embark on her PGCE course.

Following a short period working in the state sector, Nicola joined Westholme School, Blackburn as Head of Spanish and held a variety of academic and pastoral roles there before being promoted to Deputy Head (Academic).

In 2014, she became Headmistress of Saint Martin’s School, Solihull, before relocating to Manchester in 2020 to take up the position of Headmistress of Alderley Edge School for Girls, a GSA school for girls aged 2 to 18, serving in the role from 2020 to 2024.

Nicola is a passionate supporter of single sex education for girls. She firmly believes that girls’ schools are those in which girls excel.

Nicola is an ISI inspector, a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) and a member of the Girls’ School Association Membership & Accreditation Committee. She also holds the position of Chair of the GSA Northwest Region.

Member of the Resource Committee  

A Bedfordian by birth, Suzanne returned to the town in 2020 after 30 years of living and working on the South Coast and in The Midlands.

Suzanne is a proud Bedford High School Alumna, a place where she developed a deep love of language and communication, before going on to complete a Linguistics and French Degree at the University of Brighton. From there, she built a successful sales career across a number of high-profile organisations before moving into leadership roles, having discovered a flair for coaching, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams with authenticity and empathy. She is a former Fellow of the Institute of Sales Professionals and believes passionately in inspiring future generations to excellence both academically and vocationally.

With a particular interest in closing the Gender Pay Gap, Suzanne champions young women as they transition from education into the workplace. She is part of our Sixth Form Mentoring Team, working hard to coach and inspire her mentees to make considered and informed choices about their next steps as they move on from school life. Suzanne is keen to use her professional skills and experience to add value as a Governor and help BGS continue to provide a future-focused education to all year groups.